User:Soulscanner/Sandbox/Canadian

Etymology

The name Canada comes from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement". In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona. Cartier later used the word Canada to refer not only to that particular village, but also the entire area subject to Donnacona (the chief at Stadacona); by 1545, European books and maps had begun referring to this region as Canada. The French "Canadien" referred to the aboriginal people the French encountered in the St. Lawrence River valley at Stadacona and Hochelaga.

In the 17th and early 18th centuries, "Canada" referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River and the northern shores of the Great Lakes. By the end of the 17th century, the French word Canadien became an ethnonym distinguishing the French settlers of Canada from those of France.

Under later British rule, after migration of Americans loyal to British Crown following the American Revolution, the area was later split into two British colonies Upper Canada (present day Ontario) and Lower Canada (present day Quebec) under the Constitutional Act of 1791. They were reunified as the Province of Canada in 1841. In 1867, the British North America Act united this colony with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia into a federation called "Canada". Inhabitants and settlers of these and other provinces would all be called Canadians.