Province of Quebec (colony)

Province of Quebec
British colony
1763–1791
Flag
A portion of eastern North America in 1774 after the Quebec Act; Quebec extends all the way to the Mississippi River.
Capital		Quebec
Languages		French, English
Religion		Roman Catholicism, Protestantism
Government		Constitutional monarchy
King		George III
Governor		See list of Governors
History
•	Royal Proclamation	October 7, 1763
•	Quebec Act	1774
•	Treaty of Paris (1763)	1763
•	Constitutional Act	December 26, 1791
Currency		Canadian pound
Preceded by Succeeded by Canada, New France Upper Canada Lower Canada Northwest Territory
Today part of		Canada (part of Ontario, Quebec and Labrador)  United States (most of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota)

The Province of Quebec was a colony in North America created by Great Britain after the Seven Years' War. Great Britain acquired French Canada by the Treaty of Paris in which (after a long debate) France negotiated to keep the small but very rich sugar island of Guadeloupe instead. By Britain's Royal Proclamation of 1763, Canada (part of New France) was renamed the Province of Quebec. The new British province extended from the coast of Labrador on the Atlantic Ocean, southwest through the Saint Lawrence River Valley to the Great Lakes and beyond to the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Portions of its southwest (below the Great Lakes) were later ceded to the United States in a later Treaty of Paris (1783) at the conclusion of the American Revolution.

Under the Proclamation, Quebec included the cities of Quebec and Montreal, as well as a zone surrounding them, but did not extend as far west as the Great Lakes or as far north as Rupert's Land.

In 1774, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act that allowed Quebec to restore the use of French customary law ("Coutume de Paris") in private matters alongside the British common law system, and allowing the Catholic Church to collect tithes. The act also enlarged the boundaries of Quebec to include the Ohio Country and part of the Illinois Country, from the Appalachian Mountains on the east, south to the Ohio River, west to the Mississippi River and north to the southern boundary of lands owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, or Rupert's Land.