New France
New France () was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spain in 1763 under the Treaty of Paris (1763).
History of Newfoundland and Labrador
In 1655, France appointed a governor at "Plaisance", as Placentia was known in French, thus starting the French colonization of Newfoundland.
In 1697, during the devastating Avalon Peninsula Campaign, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville almost claimed the English settlements for New France. However, the French failed to defend their conquest of the English portion of the island. The French colonization period lasted until the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession. France ceded its claims to Newfoundland to the British (as well as its claims to the shores of Hudson Bay). In addition, the French possessions in Acadia were also yielded to Britain. Afterward, under the supervision of the last French governor, the French population of Plaisance moved to Île Royale (now Cape Breton Island), part of Acadia which remained then under French control.