Quebec was first settled by Paleo-Indians after the Laurentide Ice Sheet melted, roughly 11,000 years ago. They lived as nomads, surviving by hunting, fishing, and gathering. By the 1500s eleven First Nations peoples had formed: Inuit, Abenaki, Algonquin, Atikamekw, Cree, Huron-Wendat, Wolastoqiyik, Mi'kmaq, Iroquois, Innu and Naskapi.
The first European explorers reached the area in the early 16th century. Giovanni da Verrazzano's 1522–23 voyage for France applied the name New France to northeastern North America. Jacques Cartier landed at Gaspé on July 24, 1534, and on his 1535 voyage named the Stadacona district Canada. From about 1580 the fur trade revived French interest. Coureurs des bois and Catholic missionaries followed, forming alliances with some Indigenous nations against others (the later Iroquois Wars).
Samuel de Champlain founded the Habitation de Québec (now Quebec City) on July 3, 1608, and it became the capital of New France. After a brief English occupation (1629–1632) it was returned by the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Maisonneuve founded Ville-Marie (now Montreal) in 1642. New France became a royal province in 1663. Relations with the Iroquois and with Britain stayed turbulent through the Iroquois Wars and the Intercolonial Wars. British forces took Quebec City in 1759 and Montreal in 1760; France ceded the colony in the 1763 Treaty of Paris.
In 1791 Britain divided the Province of Quebec into Upper Canada and Lower Canada, giving Loyalist settlers English common law in the west while Lower Canada kept French civil law and the seigneurial system. Conflict continued into the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–38 and into disputes over representation. In 1867 the colony entered Confederation as the province of Quebec; the first premier was Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau. Montreal was Canada's largest city for the next century. The Catholic Church remained a central institution for French speakers; "O Canada" was written for the 1880 Saint-Jean-Baptiste celebrations.
In the early 20th century Quebec reached its present northern limits (Ungava, 1912), and the first statute requiring French in public life was adopted. In the First World War voluntary enlistment among French Quebecers was low; conscription in 1917 produced the Conscription Crisis of 1917 and riots in Quebec City. A second conscription crisis followed in 1944.
In the 1960s the Quiet Revolution under a Liberal government expanded the welfare state, reduced the Church's role in schools and social services, and nationalized electricity (Hydro-Québec). Québécois identity and Quebec nationalism became central politics. The Parti Québécois later took office and pressed for greater autonomy. Sovereignty referendums in 1980 and 1995 both failed to win a majority. Indigenous peoples and European expeditions (pre-1608)
The Paleo-Indians were the first to establish themselves in what became Quebec, arriving after the Laurentide Ice Sheet melted roughly 11,000 years ago. By the 1500s, eleven Indigenous peoples had formed: the Inuit and ten First Nationsthe Abenaki, Algonquin (or Anichinabés), Atikamekw, Cree, Huron-Wendat, Wolastoqiyik, Miꞌkmaq, Iroquois, Innu and Naskapi . Algonquians organized into seven political entities and lived as nomads,surviving by hunting, gathering, and fishing. Inuit fished and hunted whales and seals along the coasts of Hudson and Ungava Bays.
Around 1522–23, Giovanni da Verrazzano persuaded King Francis I of France to commission an expedition to find a western route to Cathay (China) via a Northwest Passage. Though this expedition was unsuccessful, it bestowed the name New France on northeast North America. Jacques Cartier became the first European explorer to discover and map the Quebec area when he landed in Gaspé on July 24, 1534. In the second expedition, in 1535, Cartier explored the lands of Stadacona and named the village and its surrounding territories Canada (from , 'village' in Iroquois). Cartier returned to France with about 10 St. Lawrence Iroquoians, including Chief Donnacona. In 1540, Donnacona recounted to Francis the legend of the Kingdom of Saguenay, inspiring him to order a third expedition, this time led by Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval; it failed to find the kingdom.
After these expeditions, France mostly abandoned North America for 50 years because of its financial crisis; France was involved in the Italian Wars and religious wars. Around 1580, the rise of the fur trade reignited French interest; New France became a colonial trading post. In 1603, Samuel de Champlain travelled to the Saint Lawrence River and, on Pointe Saint-Mathieu, established a defence pact with the Innu, Wolastoqiyik and Mi'kmaq, that would be "a decisive factor in the maintenance of a French colonial enterprise in America despite an enormous numerical disadvantage vis-à-vis the British". Thus began French military support to the Algonquian and Huron peoples against Iroquois attacks; these became known as the Iroquois Wars and lasted from the early 1600s to the early 1700s.
New France (1608–1763)
In 1608, Samuel de Champlain returned to the region as head of an exploration party. On July 3, 1608, with the support of King Henry IV, he founded the Habitation de Québec (now Quebec City) and made it the capital of New France. The settlement became a permanent fur trading outpost, where First Nations traded furs for French goods, such as metal objects, guns, alcohol, and clothing. Missionary groups arrived after the founding of Quebec City. Coureurs des bois and Catholic missionaries used canoes to explore the interior and establish fur trading forts.
