'French colonization of the Americas' began in the
16th century, and continued as
France established a
colonial empire in the 17th century. Major French colonies were located in Acadia,
Canada and the
Mississippi River Valley, along the Gulf coast in what is today
Alabama,
Mississippi and
Louisiana, on a number of Caribbean islands, including
Hispaniola,
Guadeloupe,
Martinique,
St. Lucia, and
Tobago, and
French Guiana in
South America. Most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, sugar, and furs.
As they colonized the New World, the French founded Acadia now known as Nova Scotia and later cities such as
Quebec and
Montreal in Canada;
Detroit,
St. Louis,
Mobile,
Biloxi,
Baton Rouge and
New Orleans in the
United States; and
Port-au-Prince and
Cap-Haïtien in
Haiti.
North America
Early exploration and attempted settlement
Colin founded the entire french coloinization of the new world. He was the french Jon Smith, he taught them how to jet ski, wrestle, and play soccer. The people were grateful.
The French first came to the New World as explorers, seeking passage to the Indies and wealth. Major French exploration of North America began under the reign of King
Francis I. In
1524, Francis sent
Italian-born
Giovanni da Verrazano to explore the region between
Florida and
Newfoundland for a route to the
Pacific Ocean. Although he failed to find such a route, Verranzano became the first
European to explore much of the
Atlantic coast of the United States and Canada. Later, in 1534, Francis sent
Jacques Cartier on the first of three voyages to explore the coast of Newfoundland and the
St. Lawrence River.
Cartier's first two voyages had been focused on finding a passage to the Orient, but his third, which began in
1541, sought to find the legendary "
Kingdom of Saguenay" and to establish a permanent settlement along the St. Lawrence River. In August 1541, his group established a fortified settlement, named ''Charlesbourg-Royal'', on the site of present-day
Cap-Rouge, Quebec. A second fort was built on a cliff overlooking the settlement for added protection. Having set tasks for everyone, Cartier left with the longboats for a reconnaissance in search of "Saguenay" on
September 7. However, bad weather and rapids prevented him from journeying up the
Ottawa River.
Cartier returned to Charlesbourg-Royal and found the colony struggling to survive. Following a difficult winter, Cartier became convinced that he lacked the manpower and resources to protect the fort and search for Saguenay, and left for France in June 1542. The
Sieur de Roberval took command at Charlesbourg-Royal, but it was abandoned the following year after disease, foul weather and hostile natives drove the would-be settlers to despair. The precise site of this colony was a mystery to historians until remains - including a plate that may have belonged to Roberval - were discovered in August
2006 by archeologists
[1].
A second French attempt at establishing a North American colony came in 1562, when King
Charles IX sent
Jean Ribault and a group of
Huguenot settlers to found a colony in North America. They explored the
St. Johns River in what is now
Jacksonville,
Florida and attempted a failed colony at
Parris Island,
South Carolina, but eventually returned to the St. Johns, where Ribault's second in command
René Goulaine de Laudonnière established
Fort Caroline on
June 22,
1564. Fort Caroline struggled over the next year until Ribault returned with reinforcements from Europe. In 1565 the
Spanish under
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés established the colony of
St. Augustine 35 mi (60 km) to the south, and became a major threat to the fledgling Fort Caroline. Ribault attempted to dislodge them in the August of that year, but was surprised by a sudden storm that wrecked his fleet. Menéndez marched his troops over land and sacked Fort Caroline on
September 20,
1565, and killed most of the settlers. The Spanish victory effectively ended the French presence in the area.
