Editing French Canadians (section)

== History ==
[[File:Voyageur canoe.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.7|''Voyageurs Passing a Waterfall'' by [[Frances Anne Hopkins]]]]

[[French people|French]] settlers from [[Normandy]], [[Perche]], [[Beauce, France|Beauce]], [[Brittany]], [[Maine (province)|Maine]], [[Duchy of Anjou|Anjou]], [[Touraine]], [[Poitou]], [[Aunis]], [[Angoumois]], [[Saintonge (region)|Saintonge]], and [[Gascony]] were the first [[European ethnic groups|Europeans]] to permanently colonize what is now [[Quebec]], parts of Ontario, Acadia, and select areas of Western Canada, all in Canada (see [[French colonization of the Americas]]). Their colonies of [[New France]] (also commonly called Canada) stretched across what today are the [[Maritimes|Maritime provinces]], southern Quebec and [[Ontario]], as well as the entire [[Mississippi River]] Valley.

The first permanent European settlements in Canada were at [[Port-Royal (Acadia)|Port Royal]] in 1605 and [[Quebec City]] in 1608 as [[North American fur trade|fur trading posts]]. The territories of New France were [[Canada (New France)|Canada]], [[Acadia]] (later renamed [[Nova Scotia]]), and [[Louisiana (New France)|Louisiana]]; the mid-continent [[Illinois Country]] was at first governed from Canada and then attached to Louisiana. The inhabitants of the French colony of Canada (modern-day Quebec) called themselves the ''Canadiens'', and came mostly from northwestern France.<ref>{{cite journal|jstor=1014689|title=The French Canadians in the Province of Quebec|first1=G. E.|last1=Marquis|first2=Louis|last2=Allen|date=1 January 1923|journal=The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science|volume=107|pages=7–12|doi=10.1177/000271622310700103|s2cid=143714682}}</ref> The early inhabitants of Acadia, or [[Acadians]] (''Acadiens)'', came mostly but not exclusively from the [[Aquitaine|southwestern regions of France]].

''Canadien'' explorers and fur traders would come to be known as ''[[coureurs des bois]]'' and ''[[voyageurs]]'', while those who settled on farms in Canada would come to be known as ''[[habitants]]''. Many French Canadians are the descendants of the [[King's Daughters]] (''Filles du Roi'') of this era. A few  also are the descendants of mixed French and [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]] marriages (see also [[Metis people]] and [[Acadian people]]). During the mid-18th century, French explorers and ''Canadiens'' born in French Canada colonized other parts of North America in what are today the states of [[Louisiana]], [[Mississippi]], [[Missouri]], [[Illinois]], [[Vincennes, Indiana]], [[Louisville, Kentucky]], the [[Windsor-Detroit]] region and the [[Canadian prairies]] (primarily Southern [[Manitoba]]).

[[File:Cornelius Krieghoff 001.jpg|thumb|left|''Habitants'' by [[Cornelius Krieghoff]] (1852)]]
After the 1760 British conquest of New France in the [[French and Indian War]] (known as the [[Seven Years' War]] in Canada), the French-Canadian population remained important in the life of the colonies. The British gained Acadia by the [[Treaty of Utrecht]] in 1713. It took the 1774 [[Quebec Act]] for French Canadians to regain the French civil law system, and in 1791 French Canadians in [[Lower Canada]] were introduced to the parliamentary system when an elected [[Legislative Assembly]] was created. The Legislative Assembly having no real power, the political situation degenerated into the [[Lower Canada Rebellion]]s of 1837–1838, after which Lower Canada and [[Upper Canada]] were unified. Some of the motivations for the union was to limit French-Canadian political power and at the same time transferring a large part of the Upper Canadian debt to the debt-free Lower Canada. After many decades of British immigration, the ''Canadiens'' became a minority in the [[Province of Canada]] in the 1850s.

French-Canadian contributions were essential in securing [[responsible government]] for [[the Canadas]] and in undertaking [[Canadian Confederation]]. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, French Canadians' discontent grew with their place in Canada because of a series of events: including the execution of [[Louis Riel]], the elimination of official bilingualism in [[Manitoba Schools Question|Manitoba]], Canada's military participation in the [[Second Boer War]], [[Regulation 17]] which banned French-language schools in Ontario, the [[Conscription Crisis of 1917]] and the [[Conscription Crisis of 1944]].<ref>Paul-André Linteau, René Durocher, and Jean-Claude Robert, '' Quebec: a history 1867–1929'' (1983) p. 261–272.</ref><ref>P.B. Waite, ''Canada 1874–1896'' (1996), pp 165–174.</ref>

Between the 1840s and the 1930s, some 900,000 French Canadians immigrated to the [[New England]] region. About half of them returned home. The generations born in the United States would eventually come to see themselves as [[French Americans|Franco-Americans]]. During the same period of time, numerous French Canadians also [[Interprovincial migration in Canada|migrated]] and settled in Eastern and Northern [[Ontario]]. The descendants of those Quebec inter-provincial migrants constitute the bulk of today's [[Franco-Ontarian]] community.

Since 1968, French has been one of Canada's two official languages. It is the sole official language of Quebec and one of the official languages of [[New Brunswick]], [[Yukon]], the [[Northwest Territories]], and [[Nunavut]]. The province of [[Ontario]] has no official languages defined in law, although the provincial government provides French language services in many parts of the province under the ''[[French Language Services Act (Ontario)|French Language Services Act]]''.