Canada Colonial Records

French Colonization (1534-1763)
The French planted a cross in the Gaspé Peninsula in 1534 and claimed the land in the name of Francis I, creating a region called "Canada" the following summer. There were four French and Indian Wars and two additional wars in Acadia and Nova Scotia between the Thirteen American Colonies and New France from 1688 to 1763. As part of the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), signed after the defeat of New France in the Seven Years' War, France renounced its claims to territory in mainland North America, except for fishing rights off Newfoundland and the two small islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon where its fishermen could dry their fish.

British Colonization (1763-1867)
Following the Treaty of Paris, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The proclamation organized Great Britain's new North American empire. The Seventy-Two Resolutions from the 1864 Quebec Conference and Charlottetown Conference laid out the framework for uniting British colonies in North America into a federation. They had been adopted by the majority of the provinces of Canada and became the basis for the London Conference of 1866, which led to the formation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867.