American Colonies:The Settling of North America

Megan Foster

American Colonies: 5 Canada and Iroquoia

• The French discovered in Florida during the 1560’s, that the Spanish were a powerful foe, able to destroy any hostile colony within easy reach

• For this reason, North America offered a safer setting for a French Colony

• Spanish Emperor declined to block French from colonization in Canada because “As regards in settling in the Northern Sea, there is nothing to envy in this; for it is of no value, and if the French it, necessity will compel them to abandon it.”

• As predicted, the French settlement, led by Jacques Cartier, was defeated by the bitter cold, the ravages of scurvy, and the hostility of Indians provoked by French thefts and threats.

• This put a stop to French colonization in St. Lawrence Valley until the next century.

• French voyagers then developed profitable and semi permanent presence at the rivers broad mouth in the Gulf of St. Lawrence

• Here they discovered two profitable commodities; Fish and Fur

• Here they practiced a mixed economy, in which hunting and gathering supplemented highly productive horticulture that sustained many large and permanent villages

American Colonies: 5 Canada and Iroquoia

• During the late 16th Century, French took early lead in the Fur Trade

• Developing alliances with the northern Algonquians• Mariners offered European manufactured goods (beads,

kettles, knives) in order to purchase furs from eager Indians• Offering high value per volume, furs were an ideal colonial

commodity, one that (like gold and silver) could more than pay for it’s transatlantic transportation

• Indians thought of all objects, material as well as living, as possessed of some spiritual power, which Algonquian speakers called Manitou

The word "manitou" written in Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics.

American Colonies: 5 Canada and Iroquoia

At first the Indians pursued trade within own cultural parameters. Indians thought of all objects, material as well as living(stones as well as beavers), as possessed of some spiritual power, which Algonquian speakers called Manitou. Detecting Manitou concentrated in especially bright and shiny objects, the northeastern Indians traditionally cherished copper ornaments brought from Lake Superior or polished seashell beads, known as wampum, from Long Island Sound. They discerned the same beauty and spiritual power in the colorful glass beads and shiny metals brought by European mariners and traders. Displayed on the body or carried into the grave, the new goods demonstrated high status and access to Manitou. Adapting the shiny new materials to traditional uses, Indians broke up brass kettles for reworking into arrowheads, necklaces, earrings, finger rings, and armbands

American Colonies: 5 Canada and Iroquoia

• Natives also adopted alcohol

• At first they balked at the novel taste and disorienting effect

• Eventually developed a craving

• Got drunk as a shortcut to spiritual trances

• Also offered a tempting release of aggressions

• Occasionally, the more ruthless mariners interrupted trade to kidnap Indians as human commodities

• The Indians were often take to Europe where they were put on profitable display as curiosities, and trained to assist future voyages as interpreters

American Colonies: 16; French America

• During the 1670’s and 1680’s, French traders and priests probed the southwest from trading posts along the Great Lakes, into the Mississippi Valley

• 1682 Sieur de la Salle led a party of French and allied Indians down the river to the Gulf of Mexico

• King Louis XIV was impressed with the Mississippi Rivers’ enormous strategic and economic potential

• To flatter the King, La Salle named the valley and adjoining Gulf Coast, Louisiana

American Colonies: 16; French America

• New France and Louisiana annually cost the crown more to administer than they generated in revenue from the fur and deerskin trades.

• Weary of the financial drain, the crown abruptly ordered a withdrawal from the upper country posts in 1696

• No longer able to live comfortably without metal ware, firearms, and gunpowder, the Indians faced hunger and destitution if denied access to European goods

• Beginning in the late 1720’s French posts sold goods at below market value to dissuade Indians from trading with the British colonists

• This revealed that the French’s strategic dependence on Indians exceeded Indians’ dependence on French trade

American Colonies: 16; French America

• During the long and hard-fought war of the Spanish Succession(1702-1713), Louisiana languished as Frances most peripheral colony in an outstretched Empire

• After the war, the Crown entrusted Louisiana to the company of the Indies• 1718 established New Orleans• 1717-1730 Company of the Indies transported 5,400 European colonists, and

6,000 slaves into Louisiana• Slaves included a mix of vagrants, blasphemers, thieves, smugglers, political

prisoners, and prostitutes• After 1731, Louisiana’s population grew by natural increase to 4,100 slaves,

3,000 slaves, 3,300 settlers, and 600 soldiers by 1746• Louisiana failed to develop a profitable export staple• Planters raised inferior grades of tobacco and Indigo that sold in France for less

than the high costs of production and shipment

American Colonies: 16; French America

• During the 17th Century, fewer than 250 families emigrated to Canada

• Only 12% were female• Most were poor, single young

men in search of work and food

• Most were urban laborers and artisans

• Most of the females came from an orphanage in Paris, and were known as filles du roi(daughters of the King)

• Male emigrants arrived in servitude as either soldiers or indentured servants, known as engages

• Most of the French who did emigrate (and stayed), significantly improved their status and standard of living, escaping their former poverty as landless laborers

• At least 80% of colonists lived as habitants, leasing farms of about 100 acres

• Engages generally served only 3 year terms

• Loaded and unloaded ships, rowed boats, constructed buildings, and cleared forests to make farms

• Soldiers served long and indeterminate terms until the Crown decided to demobilize

• Drilled, hauled supplies, constructed and repaired forts, and fought the Iroquois

• Filles du roi were provided passage and a cash marriage from the Crown

• Were technically free, but were expected to marry within a few weeks of their arrival

• They then became subject to legal authority of their new husbands, and served as housekeepers