The relations between the indigenous peoples and settlers in New France (to 1763), British North America (Canada before 1867) and those in the Thirteen Colonies -- and later, America -- had similarities in the earlier part of the relationship (17th-18th c.), when the native peoples outnumbered the early settlers and it was based on mutual need and benefit. The indigenous people would trade fur pelts for manufactured goods such as tools or firearms, a prosperous trade that benefited both sides.

Where Canada and the US diverged can loosely be defined by need. The more numerous American colonists needed more land to farm -- land that was still occupied by the native peoples. The less numerous colonists in Canada needed furs, a product its native peoples could obtain and trade for European goods, tools and weapons. They also needed native military alliances to defend itself.

The Thirteen Colonies' population soon dwarfed its northern neighbours and the settlers sought further settlement westward. This agrarian-driven expansion was in part due to the reality that the early pioneers were mostly unskilled in farming and exhausted farmlands in the east (crop rotation was barely practised, if at all). They were always in search of virgin soil. This placed them into conflict with the native peoples who already lived in the frontier lands beyond the Appalachians. The settlers weren't supposed to move west, as the 1763 Proclamation after the Seven Years War had set aside this territory as a native homeland and buffer zone. But native claims were largely disregarded by American colonists, who pushed further west to the detriment of those native peoples in their path. The US Army protected and enforced this expansion, waging numerous wars of pacification on any native groups who resisted.

In contrast, the early settlers of New France were chiefly driven by the fur trade, not agriculture -- the colony was a commercial entity in the beginning and population growth was much slower (It had a population of only 80,000 by the time of the Conquest). In its 150-year history, New France was also under almost constant attack by the Iroquois, England and its colonial allies. They needed to cultivate native military alliances to survive. This, along with the fur trade (which continued under British rule), meant that the colonial government and the indigenous people in Canada still retained the idea of a mutually beneficial relationship. Britain needed the natives' military strength to bolster their meagre defences in Canada, while the natives hoped that Britain would fulfill its promises to safeguard a native homeland.

This arrangement continued up to the end of the War of 1812, when indigenous grievances were ignored in the peace treaty at Ghent. Never again would the natives in Canada be regarded as partners on equal footing. Treaties surrendering their lands, migration to reservations, racist policies of forced assimilation in government and church-run residential schools and systemic discrimination would instead be their fate.