THE FRENCH IN CANADA

The French didn’t have any permanent settlements in Canada until 1608, when Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec. Few colonists ever came to the French territory in Canada: The climate was considered undesirable, and the French government provided few incentives for them to leave France. In addition, the dissident Huguenots were legally forbidden from emigrating. It should be noted that over 65 percent of all those who did come to Quebec ended up returning to France.

The French also desired to convert Native Americans to Catholicism but used much less coercive tactics than the Spanish. Samuel de Champlain actually entered into alliances with the Huron and other Native American tribes, largely for protection for his somewhat unstable settlement. The French actually joined with the Huron and the Algonquians in a battle against the Iroquois tribe in 1608.

Those settlers who did stay in Quebec turned from farming to trapping and fur trading. French explorers ventured into the interior of North America to develop the fur-trading industry. Jesuit Jacques Marquette and fur trader Louis Joliet reached the Mississippi River, Wisconsin, and Arkansas; Robert La Salle continued to explore along the Mississippi River and named the territory Louisiana (after Louis XIV).

The impact of the French on Native Americans they came into contact with was profound. The diseases they brought wiped out an estimated 30 percent of all tribes they came into contact with. Many Native American tribes desired to dominate the fur trade desired by the French; this created a serious of very bloody wars between these tribes. Jesuit priests were effective in converting thousands of Native Americans to Christianity. Jesuits were more successful than the Spanish Franciscans were in converting natives, largely because natives were also asked to become forced laborers in Spanish territories. When the French fought the British and British colonists in the French and Indian wars in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, most Native American tribes sided with the French.

In short, the French territories were successful as a fur-trading enterprise and a place where natives were converted to Christianity; the territories were a failure in the sense that a large number of settlers never took root there.

It should also be noted that during this period the Dutch made their initial entry into the Americas. The Dutch were largely interested in the commercial possibilities that the Americas offered them. In 1609 Henry Hudson discovered and named the Hudson River, and proceeded to establish trading settlements on the island of Manhattan, at Fort Nassau (soon renamed Albany), and in present-day Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Like the French, the Dutch were unable to attract large numbers of settlers to the Dutch territories. Like the French, the Dutch were successful in fur trading. However, the aggression of the Dutch in expanding their territory brought them into bloody conflict with several Native American tribes, thus limiting the success of Dutch economic endeavors.