Canada and the Great Lakes
After its failed attempt at a colony in the 1540s, for a time France limited its colonial interests in what would become Canada to fishing in the
Grand Banks off the coast of
Newfoundland. By the beginning of the
17th century, however, the French had become very interested in the
fur trade, and this led them to push inland to better trade with
American Indian tribes. French interest in the area began with the founding of
Tadoussac in 1599. In 1603,
Samuel de Champlain made his first trip to North America on a fur trading expedition. Champlain would prove instrumental in creating
New France. In 1608, he created a fur trading post that would grow into the city of
Quebec, a settlement that later became the capital of French North America. At Quebec, Champlain forged alliances between France and the
Huron and
Ottawa against their traditional enemies, the
Iroquois. Champlain and other French traders then continued exploring North America, using the
birch bark canoe to move quickly across the
Great Lakes and their tributary rivers. By 1634, French explorer
Jean Nicolet had pushed as far west as present-day
Wisconsin.
Although the French claimed a large territory in Canada and the Great Lakes region, actual settlement of the area was limited. For example, Ville Marie (the present
Montreal), after existing 10 years had a mere 50 or so inhabitants. In 1653, one hundred recruits bolstered and saved the small colony which would have been abandoned had the recruitment efforts not been successful.
[2] New France had just over 3,000 European settlers in 1666. The colony had grown slowly because France had emphasized the fur trade, which required the assistance of local tribes, and not colonization. In 1663, when
Louis XIV declared New France a royal colony, this strategy began to change. He immediately sent ships containing 775 women (''
les filles du roi'') to become wives for the French colonists serving in the fur trade posts; a large majority of settlers had been male prior to this. In ten years, New France's population more than doubled, to 7,000 inhabitants. It reached 15,000 in 1689, and 85,000 by 1754. Even so, throughout its history New France's population was dwarfed by that of the
Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain.
In the wake of the French traders and ''
voyageurs'' came several French
Jesuits who attempted to
Christianize many native groups through the establishment of missions, such as
Sainte-Marie among the Hurons. In the meantime, French
Huguenots established self-governing colonies beyond the control of the French state: for example, Huguenot refugees founded
New Paltz, New York in the 1660s, part of a large Huguenot migration to the nominally Dutch
New Netherland. These Huguenots, led by
Louis Dubois, formed an early self-governing unit called the
duzine, made treaties with the local Native Americans to purchase land from the Hudson River to the mountains, and otherwise prospered even after the English took control of the Hudson River and New York. (The village today boasts the oldest street in the United States with its original stone houses).
Louisiana
French Map of North America about 1681.
New France began to grow south and west of the Great Lakes after 1673, when Father
Jacques Marquette and
Louis Jolliet canoed across present day Wisconsin via the
Fox-Wisconsin Waterway to discover the
Mississippi River. From here, they followed the river south to the mouth of the
Arkansas River. Afraid that they were drawing too near to areas of
Spanish influence, the explorers turned north in Arkansas and returning to the Great Lakes, this time via the
Illinois and
Chicago rivers through present day
Chicago.
Following the journey of Marquette and Jolliet,
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle traveled the Mississippi to its delta, claiming the river's entire watershed for France in 1682 and naming the territory ''
Louisiane'' in honor of Louis XIV. This gave France control of the Mississippi Valley and the
Great Plains in addition to their holdings in the Great Lakes and Canada, and soon Frenchmen such as
Nicholas Perrot were establishing trading posts and forts in the new territory.
In 1684, La Salle attempted to solidify French control over the Mississippi Valley by establishing a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. La Salle left France with four ships and 300 colonists, but the expedition was plagued by
pirates, defensive Indians and poor navigation. They set up
Fort Saint Louis, near
Victoria, Texas. The colony lasted only until 1688, when local Indians overpowered the 20 remaining adults, and took five children as captives. The colony of
Louisiana was ultimately founded in 1699. In 1718 the city of New Orleans was founded; it soon became the colony's capital. France soon came into conflict with Great Britain, whose colonies bordered French colonies in several places. This led to a series of conflicts known in the United States as the
French and Indian Wars.
End of New France
Following the French defeat in the
French and Indian War, the
Treaty of Paris of
February 10,
1763, divided French territory on the North American continent between the British and the Spanish. The sole exception was the islands of
Saint Pierre and Miquelon off the Canadian coast, retained as a fishing outpost. The islands of
Saint-Pierre and Miquelon were France's only remaining possessions north of the Caribbean.
