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North America
The French established colonies across the New World in the 17th century. They were developed to export sugar and furs, among other products. Explorers and settlers from France settled in what is now Canada, the Mississippi Valley and along the Gulf coast, in what is now Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, founding the cities of Quebec and Montreal in Canada, and Detroit, Michigan, St. Louis, Missouri, Mobile, Alabama, Biloxi, Mississippi, Baton Rouge, Louisiana and New Orleans, Louisiana in the United States.
The French first came to the "New World" as explorers, seeking passage to the Indies and wealth. French explorers included: Father Marquette and Louis Joliet, Jacques Cartier, Giovanni da Verrazzano and Robert LaSalle.
The first French attempt at colonization was Fort Caroline (present-day Jacksonville, Florida) in 1564, made by Huguenots René Goulaine de Laudonnière and Jean Ribault. This colony was destroyed the next year by the Spanish from nearby Saint Augustine. The next attempt came in 1598, on Sable Island, southeast of present-day Nova Scotia. This colony went unsupplied, and the 12 survivors returned to France in 1605. The next, and first successful colony, was Acadia, founded in 1604, with the settlement of Saint Croix Island. Settlement of Acadia later centered on Port Royal, now Annapolis.
The French were very interested in the fur trade, and purchased fur from, and formed alliances with, Native American tribes, such as the Huron and Ottawa. They actively engaged in warfare with the traditional enemies of the Hurons and Ottawas, the Iroquois. French Jesuits also attempted to Christianize many native groups through the establishment of missions, such as Sainte-Marie among the Hurons.
French Huguenots established self-governing colonies beyond the control of the French state: for example, Huguenot refugees founded New Paltz, New York in the 1660's, part of a large Huguenot migration to the nominally Dutch New Netherlands. These Huguenots, let 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 the original stone houses).
France once held vast possessions in North America, including the Mississippi and St. Lawrence river valleys, and the Great Lakes region. Quebec was founded in 1608, and Montreal in 1642. New France had 2,500 settlers by 1666. The colony grew slowly at first because France only took interest in fur trade and not colonizing. In 1663, this strategy changed with the arrival of Louis XIV upon the throne of France. He immediately sent ships containing 775 women (“les filles du roy") for the mostly male populated French Canadian demography serving in the fur trade posts. In only ten years, the population tripled to 7,000 inhabitants, reaching 15,000 in 1689, and 85,000 by 1754.
Having explored the Mississippi Valley to its mouth, from the direction of Canada, in the North, in 1682, Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle named the great central belt of territory Louisiane in honour of Louis XIV of France. In 1684, he left France with 4 ships and 300 colonists to establish a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. The expedition was plagued by pirates, hostile Indians and poor navigation. They set up Fort Saint Louis, near Victoria, Texas. The colony lasted only until 1688, when local Indians massacred the 20 remaining adults, and took 5 children as captives. The colony of Louisiana was ultimately founded in 1699 and its capital, New Orleans, in 1718. France soon came into conflict with Great Britain, whose colonies bordered French colonies in several places. This led to the French and Indian Wars (the name given to the American phase of the Seven Years' War).
Following the French defeat in the Seven Years' 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. Saint-Pierre and Miquelon are France's only remaining possessions north of the Caribbean.
The French were 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, France did not have the navy to re-supply its North American holdings – the blockade of the French Empire was a key part of British strategy against Napoleon – and because France did not want its possessions to fall into the hands of the British, Napoleon sold this colonial Louisiana to the United States, a sale referred to as the Louisiana Purchase. The date of this was May 3, 1803 and the fee, 15 million dollars, a considerable sum for the young American state. However, the land was extensive – from New Orleans to Montana – and from British colonial days, French Louisiana had begun to seem a constraint on the potential for expansion beyond the Appalachians. The purchase opened the way for 19th century American settlers.
West Indies
The French were also responsible for the settlement of the nation of Haiti, the nation which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, as well as the islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Lucie (which is now shared with the Netherlands Antilles) and their immediate areas. The western one-third of the Hispaniola was ceded to the French, by the Spanish crown in 1697 and the French gained more land in 1795, which established a legitimate French colony on the island. After the French were driven out by a slave revolt in 1804 (the first and only successful revolution by Africans in the New World) in 1804, Haiti gained independence in the same year. In Martinique throughout the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, slavery was never abolished. However, Guadeloupe is unique in these French colonies because slaves gained independence for a brief period 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) to the reinstatement of the institution of slavery by Bonaparte in 1802.
South America
French Guiana was first settled by the French in 1604. It remains an overseas department of France. From 1555 to 1567, French Huguenots, under the leadership of vice-admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon, made an attempt to establish the France Antarctique in Brazil, but were expelled. From 1612 to 1615, a new failed attempt was made in São Luís, Brazil.
See also
- French and Indian Wars
- French colonial empire
- New France
- French in the United States
- Illinois Country
- Haiti
Reference
- The French Founders of North America and Their Heritage, Sabra Holbrook, Atheneum, New York, 1976, hardback, ISBN 0-689-30490-0
Colonización francesa de las Américas | Prancūzijos kolonijos Amerikoje | Franse kolonisatie van Noord-Amerika | Francuska kolonizacja Ameryki Północnej | Den franska koloniseringen av Amerika
"French colonization of the Americas"