Province of Quebec

The Province of Quebec was a British colony in North America created in 1763, after Britain's victory in the Seven Years' War. The Treaty of Paris transferred France's claim to Canada to Britain, and the royal proclamation of 1763 established the new colony in the St Lawrence valley. Its capital was Quebec City. The colony was sparsely populated and overwhelmingly French-speaking, with a seigneurial land system and a Catholic majority. The colony was initially governed by a governor and council, with British law and an established church favoured, but the Quebec Act of 1774 recognised French civil law and the rights of the Catholic Church and enlarged the colony's territory westward to the Ohio and Mississippi. During the American Revolution, Quebec was invaded by American forces in 1775–1776 but remained British. Loyalist refugees settled north of the Great Lakes after the war. In 1791 the Constitutional Act divided the colony into Lower Canada and Upper Canada.