France begancolonizing America in the 16th century and continued into the following centuries as it establisheda colonial empire in theWestern Hemisphere. France establishedcolonies in much of eastern North America, on several Caribbean islands, and in South America. Most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, rice, sugar, and furs.
The firstFrench colonial empire stretched to over 10,000,000 km2 (3,900,000 sq mi) at its peak in 1710, which was the second largest colonial empire in the world, after theSpanish Empire.[1][2]
As they colonized the New World, the French established forts and settlements that would become such cities asQuebec,Trois-Rivières andMontreal in Canada;Detroit,Green Bay,St. Louis,Cape Girardeau,Mobile,Biloxi,Baton Rouge andNew Orleans in the United States; andPort-au-Prince,Cap-Haïtien (founded asCap-Français) inHaiti,Saint-Pierre andFort Saint-Louis (formerly asFort Royal) inMartinique,Castries (founded asCarénage) inSaint Lucia,Cayenne inFrench Guiana andSão Luís (founded asSaint-Louis de Maragnan) in Brazil.
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The French first came to the New World as travelers seeking a route to the Pacific Ocean and wealth. Major French exploration of North America began under the rule ofFrancis I, King of France. In 1524, Francis sent Italian-bornGiovanni da Verrazzano to explore the region betweenFlorida andNewfoundland for a route to the Pacific Ocean. He would find parts ofNew York Harbor. The French would take narrow land ports of the BoroughsQueens andBrooklyn from the upper and lower parts of the harbor until 1609 when theBritish and theDutch came to take control of it from the French Verrazzano. He would later give the namesFrancesca andNova Gall to that land betweenNew Spain and English Newfoundland, thus promoting French interests.[3]
In 1534, Francis I of France sentJacques Cartier on the first of three voyages to explore the coast of Newfoundland and theSt. Lawrence River. He founded New France by planting a cross on the shore of theGaspé Peninsula. The French subsequently tried to establish several colonies throughout North America that failed, due to weather, disease, or conflict with other European powers. Cartier attempted to create the first permanent European settlement in North America atCap-Rouge (Quebec City) in 1541 with 400 settlers but the settlement was abandoned the next year after bad weather and attacks fromNative Americans in the area. A small group of French troops were left onParris Island, South Carolina in 1562 to buildCharlesfort, but left after a year when they were not resupplied by France.Fort Caroline established in present-dayJacksonville, Florida, in 1564, lasted only a year before being destroyed by the Spanish fromSt. Augustine. An attempt to settle convicts onSable Island off Nova Scotia in 1598 failed after a short time. In 1599, a sixteen-person trading post was established inTadoussac (in present-dayQuebec), of which only five men survived the first winter. In 1604[4]Pierre Du Gua de Monts andSamuel de Champlain founded a short-lived French colony, the first inAcadia, onSaint Croix Island, presently part of the state ofMaine, which was much plagued by illness, perhaps scurvy. The following year the settlement was moved toPort Royal, located in present-dayNova Scotia.
Samuel de Champlain foundedQuebec (1608) and explored theGreat Lakes. In 1634,Jean Nicolet foundedLa Baye des Puants (present-dayGreen Bay), which is one of the oldest permanent European settlements in the USA. In 1634,Sieur de Laviolette founded Trois-Rivières. In 1642,Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, foundedFort Ville-Marie which is now known asMontreal.Louis Jolliet andJacques Marquette foundedSault Sainte Marie (1668) andSaint Ignace (1671) and explored theMississippi River. At the end of the 17th century,René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle established a network of forts going from theGulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes and theSaint Lawrence River.Fort Saint Louis was established in Texas in 1685, but was gone by 1688.Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac foundedFort Pontchartrain du Détroit (modern-dayDetroit) in 1701 andJean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville foundedLa Nouvelle Orléans (New Orleans) in 1718.Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville foundedBaton Rouge in 1719.[5]
The European settlement ofMobile, Alabama began with French colonists, who in 1702 constructedFort Louis de la Louisiane, at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff on theMobile River, as the first capital of theFrench colony ofLa Louisiane. It was founded byFrench Canadian brothersPierre Le Moyne d'Iberville andJean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, to establish control over France's claims toLa Louisiane. Bienville was appointed as royal governor of French Louisiana in 1701. Mobile's Roman Catholic parish was established on July 20, 1703, byJean-Baptiste de la Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier,Bishop of Quebec.[6] The parish was the first French Catholic parish established on theGulf Coast of the United States.[6]
In 1704 theshipPélican delivered 23 French women to the colony; passengers had contractedyellow fever at a stop inHavana.[7] Though most of the "Pélican girls" recovered, numerous colonists and neighboring Native Americans contracted the disease in turn and many died.[7] This early period was also the occasion of the importation of the first Africanslaves, transported aboard a French supply ship from the French colony ofSaint-Domingue in theCaribbean, where they had first been held.[7] The population of the colony fluctuated over the next few years, growing to 279 persons by 1708, yet shrinking to 178 persons two years later due to disease.[6]
These additional outbreaks of disease and a series of floods resulted in Bienville ordering that the settlement be relocated in 1711 several miles downriver to its present location at the confluence of theMobile River andMobile Bay.[8] A new earth-and-palisade Fort Louis was constructed at the new site during this time.[9] By 1712, whenAntoine Crozat was appointed to take over administration of the colony, its population had reached 400 persons.
