The History of Canada: Discovery and Empire in North America
Jennet Roy’s The History of Canada (1850) offers a sweeping narrative of exploration, conquest, and colonial transformation across North America. Written in the mid‑19th century, it reflects the intellectual curiosity of its era — when historians sought to trace the origins of the New World from the voyages of Columbus to the rise of French Canada.
Summary
The book begins with the Age of Discovery, recounting the voyages of Columbus, John and Sebastian Cabot, Verrazzano, and Jacques Cartier, whose expeditions opened the northern continent to European eyes. Roy’s early chapters weave together the stories of explorers who ventured into unknown seas, driven by ambition and faith.
In Part II, the focus shifts to Canada under the French, chronicling the era of Cartier, Roberval, Champlain, and later adventurers who established settlements along the St. Lawrence. Roy captures the tension between exploration and empire — the struggle to claim land, convert souls, and survive harsh winters. Her narrative blends geography, ethnography, and political history, portraying Canada as both a frontier and a crucible of European rivalry.
Although written before Confederation (1867), Roy’s work anticipates the idea of Canada as a distinct historical entity — shaped by French courage, English ambition, and Indigenous endurance. It stands as a testament to early Canadian historiography, when the nation’s story was still being imagined through the lens of empire and discovery.
Reading from chapter 1
There is some reason to believe that the ancient writers, Aristotle, Strabo, Pliny and Seneca, entertained the opinion mentioned above. Strabo alone seems to have imagined the distance between the two continents ; he says " that the ocean encompasses the whole earth ; that in the east it washes the coasts of India, and in the west those of Africa and Spain, and that if the vastness of the Atlantic did not hinder, they might soon sail from one to the other."
Seneca, in one of his tragedies, says " there will come a time in after ages, when the ocean will loose the bonds of matter, and a vast country will be discovered." And in a book ascribed to Aristotle, the Carthaginians are said to have discovered, far beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the straits of Gibraltar), an island, in the Atlantic Ocean, of great extent and fertility, watered by large and magnificent rivers — but entirely uninhabited.
The Tyrians are said to have evinced some intention of occupying this island, but were prevented by t^ve jealousy of the Carthaginians.