Champlain Founds Quebec

Also called: New France, Founding of Quebec City

The Frenchman Champlain founded Quebec on the St Lawrence River. It became the centre of New France, a colony built on the fur trade.

In July 1608 Champlain set up a trading post beneath the heights where the St Lawrence narrows. The French allied with the Huron and Algonquin to buy beaver pelts and fought long wars with their enemies, the Iroquois Confederacy. Jesuit missionaries worked among the native peoples; in 1663 Louis XIV made New France a royal colony, and in 1682 the Mississippi basin was claimed as Louisiana. But few settlers came, and by the mid-18th century its population was only a small fraction of that of the British colonies. In the same year, 1608, Gwanghaegun came to the throne in Joseon and introduced the Daedong tax law in Gyeonggi Province.