The capital ofLa Louisiane was moved in 1720 toBiloxi,[9] leaving Mobile to serve as a regional military and trading center. In 1723 the construction of a new brick fort with a stone foundation began[9] and it was renamed Fort Condé in honor ofLouis Henri, Duke of Bourbon.[10]
In 1763, theTreaty of Paris was signed, ending theSeven Years' War, which Britain won, defeating France. By this treaty, France ceded its territories east of the Mississippi River to Britain. This area was made a part of the expanded BritishWest Florida colony.[11] The British changed the name of Fort Condé toFort Charlotte, afterQueen Charlotte.[12]
The French were eager to explore North America but New France remained largely unpopulated. Due to the lack of women, intermarriages between French and Indians were frequent, giving rise to theMétis people. Relations between the French and Indians were usually peaceful. As the 19th-century historianFrancis Parkman stated:
"Spanish civilization crushed the Indian; English civilization scorned and neglected him; French civilization embraced and cherished him."
— Francis Parkman.[13]
To boost the French population,Cardinal Richelieu issued an act declaring that Indians converted to Catholicism were considered "natural Frenchmen" by theOrdonnance of 1627:
"The descendants of the French who have accustomed to this country [New France], together with all the Indians who will be brought to the knowledge of the faith and will profess it, shall be deemed and renowned natural Frenchmen, and as such may come to live in France when they want, and acquire, donate, and succeed and accept donations and legacies, just as true French subjects, without being required to take no letters of declaration of naturalization."[14]
Louis XIV also tried to increase the population by sending approximately 800 young women nicknamed the "King's Daughters". However, the low density of the population in New France remained a very persistent problem. At the beginning of theFrench and Indian War (1754–1763), the British population in North America outnumbered the French 20 to 1. France fought a total of six colonial wars in North America (see the fourFrench and Indian Wars as well asFather Rale's War andFather Le Loutre's War).[15]
In 1562,Charles IX, under the leadership of AdmiralGaspard de Coligny sentJean Ribault and a group ofHuguenot settlers in an attempt to colonize the Atlantic coast and found a colony on a territory which would take the name of theFrench Florida. They discovered the sound and Port Royal Island, which would be calledParris Island inSouth Carolina, on which he built a fort namedCharlesfort. The group, led byRené Goulaine de Laudonnière, moved to the south where they founded theFort Caroline on the Saint John's river inFlorida on June 22, 1564.[16]
This irritated the Spanish who claimed Florida and opposed theProtestant settlers for religious reasons. In 1565,Pedro Menéndez de Avilés led a group of Spaniards and foundedSaint Augustine, 60 kilometers south of Fort Caroline. Fearing a Spanish attack, Ribault planned to move the colony but astorm suddenly destroyed his fleet. On 20 September 1565 the Spaniards, commanded by Menéndez de Avilés, attacked and massacred all the Fort Caroline occupants including Jean Ribault.[17]
The French interest in Canada focused first on fishing off theGrand Banks of Newfoundland. However, at the beginning of the 17th century, France was more interested in fur from North America. The fur trading post ofTadoussac was founded in 1600. Four years later,Champlain made his first trip to Canada on a trade mission for fur. Although he had no formal mandate on this trip, he sketched a map of the St. Lawrence River and in writing, on his return to France, a report entitledSavages[18] (relation of his stay in a tribe ofMontagnais near Tadoussac).
Champlain needed to report his findings toHenry IV. He participated in another expedition to New France in the spring of 1604, conducted byPierre Du Gua de Monts. It helped the foundation of a settlement onSaint Croix Island, the first French settlement in the New World, which would be given up the following winter. The expedition then founded the colony ofPort-Royal.
