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).
New France
In terms of 21st century political divisions and nations, New France included Acadia (eastern Quebec, the coastal territories, and claims to New England as far as Philadelphia, Canada (modern eastern Canada and the Canadian plains in central Canada to the edge of modern-day Alberta), and Louisiana (a vast territory stretching across much of the east half of modern Midwestern United States).The Conquest (the overall fall of New France, particularly centered on the 1759 surrender of Quebec after British victory over French forces) has always been a central and contested theme of Canadian memory—as exemplified by an episode in 2009, when re-enactors were prevented from restaging the decisive 1759 battles in Quebec. Cornelius Jaenen argues that "The Conquest has remained a difficult subject for French-Canadian historians" who were divided in viewing it. One group sees it as a highly negative economic, political and ideological disaster that threatened a way of life with materialism and Protestantism. At the other pole are those historians who see the positive benefit of enabling the preservation of language, and religion and traditional customs under British rule. French Canadian debates have escalated since the 1960s, as the conquest is seen as a pivotal moment in the history of Québec's nationalism. Francophone historian Jocelyn Létourneau suggested in 2009, that today, "1759 does not belong primarily to a past that we might wish to study and understand, but, rather, to a present and a future that we might wish to shape and control."