Canada's history
Canada is a country with more than 38 million inhabitants that occupies the north of North
America. The first inhabitants of the region were various peoples from Siberia, who arrived
through the Bering Strait, and a little later the last Inuit (Eskimo) peoples arrived from
Asia.
After the arrival of Europeans to America, other European countries came in search of new
lands. Colonists from England and France came to the northern part of America and
struggled to stay there. France established two colonies in the early 1600s in what is now
Canada: Canada proper (or "Quebec") on the north bank of the St. Lawrence River, and the
Colony of Acadia (in French Acadie), in what is now New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
After several battles between France and England, these colonies were conquered by the
English in the 18th century. However, even though the Acadie colony was destroyed and its
inhabitants dispersed, the Québec colony survived with recognized rights to maintain its
own French language and laws, in exchange for allegiance to the United Kingdom.
After the independence of the United States, the English colonists who remained loyal to
the mother country (the United Kingdom) emigrated to Canada. Through treaties with
Aboriginal tribes, settlers settled primarily in what is now Ontario.
Unlike the United States, which fought for its independence, Canada evolved peacefully.
Through a treaty accepted by Queen Victoria, Canada became a federation with
independent self-government in 1867. Canadians now celebrate "Queen Victoria Day" on
the third Monday in May, in gratitude and commemoration of the second monarch. longest-
reigned British (1837-1901).
History of Canada before the conquest of America by the Europeans
The first Canadians were the ancestors of the Amerindians who came across the Bering
Strait before 20,000 BC. C., during the last glaciations of the Pleistocene, around 8000 a.
The Indian tribes already divided the territory of Canada, in the northeast Micmac,
Beothuk, Cree and Ojibwa, in the south Iroquois and Hurons, west of the Great Lakes the
Plains Indians and in the west Tlingit, Kwakiutl, Haida , tsimshiam, and salish (see
American Indians of Canada for a more complete list).
Around 6000 a. C. crossed the Bering Strait the ancestors of those who would form the
Dorset culture that was replaced by the Thule (people) around the year 1000 that resulted in
the current Inuit. Christopher Columbus and his men were not the first Europeans to set
foot on America, because around the year 1000 a Viking sailor, Bjarni Herjólfsson sighted
North America and after informing of that unknown land he attracted many Vikings led by
the son of Erik the Red, Leif Eriksson, that began a Viking colonization in America that
was abandoned around 1010 by the fighting against hostile natives. There is information
about this colonization in two manuscripts of the Norse sagas, The Saga of the
Greenlanders and the Saga of Erik the Red. Although Vikings from the Greenland colonies
continued to visit northern Labrador for centuries after abandoning their colonies in
America in search of wood and iron, knowledge of America's existence did not transcend in
Europe. These are some of the names that the Vikings gave to the lands of America:
Vinland (Land of wine) corresponding to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, New Brunswick and
Nova Scotia, Helluland, to Baffin Island, Markland (Land of forests) corresponded to the
Labrador. In 1960 the ruins of a Viking camp were discovered by the archaeologist Helge
Ingstad in L'Anse aux Meadows, in Newfoundland that seems to coincide with the so-
called Leifsbúðir camp and that contains the ruins of three habitats with capacity for 80
people, a blacksmith, a carpentry and various workshops to repair ships totaling eight
buildings.
Contact with Europeans
The eastern part of the current territory of Canada was described for the first time in 1498
by the Venetian Juan Sebastián Cabot. Shortly after this expedition, the first Portuguese,
English, French and Spanish fishermen began to arrive on the American continent, who had
learned of the abundance of cod on the banks of Newfoundland thanks to the Cabot
expedition, and explored by Jacques Cartier from 1534 to In 1535, who sailed through the
Gulf of Saint Lawrence, visited the sites of the future Quebec and Montreal, learned about
the lands and waters of the region by the natives and took from them the word Canada, an
Algochin word that meant village. In 1545, the books and maps created by the first
European explorers began to refer to this region as Canada. The English explorers Martin
Frobisher in 1576 and Henry Hudson in 1609-1610 tried to find a passage to Asia.
Since the 16th century, the Canadian territories have received many visits from fishermen
from Europe. For example, there was a significant Basque presence in Canada. In 1631
Thomas James followed in Hudson's footsteps after whom the bay was named and wrote
The Dangerous Voyage of Captain Thomas James. After James, the British Royal Navy
officer Sir William Edward Parry took part in several expeditions between 1818 and 1824
in search of the Northwest Passage, British Vice Admiral John Franklin also led several
expeditions (1819, 1825, 1845) in search of this He passed.
Between 1903 and 1906, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen conquered the ruthless
northern Canada and opened the Northwest Passage. While the West Coast of Canada
received the visit of Captain James Cook in 1778. The next to have contact with the area
was George Vancouver who between 1791 and 1795 explored the area and discovered the
mouth of the Belle Coola River seven weeks before the arrival of the Scotsman Sir
Alexander Mackenzie.
History between the years 1764 and 1914
British Canada (1764-1867)
Under British rule the population grew rapidly. During the War of Independence of the
United States, and after the war, thousands of loyalists to the crown took refuge in Canada,
especially in Nova Scotia, which forced the creation of the New Brunswick colony in 1784
to accommodate the 50,000 loyalists. At the end of the war in 1783 Canada was forced to
cede Michigan to the United States, in 1791 Canada was divided into Superior (Ontario)
and Inferior (Quebec). The desire of many citizens of the United States to expel the English
from America and the resentment felt by the loyalists against the new nation of the United
States for their expulsion from the soil of the former Thirteen Colonies threatened a war
that was on the verge of produced in 1794 which finally began in 1812 and ended in 1814
with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814. In 1818 the border between
the United States and Canada was established at the 49th parallel, which forces Canada to
abandon its colony on the Red River south of said parallel (founded in 1812) and forced to
carry out a joint occupation of Oregon until its cession to the United States in 1846.
Meanwhile, the exploration of the territory continues its course and in 1789 Alexander
Mackenzie reached the head of the river that bears his name and in 1793 reached the Pacific
by land, the explorations carried out by Simon Fraser and David Thompson among others
were allowing to know great ex tensions of what would be British Columbia. After the
problems between fur trading companies were resolved in 1821, there was a merger
between the Northeast Company and the Hudson's Bay Company. Many immigrants came
from Great Britain especially from Scotland from 1815 and from 1825 many from the south
came through the Eire Canal that linked the Great Lakes and New York. In 1837 a series of
small rebellions took place: that of Louis-Joseph Papineau in Montreal and that of William
Lyon Mackenzie in Toronto.