In 1608, Champlain founded a fur post that would become the city ofQuebec, which would become the capital of New France. In Quebec, Champlain forged alliances between France and theHuron andOttawa against their traditional enemies, theIroquois. Champlain and other French travelers then continued to explore North America, withcanoes made frombirchbark, to move quickly through theGreat Lakes and their tributaries. In 1634, the Normand explorerJean Nicolet pushed his exploration to the West up to Wisconsin.[19]
Following the capitulation of Quebec by theKirke brothers, the British occupied the city of Quebec and Canada from 1629 to 1632. Samuel de Champlain was taken prisoner and there followed the bankruptcy of theCompany of One Hundred Associates. Following theTreaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France took possession of the colony in 1632. The city ofTrois-Rivières was founded in 1634. In 1642, the AngevinJérôme le Royer de la Dauversière foundedVille-Marie (laterMontreal) which was at that time, a fort as protection against Iroquois attacks (the first great Iroquois war lasted from 1642 to 1667).
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Despite this rapid expansion, the colony developed very slowly. The Iroquois wars and diseases were the leading causes of death in the French colony. In 1663 whenLouis XIV provided theRoyal Government, the population of New France was only 2,500 European inhabitants. That year, to increase the population, Louis XIV sent between 800 and 900 'King's Daughters' to become the wives of French settlers. The population of New France reached subsequently 7,000 in 1674 and 15,000 in 1689.[20][21]
From 1689 to 1713, the French settlers were faced with almost incessant war during theFrench and Indian Wars. From 1689 to 1697, they fought the British in theNine Years' War. The war against the Iroquois continued even after theTreaty of Rijswijk until 1701, when the two parties agreed on peace. Then, the war against the English took over in theWar of the Spanish Succession. In 1690 and 1711, Quebec City had successfully resisted the attacks of the English navy and then British army. Nevertheless, the British took advantage of the second war. With the signing of theTreaty of Utrecht in 1713, France ceded to Britain Acadia (with a population of 1,700 people),Newfoundland andHudson Bay. Under the Sovereign Council, the population of the colony grew faster. However, the population growth was far inferior to that of the BritishThirteen Colonies to the south. In the middle of the 18th century, New France accounted for 60,000 people while the British colonies had more than one million people. This placed the colony at a great military disadvantage against the British. The war between the colonies resumed in 1744, lasting until 1748. A final and decisive war began in 1754. TheCanadiens and the French were helped by numerous alliances with Native Americans, but they were usually outnumbered on the battlefield.[22]
On May 17, 1673, explorersLouis Jolliet andJacques Marquette began exploring the Mississippi River, known to the Sioux asdoes Tongo, or to theMiami-Illinois as missisipioui (the great river). They reached the mouth of the Arkansas and then up the river, after learning that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico and not to the California Sea (Pacific Ocean).[23]
In 1682, the NormandCavelier de la Salle and the ItalianHenri de Tonti came down the Mississippi to its Delta. They left fromFort Crevecoeur on the Illinois River, along with 23 French and 18 Native Americans. In April 1682, they arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi; they planted a cross and a column bearing the arms of the king of France. In 1686 de Tonti left 6 men near the Quapaw village of Osotouy, creating the settlement of Arkansas Post. De Tonti's Arkansas Post would be the first European settlement in the Lower Mississippi River valley. La Salle returned to France and won over theSecretary of State of the Navy to give him the command ofLouisiana. He believed that it was close toNew Spain by drawing a map on which the Mississippi seemed much further west than its actual rate. He set up a maritime expedition with four ships and 320 emigrants, but it ended in disaster when he failed to find the Mississippi Delta and was killed in 1687.[24]
In 1698,Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville leftLa Rochelle and explored the area around the mouth of the Mississippi. He stopped between Isle-aux-Chats (now Cat Island) and Isle Surgeres (renamed Isle-aux-Vascular or Ship Island) on February 13, 1699, and continued his explorations to the mainland, with his brotherJean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville toBiloxi. He built a precarious fort, called 'Maurepas' (later 'Old Biloxi'), before returning to France. He returned twice in the Gulf of Mexico and established a fort atMobile in 1702.
From 1699 to 1702, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville was governor of Louisiana. His brother succeeded him in that post from 1702 to 1713. He was again governor from 1716 to 1724 and again 1733 to 1743. In 1718, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville commanded a French expedition in Louisiana. He founded the city of New Orleans, in homage toRegentDuke of Orleans. The architectAdrian de Pauger drew the orthogonal plane of theOld Square.
