Following the disastrous Seven Years’ War, France agreed to quit Canada and leave it to the British, which was not at all what the local tribesmen wanted.
In 1763, King Louis XV promised to leave the Great Lakes to the British, and French merchants duly went away south. The indigenous peoples were dismayed, for the easy-going French had always kept the surly English (and their prices) in check. So when Pontiac, leader of the Ottawas, heard a rumour that the French might return, he decided to help bring back the good times.
Canada’s Hudson Bay has been a cause of war and an engine of prosperity, but long before that it was the scene of cold treachery.
In the autumn of 1534, Frenchman Jacques Cartier reached what later became Quebec and Montreal, the first European to do so. Then in 1576 the English began to take an interest. Martin Frobisher went further north looking for a path to Asia, followed by John Davis; but both men missed a region tucked into Canada’s northern heart, which afterwards emerged as the foundation of her prosperity.