French Colonies of North America

By: Jeffrey Phongsamran

American Colonies 5- Canada and Iroquoia

During the sixteenth Century, English, French, and Dutch were crossings the Atlantic to plunder Spanish shipping vessels and a stake to make a fortune in the new world.

The French had originally tried to settle close to Spain but they were wiped out, they had to settle for the safer North Latitudes of North America. Spain did nothing about this because they believed that there was nothing up there and that France would just end up abandoning it.

It was the Fur trades that kept the French colonies afloat. Indians soon became dependant on European commodities and the French needed the hunting skills of the Natives. The French often felt the need to assist the Indians in their wars. The Indians divided into Algonquian and Iroquoians.

The French would have to choose an alliance, they eventually made enemies with the Iroquoians.

Canada and Iroquoia – 5: Canada Fur trading companies had mixed feelings about establishing

permanent trading post. The post attracted Indians more than Seasonal vessels, and if fortified it could scare away other traders. However, if a post became to well armed it would attract more colonist that could start their own trading.

Trying to control the east-west trade the French allied with Montagnais, Algonkin, and Huron who excluded and alienated the Five Nation Iroquois. As an agreement to their alliance the Montagnais, Algonkin, and Huron expected the French to help them fight the Iroquois.

Frequent raids by the Iroquois on the Montagnais, Algonkin, and Huron hurt the French’s fur trade.

The introduction of firearms revolutionized Indian warfare as Natives began to adopt hit and run tactics as opposed to massed formations.

The Iroquois saw the French as enemies and saw the importance of disrupting their trade. They began raiding the other tribes for their metal weapons to arm themselves.

Canada and Iroquoia - 5: The Five Nations The five nations consisted of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Gayuga, and

Seneca. They were very formidable enemies to the French that dwelled in large, fortified hilltop villages. They were also able to sustain long distance and large-scale raids against multiple enemies.

The Huron could nearly match the devotion to war but the Montagnais and Algonkin were hunter-gathers who could not.

During the 15th century they were often at war with each other. It wasn’t until the early 16th century that a prophet preached of peace and unity.

To replenish warriors they had lost they would adopt or torture people. When enemies were captured they were distributed to lineages that lost someone. The elder women would then decided their fate: adopt or die.

Women and children were adopted most of the time and the men

faced death. Those adopted would endure non-crippling

torture before being shown lavish care and affection.

they would then take the name of the deceased, if they

were to resist they would be killed. They soon found themselves needing more and more

captives to replenish lost warriors due to larger casualties.

Canada and Iroquoia – 5: Destruction During the mid 17th century, Iroquois warfare escalated to

genocidal proportions. Destroying native enemies and French colonies.

European trade and diseases combined distorted the Iroquois way of war. The deaths from diseases cause the Iroquois to take offense to regain their numbers and spiritual powers.

They stormed Huron villages killing and capturing everyone. The villages were destroyed and any refugee was hunted down. This was to deter the captives from leaving because they had no where else to go.

The disease still took its toll and many Iroquois were still killed off. The French concluded that the Iroquois population contained more adopted captives.

New France was far more violent then people had hoped and yielded very little profit.

American Colonies 16- French America Until 1663, Canada belonged to the fur trading industry

rather than the French Crown. New France was being threatened of being severely

outnumbered by English colonist. The French Crown then took

over the colonies and began paying for the transatlantic trip to

stimulated emigration. How ever many of the immigrants returned due to the inability to be self

sustaining. Potential emigrants found it cheaper to walk to Spain, who was in

constant need of French artisan's and laborers. In 1660 200,000 French lived in Spain opposed to the 5,000 who lived in New France.

Even though French peasants were poorer than English peasants, the French peasants would rather stay poor and where they knew rather then travel into the distant unknown.

The cost of exporting eventually became to expensive to keep so New France’s economy relied on what the Crown spent on the military. Eventually the military cost exceeded the profits of fur trade.

French America 16 - Opportunity Those that emigrated to New France and stayed improved

their status and standard of living. 80% of colonist lived as habitants, leasing farms of one hundred acres, they paid no taxes and had the right to hunt and fish.

They had a regular consumption of meat and white bread, things a French Peasant could barley afford.

While the colonist lived comfortably none became wealthier than the other, there was a sense of equality.

In contrast to Protestant British colonist, women in Catholic New France had an alternative to marriage and childbearing. They were able to become nuns and run schools, asylums, and hospitals.

A Jesuit priest concluded “The English colonist amassed means and makes no superfluous expense; the French enjoys what he has and often parades what he has not.”

French America 16 - Authority Compared to the British, the French colonies were more

militaristic, paternalistic, and centralized form of authority. The power of the crown frequently fell short of total control.

To govern New France, the crown appointed three powers: (1) Military governor-general, civil administrator, and a Catholic bishop.

The crowned hoped that they would compete for the crowns loyalty. In theory the governor-general would be supreme while the civil administrator would control finance and the bishop supervised the church.

The French colonies established no elective assembly to represent the colonists. Instead the crown appointed a sovereign council of give to seven as well as the three appointed powers.

French America 16 – Rebels and Allies The French had two different policies with the natives. In the

hinterlands where the French lacked numbers, they made it important to cherish allies and manipulate enemies as needed. In the plantation cores, the French treated the Indians callously as the other Europeans did.

A bunch of small tribes that the French lumped together as the “Petites Nations.” were once numerous, however they dwindled and depleted in the 17th century by disease and slave raids.

Another group called the Natchez were preserving substantial elements of Mississippian culture. However when French Tobacco farmers began to invade their lands they retaliated. They longed for an opportunity to redeem their pride by restoring the world they had known before the French colonized their land.

The uprising was terrifying to the French because the African slaves would also side with the Indians. It combined two great nightmares, an Indian uprising and a slave rebellion.

The Natchez were eventually taken out and a French priest said “God wishes that they yeild their place to the new peoples”.