In 1718, there were only 700 Europeans in Louisiana. TheMississippi Company arranged for ships to bring 800 more, who landed in Louisiana in 1718, doubling the European population.John Law encouragedGermans, particularly Germans of theAlsatian region who hadrecently fallen under French rule, and theSwiss to emigrate.
Prisoners were set free in Paris in September 1719 onwards, under the condition that they marry prostitutes and go with them to Louisiana. The newly married couples were chained together and taken to the port of embarkation. In May 1720, after complaints from the Mississippi Company and the concessioners about this class of French immigrants, the French government prohibited such deportations. However, there was a third shipment of prisoners in 1721.[25]
TheMississippi Company arranged for hundreds of German immigrants to move to Louisiana by ships in 1721.Charles Frederick d'Arensbourg was a leader of the settlement called theGerman Coast. By the end of 1720, the Mississippi Company failed. Later, more Germans immigrated to Louisiana during the 1750s and 1770s.[26]
The lastFrench and Indian War resulted in the dissolution ofNew France in 1763, withCanada going toGreat Britain andLouisiana going toSpain, although mainly absent. French colonists descendants or "Canadiens" that had settled in theValley of Ohio, migrated into the Spanish territory West of the Mississippi and were instrumental in pushing further West toward the Pacific through their longer experience of the new continent and its native inhabitants. Only the islands ofSaint-Pierre-et-Miquelon are still in French hands.
In 1802 Spain returned Louisiana to France, butNapoleonsold it to the United States in 1803. The French left manytoponyms (Illinois,Vermont,Bayous) andethnonyms (Sioux,Coeur d'Alene,Nez Percé) across North America.
A major French settlement lay on the island ofHispaniola, where France established the colony ofSaint-Domingue on the western third of the island[27] in 1664. Nicknamed the "Pearl of the Antilles", Saint-Domingue became the richest colony in the Caribbean due to slave plantation production of sugar cane. It had the highest slave mortality rate in the western hemisphere.[28] A 1791 slave revolt, the only ever successful slave revolt, began theHaitian Revolution, led to freedom for the colony's slaves in 1794 and, a decade later, complete independence for the country, which renamed itselfHaiti. France briefly also ruled the eastern portion of the island, which is now theDominican Republic.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, France ruled much of theLesser Antilles at various times. Islands that came under French rule during part or all of this time includeDominica,Grenada,Guadeloupe,Marie-Galante,Martinique,St. Barthélemy,St. Croix,St. Kitts,St. Lucia,St. Martin,St. Vincent andTobago. 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 theSeven Years' War[29] and theNapoleonic Wars. Following the latter conflict, France retained control ofGuadeloupe,Martinique,Marie-Galante,St. Barthélemy, and its portion ofSt. Martin; all remain part of France today. Guadeloupe (including Marie-Galante and other nearby islands) and Martinique each is anoverseas department of France, while St. Barthélemy and St. Martin each became anoverseas collectivity of France in 2007.
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France Antarctique (formerly also spelled France antartique) was a French colony south of theEquator, inRio de Janeiro,Brazil, which existed between 1555 and 1567, and had control over the coast from Rio de Janeiro toCabo Frio. The colony quickly became a haven for theHuguenots, and was ultimatelydestroyed by the Portuguese in 1567.
On November 1, 1555, French vice-admiralNicolas Durand de Villegaignon (1510–1575), a Catholic knight of theOrder of Malta, who later would help the Huguenots to find a refuge against persecution, led a small fleet of two ships and 600 soldiers and colonists, and took possession of the small island ofSerigipe in theGuanabara Bay, in front of present-day Rio de Janeiro, where they built a fort namedFort Coligny. The fort was named in honor ofGaspard de Coligny (then a Catholic statesman, who about a year later would become a Huguenot), an admiral who supported the expedition and would use the colony in order to protect his fellow believers.To the still largely undeveloped mainland village, Villegaignon gave the name of Henriville, in honour ofHenry II, theKing of France, who also knew of and approved the expedition, and had provided the fleet for the trip. Villegaignon secured his position by making an alliance with theTamoio andTupinambá Indians of the region, who were fighting the Portuguese.
Unchallenged by the Portuguese, who initially took little notice of his landing, Villegaignon endeavoured to expand the colony by calling for more colonists in 1556. He sent one of his ships, theGrande Roberge, to Honfleur, entrusted with letters to King Henry II, Gaspard de Coligny and according to some accounts, the Protestant leader John Calvin.
