The French colonized northern areas, moving in along the St. Lawrence River from early trading posts among Algonquian-speaking tribes on the Atlantic Coast; they founded Quebec in 1608. When Samuel de Champlain explored the St. Lawrence River, he claimed the region French Canada as including Western New York. The French sent traders and missionaries there, but ceded any claim in 1759 during the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War, in which they were defeated by Great Britain.