Search for ""

The Red River Colony, a key part of Manitoba's rich history, was a settlement on the Red and Assiniboine rivers whose boundaries crossed parts of what are now Manitoba and North Dakota.

The first French naval vessel to visit Canada after the Conquest, La Capricieuse received a tumultuous welcome at Québec on 13 July 1855.

Rebellion Losses Bill, modelled on Upper Canadian legislation, was introduced by Louis LaFontaine in Feb 1849 to compensate Lower Canadians whose property had been damaged during the Rebellions of 1837-38 (totalling approximately £100,000).

As each new area of Canada was opened to European settlement, pioneers faced the difficult task of building homes and communities from the ground up. Pioneer life revolved around providing the basic necessities of existence in a northern wilderness — food, shelter, fuel and clothing. Pioneering life was integral to family life and provided social stability for the settlement of a larger population across the country.

Support for the British Empire and imperialism was strong in much of Canada in the decades after Confederation. But gradually, imperialist loyalties declined and Canadians demanded and won full autonomy within the empire.

Round Table Movement, an organization devoted to the study of British Empire problems and the promotion of imperial unity, fd 1909 in London, Eng.

South Sea Company, chartered in 1711 by the British Parliament, with a monopoly over the W coast of the Americas to a distance of 300 leagues out to sea. In 1720 it assumed a large part of the British national debt and almost collapsed that year in a stock market crash known as the South Sea Bubble.

The trading post can be viewed as a large household whose size and social organization reflected the cultural heritage of its members and the post's role in the fur trade.

 La Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française was founded in 1947 by Lionel GROULX, professor of history at U de Montréal.

Voyageurs were independent contractors, workers or minor partners in companies involved in the fur trade. They were licensed to transport goods to trading posts and were usually forbidden to do any trading of their own. The fur trade changed over the years, as did the groups of men working in it. In the 17th century, voyageurs were often coureurs des bois — unlicensed traders responsible for delivering trade goods from suppliers to Indigenous peoples. The implementation of the trading licence system in 1681 set voyageurs apart from coureurs des bois, who were then considered outlaws of sorts. Today, the word voyageur, like the term coureur des bois, evokes the romantic image of men canoeing across the continent in search of furs. Their life was full of perilous adventure, gruelling work and cheerful camaraderie.

Wacousta; Or, The Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas, novel by John Richardson, was published in London and Edinburgh in 1832; and in Montréal in 1868, as Wacousta; Or the Prophecy.

On 4 August 1701, the French concluded a peace agreement with the Five Nations Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). This brought to an end almost a century of hostilities marked by atrocities on both sides. The Haudenosaunee were permitted to trade freely and to obtain goods from the French at a reduced cost. In exchange, they pledged to allow French settlement at Detroit and to remain neutral in the event of a war between England and France. The accord assured New France superiority in dealing with issues related to the region’s First Nations. It also gave the French the freedom to expand militarily over the next half century.

The Quidi Vidi Battery was built in 1762 by the French. The French attacked the ST JOHN'S, Nfld, area in one of the last campaigns of the SEVEN YEARS' WAR, capturing and burning many settlements around Trinity and Conception bays. They then erected the battery to defend their newly won territory.

In September 1850, the Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe) of the Upper Great Lakes signed two separate but interconnected treaties: the Robinson-Superior Treaty (RST) and Robinson-Huron Treaty (RHT). These agreements provided the Province of Canada (Canada East and Canada West, the future Quebec and Ontario) access to the north shores of Lake Huron and Lake Superior for settlement and mineral extraction. In exchange, the Indigenous peoples in the region gained recognition of hunting and fishing rights, an annuity (annual payment), and a reservation from the surrender of specific lands for each signatory community. Interpretation of the Robinson treaties have had a legal and socioeconomic impact on Indigenous and settler communities, and they established precedents for the subsequent Numbered Treaties.

By December 1837 and January 1838, rebels from Upper and Lower Canada had suffered heavy defeats at the hands of British and Loyalist forces. (See: Rebellion in Lower Canada; Rebellion in Upper Canada.) They fled to the United States to seek financial and military assistance. The American public was aware that there had been armed conflicts in the Canadas. Many were even initially supportive. However, the presence of Canadian rebels on American soil forced many to question American involvement. The growing tensions with Great Britain over the Caroline Affair complicated matters. The creation of the Republic of Texas and the fight over the abolition of slavery were also factors. In January 1838, US President Martin Van Buren took steps to ensure America’s neutrality in the Canadian rebellions.

To a tremendous extent, the enslavement of Indigenous peoples defines slavery in Canada. Fully two-thirds of the slaves in the colony of New France were Indigenous. After 1750, the number of Indigenous slaves brought into French Canada began to decline. When slavery was abolished in British colonies in 1834, Black slaves far outnumbered Indigenous slaves. (See also Black Enslavement in Canada.) The enslavement of Indigenous peoples is part of a dark legacy of colonization that has had implications on generations of Indigenous peoples in Canada and throughout North America.

Colonial Office, a department established by the British government to administer its colonial possessions, including British North America.

A Promyshlennik is a Russian (chiefly Cossack) free-lance exploiter of natural resources, notably furs. Like the coureurs de bois, promyshlenniki had a sure instinct for rivers, forests and terrain.

Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories between the Years 1760 and 1776 (New York, 1809; Toronto, 1901) was written by Alexander Henry (the elder), one of the first Britons to venture into western Indigenous territory after the defeat of the French at Québec.

The Seven Years’ War (1756–63) was the first global war. In North America, Britain and France fought each other with the help of Indigenous allies. At the end of the war, France gave Canada (Quebec) and Ile Royale (Cape Breton) to Britain, among other territories. This is the reason that Canada has a British monarch but three founding peoples — French, British and Indigenous.

(This article is a plain-language summary of the Seven Years’ War. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see our full-length entry Seven Years’ War.)