Timeline of Ontario History - 1762 and Earlier

1762 and Earlier

• Before Europeans traveled to North America, first nations people, mostly Algonquian and Iroquoian, shared the land where Ontario is now located.
• 1610–1612– exploration of what is now southern Ontario by Étienne Brûlé
• 1611 – Henry Hudson visits Hudson Bay and claims the region for Great Britain.
• 1615 – Samuel de Champlain visits Lake Huron, after which French missionaries establish outposts in the region.
• 1639 - Founding of "Saint Mary Among the Huron", the first inland French settlement in North America, dramatised in the film Black Robe. The settlement was destroyed in 1649 by Iroqouis who were hostile towards the Huron (Wendat) Nation and their trading relationship with the French missionaries.
• 1640 - Native population is estimated by the French to be 80,000 in what is now a large part of southern Ontario (areas to south and west of Lake Simcoe).
• 1648 – Iroquois revolt against trespassing French, destroying a Jesuit mission near the site of present-day Midland (see Canadian Martyrs)
• circa 1649-54 – Iroquois drive the Hurons, Petun and Neutral Nation from their territories. Around the same time, another population movement of the Mississaugas from the north shores of Lake Huron and Manitoulin Island to the Kawartha Lakes and Credit River areas.
• 1668 - Father Marquette founds Sault Ste. Marie, noteworthy as the oldest surviving permanent European settlement in both Ontario and neighbouring Michigan.
• 1670 – The Hudson's Bay Company is granted a British royal charter to conduct the Indian Trade in the 3.9 million square kilometer territory named after Prince Rupert of the Rhine known as Rupert Land. This area includes much of what is now Northern Ontario and represents approx. 1/3 of the land size of Canada.
• 1673–establishment of Fort Frontenac near the site of present-day Kingston
• 1730 – The Hudson's Bay Company establishes a trading post at Moose Factory, now the oldest English-speaking settlement in Ontario. Over the years, Hudson's Bay traders, and their Métis descendants establish and maintain several settlements in the western Great Lakes, notably two which develop into Sault Ste. Marie and Detroit.