A History of English Canadian and French Canadian conflict.

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A History of English Canadian and French Canadian conflict

History shows early conflicts between English and French settlers in Canada.  Competition in the fur trade and later mirroring results from the changing of political powers of battles fought across an ocean led to Canada being dominated by British rule.  However, the base of historical conflicts between English Canadians and French Canadians included religious disputes, the value of industry versus land, relations with native populations, and the perception of an individual’s role in society. These themes are repeated through key events such as the Proclamation of 1763, the Quebec Act, and the Constitutional Act of 1791, and they are also evidence in the current political climate today.  

While Cartier is credited for the initial claim of land for France, Samuel de Champlain is given the title of founder.  He established a business in fur trade near the St. Lawrence River, but to Champlain a truer purpose in life was the conversion of the Amerindians to Christianity. If this could be done while promoting the successful commerce of New France, then so much the better (Morton 16-18).  It seems that religion was also used as a means of controlling certain alliances:

“The French missionaries are said to have made use of singular methods to excite their flocks against the heretics.  The Abenaki chief of Bomaseen, when a prisoner at Boston in 1696, declared that they told the Indians that Jesus Christ was a Frenchman, and his mother, the Virgin, a  French lady; that the English had murdered him, and that the best way to gain his favor was to revenge his death” (Parkman 271).

Early French settlers managed to make allies of the Algonquins and Hurons, and enemies of the Iroquois.  A memoir sent to the Marquis de Seignelay noted the English alliance with Iroquois: “[The English] also employ the Iroquois to excite all our other Indians against us” (Essential Documents in American History Memoir for the Marquis… 1).  The memoir goes on to give reason for war against the Iroquois including that it is “necessary for the establishment of the Religion” (2).  On and off conflict with the Iroquois nation would often dominate setter’s lives, and this was felt greatest among traders.

The fur trade played a role in both early French and English colonies.  However, the English had distinct advantages over their French competitors.  Both made gifts of alcohol to their Amerindian allies, but French brandy cost more to provide than did English rum.  The French saw 25% of their profits go towards taxes on furs.  Also, “French furs came over a long, exhausting, and expensive network of portages in small canoes to reach and ocean-going ship, while English furs made a short, Iroquois-free jaunt to inland seaports” (Callwood 29).

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Competition and conflicts between the French and the Iroquois and English continued throughout the 1600s and through the mid-1700s.  Periods of peace were short-lived and often punctuated by battles being waged in Europe.  For example, just when “New France’s long conflict with the Iroquois ended, war broke out again with England” (Francis, et. al. 119).  This war would last until 1760.  Two important documents, the Proclamation of 1763 and the Treaty of Paris, would mark the start of a new yet precarious era in Canadian history.

Britain’s Proclamation of 1763 set up a reserve for Amerindian populations.  While ...

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