page_title: Canadian identity
section_title: French settlement and the struggle for francophone identity in Canada
hierarchical_section_title: Canadian identity / Historical development / French settlement and the struggle for francophone identity in Canada
caption_attribution_description: English: A painting of the portation in Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia. Français&#160;: Scène de la déportation des Acadiens en 1755.
context_page_description: Canadian identity refers to the unique culture, characteristics and condition of being Canadian, as well as the many symbols and expressions that set Canada and Canadians apart from other peoples and cultures of the world.
  Primary influences on the Canadian identity trace back to the arrival, beginning in the early seventeenth century, of French settlers in Acadia and the St. Lawrence River Valley and English, Scottish and other settlers in Newfoundland, the British conquest of New France in 1759, and the ensuing dominance of French and British culture in the gradual development of both an imperial and a national identity.
  Throughout the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, First Nations played a critical part in the development of European colonies in Canada, from their role in assisting exploration of the continent, the fur trade and inter-European power struggles to the creation of the Métis people. Carrying through the 20th century and to the present day, Canadian aboriginal art and culture continues to exert a marked influence on Canadian identity.
context_section_description: From the founding by Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons of Port Royal in 1605, (the beginnings of French settlement of Acadia) and the founding of Quebec City in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain, Canada was ruled from and settled almost exclusively by French colonists. John Ralston Saul, among others, has noted that the east–west shape of modern Canada had its origins in decisions regarding alliances with the indigenous peoples made by early French colonizers or explorers such as Champlain or De La Vérendrye. By allying with the Algonquins, for example, Champlain gained an alliance with the Wyandot or Huron of today's Ontario, and the enmity of the Iroquois of what is now northern New York State.
  Although English settlement began in Newfoundland in 1610, and the Hudson's Bay Company was chartered in 1670, it was only with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 that France ceded to Great Britain its claims to mainland Nova Scotia and significant British colonization of what would become mainland Canada would begin. Even then, prior to the American Revolution, Nova Scotia was settled largely by planters from New England who took up lands following the deportation of the French-speaking Acadian population, in 1755 in an event known in French to Acadians as Le Grand Dérangement, one of the critical events in the formation of the Canadian identity. During the period of French hegemony over New France the term Canadien referred to the French-speaking inhabitants of Canada.
  The Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France resulted in the conquest of New France by the British in 1759 at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, an event that reverberates profoundly even today in the national consciousness of Quebecers. Although there were deliberate attempts made by the British to assimilate the French speaking population to English language and culture, most notably the 1840 Act of Union that followed the seminal report of Lord Durham, British colonial policy for Canada on the whole was one which acknowledged and permitted the continued existence of French language and culture. Nevertheless, the efforts at assimilation of French Canadians, the fate of the French-speaking Acadians and the revolt of the patriotes in 1837 would not be forgotten by their Québécois descendants. Je me souviens, (English: "I remember"), the motto of Quebec, became the watchword of the Québécois. Determined to maintain their cultural and linguistic distinctiveness in the face of British colonial domination and massive immigration of English speaking people to the pre-Confederation Province of Canada, this survivalist determination is a cornerstone of current Québécois identity and much of the political discourse in Quebec. The English Canadian writer and philosopher John Ralston Saul also considers the Ultramontane movement of Catholicism as playing a pivotal and highly negative role in the development of certain aspects of Québécois identity.
caption: The deportation of the Acadians - 1893 painting, depicting an event in 1755.
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