-
Christopher Columbus sailed west from Spain to find a sea route to the Indies as Europeans called eastern Asia. When Columbus landed in America, he thought it was the Indies.
-
King Henry VII hired John Cabot to cross the Atlantic Ocean in hope to find a shorter route from Asia to America. Most historians think he landed somewhere between Newfoundland and Novia Scotia. He found enormous amounts of cod and other fishes and claimed his find for England.
-
King Francis I sent Jacques Cartier to the New World to look for valuables. Cartier sailed into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and landed on the Gaspe Peninsula which he claimed for France.
-
On Jacques Cartier's second trip he became the first European to reach the interior of Canada. He sailed up the St. Lawrence River to the site of present-day Montreal.
-
In 1605, a group of French settlers were sent to set up a colony in Canada to fur trade. These settlers founded Port-Royal. The French called their colony Acadia.
-
Samuel de Champlain founded a settlement along the St. Lawrence River. He named the village Quebec. Champlain made friends with the Algonquin and Huron Indians.
-
Champlain and two other French fur traders helped their Indian friends defeat the Iroquois in battle. After this battle, the Iroquois were also enemies of the French.
-
An English sea captain named Henry Hudson sailed into Hudson Bay in search for the a water passage Asia through northern Canada. England later based its claim to the vast Hudson Bay region on this voyage.
-
The Iroquois conquered Huronia and killed most of the French missionaries. The Algonquin and Huron fled, leaving the French to fight alone. Many settlers were killed, and the French fur trade was destroyed.
-
King Louis XIV made New France a royal province of France. He sent troops to Canada to fight the Iroquois and appointed administrators to govern and develop the colony.
-
King Louis XIV promoted the seigneurial system to encourage farming in New France. There were landholders called seigneurs and farmers called habitants. From 1666 to 1673, the population of New France grew from 3,000 to about 6,700
-
An English firm called the Hudson's Bay Company opened fur-trading posts north of New France on the shores of Hudson Bay.
-
The boundaries of New France expanded rapidly to the west and south after Comte de Frontenac became govenor. The loss of the Huron fur trade forced the French to go further inland to get new sources. As a result, Frontenac sent explorers to scout the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississipi river valleys.
-
Louis Jolliet, a French-Canadian fur trader, and Jacques Marquette, a French missionary, sailed down the Mississipi rivers. The French soon built forts and fur-trading posts along the Great Lakes and along the Illinois and Mississipi rivers.
-
Rene-Robert Cavelier reached the mouth of the Mississipi at the Gulf of Mexico. He claimed all the land drained by the river and its branches for France.