The Compagnie des Cent-Associés, which had been granted a royal mandate to manage New France in 1627, introduced the Custom of Paris and the seigneurial system, and forbade settlement by anyone other than Catholics. In 1629, Quebec City surrendered, without battle, to English privateers during the Anglo-French War; in 1632, the English king agreed to return it with the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Trois-Rivières was founded at de Champlain's request in 1634. Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve founded Ville-Marie (now Montreal) in 1642.
In 1663, the Company of New France ceded Canada to King Louis XIV, who made New France into a royal province. New France became a true colony administered by the Sovereign Council of New France from Quebec City. A governor-general governed Canada and its administrative dependencies: Acadia, Louisiana and Plaisance. French settlers were mostly farmers and known as "Canadiens" or "Habitants". Though immigration was modest, the colony grew via the Habitants' high birth rates. In 1665, the Carignan-Salières regiment developed the string of fortifications known as the "Valley of Forts" to protect against Iroquois invasions and brought with them 1,200 new men. To redress the gender imbalance and boost population growth, King Louis XIV sponsored the passage of approximately 800 young French women (King's Daughters) to the colony. In 1666, intendant Jean Talon organized the first census and counted 3,215 Habitants. Talon enacted policies to diversify agriculture and encourage births, which, by 1672, had increased the population to 6,700.
New France's territory grew to extend from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, and encompassed the Great Lakes. In the early 1700s, Governor Callières concluded the Great Peace of Montreal, which confirmed the alliance between the Algonquian and New France and definitively ended the Iroquois Wars. From 1688 onwards, the competition between the French and British to control North America's interior and monopolize fur trade pitted New France and its indigenous allies against the Iroquois and English in four successive wars called the Intercolonial Wars in Quebec and the French and Indian Wars by Americans. The first three were King William's War (1688–1697), Queen Anne's War (1702–1713), and King George's War (1744–1748). In 1713, following the Peace of Utrecht, the Duke of Orléans ceded Acadia and Plaisance Bay to Great Britain, but retained Île Saint-Jean, and Île-Royale where the Fortress of Louisbourg was later erected. These losses were significant since Plaisance Bay was the primary communication route to France, and Acadia contained 5,000 French Acadians. In the siege of Louisbourg (1745), the British were victorious, but returned the city to France after war concessions.
The last of the four wars was the Seven Years' War ("The War of the Conquest" in Quebec) and lasted from 1754 to 1763. In 1754, tensions escalated for control of the Ohio Valley, as authorities in New France became more aggressive in efforts to expel British traders and colonists.O'Meara, pp. 15–19 In 1755, Governor Charles Lawrence and Officer Robert Monckton ordered the forceful expulsion of the Acadians. In 1758, on Île-Royale, British General James Wolfe besieged and captured the Fortress of Louisbourg. This allowed him to control access to the Gulf of St. Lawrence through the Cabot Strait. In 1759, he besieged Quebec for three months from Île d'Orléans. Then, Wolfe stormed Quebec and fought Montcalm for control of the city in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. After a British victory, the king's lieutenant and Lord of Ramezay concluded the Articles of Capitulation of Quebec. During the spring of 1760, the Chevalier de Lévis besieged Quebec City and forced the British to entrench themselves during the Battle of Sainte-Foy. However, loss of French vessels sent to resupply New France after the fall of Quebec City during the Battle of Restigouche marked the end of France's efforts to retake the colony. Governor Pierre de Rigaud, marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnial signed the Articles of Capitulation of Montreal on September 8, 1760.
While awaiting the results of the Seven Years' War in Europe, New France was put under a British military regime led by Governor James Murray. In 1762, Commander Jeffery Amherst ended French colonial presence in Newfoundland at the Battle of Signal Hill. France secretly ceded the western part of Louisiana and the Mississippi River Delta to Spain via the 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau. On February 10, 1763, the Treaty of Paris concluded the war. France ceded its North American possessions to Britain. Thus, France ended New France and abandoned the remaining 60,000 Canadiens, who sided with the Catholic clergy in refusing to swear fealty to the British Crown. The rupture from France provoked a transformation within the descendants of the Canadiens that eventually resulted in the birth of a new nation.
British North America (1763–1867)
In 1763, the Royal Proclamation established a constitution for the newly acquired territory. The Canadiens became part of the British Empire and circumscribed to a region of the St. Lawrence Valley and Anticosti Island called the Province of Quebec. With unrest growing to the south, the British were worried that the Canadiens might support the unrest. To secure their allegiance, Governor James Murray and later Governor Guy Carleton promoted the need for accommodations, resulting in the Quebec Act of 1774. This act allowed Canadiens to regain their civil customs, return to the seigneural system, regain other rights including use of French, and reappropriate their old territories: Labrador, the Great Lakes, the Ohio Valley, Illinois Country and the Indian Territory.