After one ship was sent to France to ask for additional support, three ships were financed and prepared by the king of France and put under the command of Sieur De Bois le Comte, a nephew of Villegagnon. They were joined by 14 Calvinists from Geneva, led byPhilippe de Corguilleray, including theologiansPierre Richier and Guillaume Chartrier. The new colonists, numbering around 300, included 5 young women to be wed, 10 boys to be trained as translators, as well as 14 Calvinists sent by Calvin, and also Jean de Léry, who would later write an account of the colony. They arrived in March 1557. The relief fleet was composed of:
Doctrinal disputes arose between Villegagnon and the Calvinists, especially in relation to the Eucharist, and in October 1557 the Calvinists were banished from Coligny island as a result. They settled among the Tupinamba until January 1558, when some of them managed to return to France by ship together withJean de Léry, and five others chose to return to Coligny island where three of them were drowned by Villegagnon for refusing to recant.
In 1560Mem de Sá, the new Governor-General of Brazil, received from the Portuguese government the command to expel the French. With a fleet of 26 warships and 2,000 soldiers, on 15 March 1560, he attacked and destroyed Fort Coligny within three days, but was unable to drive off their inhabitants and defenders, because they escaped to the mainland with the help of the Native Brazilians, where they continued to live and to work. Admiral Villegaignon had returned to France in 1558, disgusted with the religious tension that existed between French Protestants and Catholics, who had come also with the second group (see French Wars of Religion).
Urged by two influential Jesuit priests who had come to Brazil with Mem de Sá, namedJosé de Anchieta andManuel da Nóbrega, and who had played a big role in pacifying the Tamoios, Mem de Sá ordered his nephew,Estácio de Sá to assemble a new attack force. Estácio de Sá founded the city of Rio de Janeiro on March 1, 1565, and fought the Frenchmen for two more years. Helped by a military reinforcement sent by his uncle, on January 20, 1567, heimposed final defeat on the French forces and decisively expelled them from Brazil, but died a month later from wounds inflicted in the battle. Coligny's and Villegaignon's dream had lasted a mere 12 years.
Equinoctial France was the contemporary name given to the colonization efforts of France in the 17th century in South America, around the line of Equator, before "tropical" had fully gained its modern meaning: Equinoctial means in Latin "of equal nights", i.e., on the Equator, where the duration of days and nights is nearly the same year round.
The French colonial empire in the New World also includedNew France (Nouvelle France) in North America, particularly in what is today the province of Quebec, Canada, and for a very short period (12 years) alsoAntarctic France (France Antarctique, in French), in present-day Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. All of these settlements were in violation of the papal bull of 1493, which divided the New World between Spain and Portugal. This division was later defined more exactly by theTreaty of Tordesillas.
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France équinoxiale started in 1612, when a French expedition departed fromCancale, Brittany, France, under the command of Daniel de la Touche, Seigneur de la Ravardière, andFrançois de Razilly, admiral. Carrying 500 colonists, it arrived in the Northern coast of what is today the Brazilian state ofMaranhão. De la Ravardière had discovered the region in 1604 but the death of the king postponed his plans to start its colonization.
The colonists soon founded a village, which was named "Saint-Louis", in honor of the French kingLouis IX. This later becameSão Luís in Portuguese,[1] the only Brazilian state capital founded by France. On 8 September,Capuchin friars prayed the first mass, and the soldiers started building a fortress. An important difference in relation to France Antarctique is that this new colony was not motivated by escape from religious persecutions to Protestants (see French Wars of Religion).
The colony did not last long. A Portuguese army assembled in theCaptaincy of Pernambuco, under the command of Alexandre de Moura, was able to mount a military expedition, which defeated and expelled the French colonists in 1615, less than four years after their arrival in the land. Thus, it repeated the disaster spelt for the colonists of France Antarctique, in 1567. A few years later, in 1620, Portuguese and Brazilian colonists arrived in number and São Luís started to develop, with an economy based mostly in sugar cane and slavery.
French traders and colonists tried again to settle a France Équinoxiale further North, in what is todayFrench Guiana, in 1626, 1635 (when the capital,Cayenne, was founded) and 1643. Twice aCompagnie de la France équinoxiale was founded, in 1643 and 1645, but both foundered as a result of misfortune and mismanagement. It was only after 1674, when the colony came under the direct control of the French crown and a competent Governor took office, that France Équinoxiale became a reality. To this day, French Guiana is a department of France.[30]
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