A Brief History of Toronto

A Brief History of Toronto

The city officially became Toronto on March 6, 1834, but its roots are much more ancient than that. In the early 1600s, a Frenchman named Etienne Brûlé was sent into the not-yet-Canadian wilderness by the famous explorer Samuel de Champlain to see what he could discover. He discovered plenty: the river and portage routes from the St. Lawrence to Lake Huron, possibly Lakes Superior and Michigan, and eventually Lake Ontario. Of course, the native Huron peoples had known this area between the Humber and Don rivers for centuries—and had long called it "Toronto," believed to mean "meeting place."

Later, a bustling village called Teiaiagon grew up here, and then it was the site of a French trading post. After the British won the Seven Years' War, the trading post was renamed "York" in 1793. More than 40 years later, the city again took the name Toronto. Following an unsuccessful American invasion in 1812, several devastating fires, and a rebellion in 1837, there was a slow but steady increase in the population of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants leading into the 20th century. Since WWII, though, Toronto has attracted residents from all over the world. And unlike the American "melting pot" phenomenon that melds everyone together, Toronto is more of a "tossed salad" of diverse ethnic groups.