The French in North AmericaCanada and Iroquoia

1500-1600

Theme 4Hayley Phillips

History 140Dr. Arguello

The Fur Trade Canada and Iroquoia

Some of the more attractive furs consisted of beaver, fox, otter, lynx, and martin

The mariners purchased these furs from the eager Indians

Furs were an ideal colonial commodity

One that could pay more, just like gold or silver

Indians volunteered to perform hard work by hunting the animals and treating their fur

The Indians considered all objects, even stones, as possessed of some spiritual power

Canada Canada and Iroquoia

The French had shifted their focus northward to reclaim the St. Lawrence Valley, formally probed by Jacques Cartier, known as Canada

The French had a prime focus of the Fur Trade, they did not come to farm

The St. Lawrence was ideal for 5 reasons:

1. The Valley was safely distant from Spanish power

2. The northern location mean especially thick and valuable furs

3. the resident Montagnais and Algonkin were especially skilled hunters

4. The long St. Lawrence offered the deepest access westward into the continent of any river and flowed into the North Atlantic

5. At a place the French called Quebec, the river narrowed to provide both good harbor and high ground

The Five Nations Canada and Iroquoia

The women cultivated large fields of maize, beans, and squash

The Five Nation Iroquois could sustain long distance and large-scale raids against enemies

Success in war boosted powerful esteem for young men to prove themselves to outsiders

A captive man faced death by torture

The Iroquois held ceremonies to contest the skills of the torturers and the stoic endurance of the victim

A captive could be chosen for adoption and be lavished with care and affection

The Dutch Trade Canada and Iroquoia

In 1614 a Dutch company established a year round trading post on the upper Hudson near present day Albony

The Iroquois suddenly enjoyed immediate proximity on the Hudson to the Dutch

The Iroquois acquired growing quantities of European weaponry

The French came to depend upon Iroquois hostility as a barrier that kept northern Indians from traveling south to trade with the Dutch

French America1650-1750

As British colonies grew in numbers, power and ambition, the French increasingly looked to the Indians

The French could more readily recruit them because the French was less threatening to the Indians

New French worked well as militarized the colony for harassing and hindering the British expansion

Emigrants French America

The French learned they needed more colonists to defend Quebec from their English rivals

Fearful of losing the colony again, the French crown ordered the company of New France to recruit more inhabitants

By 1675, seventy seigneuries divided most of the land between Quebec and Montreal in the St. Lawrence Valley

Seigneuries were men of means who could obtain immense colonial estates and titles of nobility

OpportunityFrench America

Habitants took pride in their regular consumption of meat and white bread, which few French peasants could afford

The Canadian habitant enjoyed privileges of hunting and fishing

Although most habitants lived comfortably, few became wealthier than their neighbors

The colony’s limited economy and authoritarian government also discouraged entrepreneurial initiative and thrift in favor of leisure

Rebels and Allies French America

Selective settlement divided the vast colony into two landscapes; settlers and Indians

The French lumped together as the “Petites Nation”

These peoples had been depleted during the seventeenth century by exposure to the diseases and slave raids

When one Chitimacha killed a French Priest, the French enslaved all the women and children