New France was the territory colonized by France in North America from 1534 to 1763, with Quebec serving as its capital. In 1534, Jacques Cartier landed at the Gaspe Peninsula of [[Canada] and claimed the land for France; from 1541 to 1543, a colony of 400 people was established at Charlesbourg-Royal (modern Quebec). An attempt by French Huguenots to colonize La Floride in 1564 failed after the Spanish massacred them a year later, and early French attempts to colonize Acadia in the early 1600s also met with failure. However, Quebec City was founded by Samuel de Champlain in 1608, and the population grew from 103 in 1630 to 355 in 1640. The French allied with the Huron Indians against the Iroquois, establishing local military allies and trading partners in the process, and Champlain had young French men live among the Indians to learn their languages and customs. After Cardinal Richelieu named Champlain Governor of New France in 1627, all settlers in Canada were forced to convert to Catholicism, resulting in the migration of many Huguenot settlers to the English Thirteen Colonies. The French and English colonies often warred, with the English briefly capturing Quebec in 1632 amid the Thirty Years' War. In 1663, King Louis XIV made New France a royal province, and the Crown offered incentives for French settlers to emigrate to New France. In 1682, Rene-Robert Cavelier de La Salle claimed the lands along the Mississippi River for France, expanding New France into Louisiana. However, an attempt to colonize Texas in 1688 resulted in disaster. From 1683 to 1755, Troupes de Marine were sent to garrison forts across New France, and coureurs des bois traded with Indians beyond New France's well-established boundaries. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession forced France to cede Acadia, Hudson Bay, and Newfoundland to Great Britain, but the population of New France rose steadily, as did the number of attacks on the British colonies by the French and Indians in the "French and Indian Wars". During the final French and Indian War of 1754-1763, the British expelled 10,000 Acadians from Nova Scotia to Louisiana and the Maritime provinces of Canada, and the British captured Quebec in 1759 and Montreal a year later. In 1763, France ceded Canada to the British and Louisiana to Spain, with only Saint Pierre and Miquelon remaining in French hands. France later reacquired Louisiana, but gave up all hope of reconquering Canada following the American Revolutionary War.
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