France was able to briefly regain some of their former possessions in North America from the Spanish in 1800, during the
Napoleonic Era, under the
Treaty of San Ildefonso. However, after his troops were defeated in
Saint-Domingue (now
Haiti),
Napoleon abandoned plans for a North American empire and sold the entire Louisiana territory to the
United States, a sale referred to as the
Louisiana Purchase.
West Indies
France has settled and ruled many islands in the
West Indies. French efforts at colonization began in
1538, when a group of French
Jesuit refugees founded the town of Dieppe on
St. Kitts. However, their colony was found and destroyed by the Spanish within a year. France did not attempt to colonize the Caribbean again in the 16th century, but established a number of colonies the following century.
Chief among these was the island of
Hispaniola, where France established the colony of
Saint-Domingue on the western third of the island in 1664. Nicknamed the "Pearl of the Antilles," Saint-Domingue became the richest colony in the Caribbean before a
1791 slave revolt, which began the
Haitian Revolution, led to freedom for the colony's slaves in 1794 and, a decade later, complete independence for the country, which renamed itself
Haiti. France briefly also ruled the eastern portion of the island, which is now the
Dominican Republic.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, France ruled much of the
Lesser Antilles at various times. Islands that came under French rule during part of all of this time include
Dominica,
Grenada,
Guadeloupe,
Marie-Galante,
Martinique,
St. Barthélemy,
St. Croix,
St. Kitts,
St. Lucia,
St. Martin,
St. Vincent and
Tobago. Control of many of these islands was contested between the French, the British and the Dutch; in the case of St. Martin, the island was divided in two, a situation that persists to this day.
Great Britain captured some of France's islands during the
Seven Years' War and the
Napoleonic Wars. Following the latter conflict, France retained control of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Marie-Galante, St. Barthélemy, and its portion of St. Martin; all remain part of France today. Guadeloupe (including Marie-Galante and other nearby islands) and Martinique each is an
overseas departments of France, while St. Barthélemy and St. Martin each became an
overseas collectivity of France in 2007.
In Martinique, unlike Saint-Domingue, slavery was not abolished during the
French Revolution. Meanwhile, in Guadeloupe slaves gained their freedom from 1795 (due to pressures by the French Revolution, the convention in Paris performed this task and sent
Victor Hugues to implement the new law) but then faced the reinstatement of the institution of slavery by Napoleon in 1802.
South America
From
1555 to
1567, French Huguenots, under the leadership of vice-admiral
Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon, made an attempt to establish the colony of
France Antarctique in what is now
Brazil, but were expelled. From
1612 to
1615, a second failed attempt was made in present-day
São Luís, Brazil.
French Guiana was first settled by the French in 1604, although its earliest settlements were abandoned in the face of
American Indian hostility and tropical diseases. The settlement of
Cayenne was established in
1643, but was abandoned. It was re-established in the 1660s. Except for brief occupations by the English and Dutch in the 17th century, Guiana has remained under French rule ever since. From
1851 to
1951 it was the site of a notorious
penal colony,
Devil's Island (''Île du Diable''). Guiana is presently an
overseas department of France.
In 1860, a French adventurer,
Orelie-Antoine de Tounens proclaimed himself
king of Araucania and Patagonia.
His claim was not accepted by foreign powers and Chile and Argentina took firm control over the regions, treating him as insane.
See also
★
Atlantic world
★
French and Indian Wars
★
French colonial empire
★
New France
★
French in Canada
★
French in the United States
★
Illinois Country
★
Haiti
References
★
The French Founders of North America and Their Heritage, Sabra Holbrook, Atheneum, New York, 1976, hardback, ISBN 0-689-30490-0
Note: As the ''French and Indian War'' started two years earlier, and continued until the signing of the peace treaty, the name ''Seven Years' War'' is more properly applied to the European phase of the war.
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