The First Nations (also known as indigenous people) were independent groups with a very big variety of languages, traditions and lifestyles. The First Nations began to change upon European contact in the 16th century. After a few temporary settlements were established, the Europeans set up permanent colonies in the late 1500s.

The French, the British and the First Nations

The first European settlements were fishing colonies and later the Europeans sought to establish trading posts and small outposts. As the French and British colonists expanded their colonies, each group made alliances with different indigenous groups. The French had fewer colonists in North America than did the British, so they were especially interested in allying themselves with different indigenous groups.

The alliances the Europeans made with the First Nations had significant effects on the indigenous people. First, the British and French were at war with each other in Europe much of the time and those conflicts spilled over into North America, pulling the indigenous people into those conflicts. For example, various Native American tribes fought in the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, the American Revolution and the War of 1812 on different sides. These conflicts and an increasing number of European settlers moving to North America. brought the First Nations groups into close contact with the Europeans.

The first European people who came into contact with the indigenous people in present-day Canada were very often traders and missionaries. The traders came to Canada to set up fur trading networks and sought beaver pelts to take back to Europe since beaver pelts were used to make expensive coats, hats and accent pieces of clothing like wraps for women.

Hudson's Bay Company (named after Hudson's Bay which was named after explorer Henry Hudson) was one of the largest trading companies in Canada (Another famous trading company was the North West Company.) brought European goods to trade with First Nations people in exchange for prized beaver pelts. These exchanges increased the indigenous people's dependence on European goods like metal items, weapons and ammunition, manufactured goods like pans and pots for cooking, etc. This increased dependence on European goods also threatened the Native Americans' chances of survival.

European missionaries came to Canada to convert the Indigenous people to Christianity, specifically Catholicism. This was especially true of French Jesuit missionaries working in French territories.

There were two major imports from Europe that had significant impacts on the indigenous people: weapons and diseases. Weapons allowed the Europeans to win most every conflict with the First Nations groups since their guns and ammunition were more effective than bows and arrows and other less technologically-advanced weapons the indigenous people possessed. The other VERY lethal import from Europe were diseases like smallpox, measles and influenza which the indigenous people died very rapidly from since they had no immunity against these diseased, having been isolated from European diseases for thousands of years. It is estimated that 90% of the indigenous people in all the Americas were killed by disease as a result of germs. (The Europeans didn't know exactly why the indigenous were infected so easily since no one knew about microscopic germs at the time.)