New France

New France, (1534–1763), the French colonies of continental North America, initially embracing the shores of the St. Lawrence River, Newfoundland, and Acadia (Nova Scotia) but gradually expanding to include much of the Great Lakes region and parts of the trans-Appalachian West.

The name Gallia Nova (New France) was first recorded in 1529 on a map prepared by the brother of Giovanni da Verrazzano, who, in the service of France, had explored the coasts of North America in 1524 from what is now the Carolinas north to Nova Scotia. Then in 1534 the French navigator and explorer Jacques Cartier entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence and took possession of New France for King Francis I. In succeeding years Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence as far as the Lachine Rapids, to where Montreal now stands, and attempted, with Jean-François de La Rocque, sieur de (lord of) Roberval, to found a colony near what is now Quebec. The colony failed, but out of these explorations the French fur trade with the Native Americans (First Nations) of the gulf and the river regions began.

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Samuel de Champlain was employed in the interests of successive fur-trading monopolies and sailed into the St. Lawrence in 1603. In the next year he was on the Bay of Fundy and had a share in founding the first French colony in North America—that of Port-Royal, (now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia). In 1608 he began the settlement that was named Quebec, selecting a commanding site that controlled the narrowing of the St. Lawrence River estuary.

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Canada: The settlement of New France

The fort at Quebec, however, attracted few residents, and Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister of France, felt impelled to found in 1627 the Company of New France (Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France), popularly known as the Company of the Hundred Associates (Compagnie des Cent-Associés). It was granted the colony of New France, then comprising the whole St. Lawrence Valley, and for 15 years from 1629 it was to have complete monopoly of the fur trade. In return it was to take to New France 200 to 300 settlers a year. But war with England began, the company’s first fleet was captured, and in 1629 Quebec itself surrendered to the English. It was restored by the Treaty of Saint-Germain in 1632, but the Company of New France never recovered from the blow, although it controlled New France until 1663. French colonization was slow for many years to come, and the fur trade remained the chief concern of everyone except the missionaries.

In 1663 King Louis XIV decided to cancel the charter of the Company of New France and make New France into a royal province, with a governor as the ceremonial and military head of the colony. In addition to creating a royal colony, the King sent a military commander, Alexandre de Prouville, the marquis de Tracy, and a regiment of soldiers who in 1666 defeated the Iroquois and forced them to make peace. It was then possible to proceed to populate and develop New France. More than 3,000 settlers, including girls of marriageable age, were sent out in the 1660s. Few followed thereafter, but by natural increase the population began to expand rapidly.

The first intendant, Jean Baptiste Talon (1665–68 and 1670–72), stimulated colonization and industry. He also pressed the exploration of the far west. Louis Jolliet explored the Mississippi until he was sure it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, not into the Pacific Ocean. In 1671 Simon François d’Aumont (or Daumont, sieur de St. Lusson) at Sault Ste. Marie took possession of all the interior of the North American continent for France as an extension of New France.

Meanwhile, Britain and France were competing intensely for land and trade on the American continent. During King William’s War (the North American extension of the War of the Grand Alliance; 1689–97), a New England fleet and army under Sir William Phips seized Acadia, but the French defied Phips’s attempt to take Quebec in 1690. Then the French, under Louis de Buade, comte de Frontenac, began a series of border raids on New England, and finally marched into the Iroquois country. Meanwhile the brilliant young Canadian Pierre le Moyne, sieur d’Iberville, had conquered British posts, saved Acadia, and overrun Newfoundland. The war was ended by the Treaty of Rijswujk (1697) with New France holding Hudson Bay (but not Newfoundland) as well as all its former possessions. This was the work of Canadians, with little help from France. D’Iberville then set off to found Louisiana, another part of New France, in 1699. In 1700 and 1701 peace was made between the Iroquois and New France, and between the Iroquois and the Indian allies of New France. There were to be no more Iroquois wars, and New France stood at the height of its fortunes.

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Its decline began almost at once. The English and their American colonists were to conquer all New France, but it was done in two stages. The first ended in 1713 with the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1710 Acadia had been seized again by the British, but in the next year an English expedition under Sir Hovenden Walker suffered serious losses along the St. Lawrence River and returned home. Most of the fighting was done in Europe, however, and the English victories there enabled them, by the Treaty of Utrecht that concluded the war, to recover Hudson Bay, limit French rights in Newfoundland, force the cession of Acadia (without Cape Breton Island), and to get a larger foothold in the western fur trade.

In 1756 the Seven Years’ War in Europe began, and the American phase of this conflict, the French and Indian War, was to settle the fate of New France. For two years the French troops and Canadian militia were victorious. Then the British and American strength, fed by British sea power, began to tell. In 1758 Louisbourg fell; in 1759 James Wolfe captured Quebec; and in 1760 Montreal surrendered to Jeffery Amherst and with it all of New France.

When the war was finally ended and peace was made by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, all New France east of the Mississippi, outside the environs of New Orleans, was ceded to Great Britain. Only two little islands, St. Pierre and Miquelon near Newfoundland, and the French fishing rights in Newfoundland, were left to France. But in what now became the province of Quebec more than 60,000 French Canadians became British subjects.