Notes on Explorers (pages 55-

  • French explorers
  • Looking for a route to Asia through N.A.
  • 1523 – Giovanni da Verrazano hits the east coast
  • Finds NFL
  • Make relationships with local First Nations
  • Know land, trade routes, transportations, and enviro
  • Help to survive
  • Jacques Cartier
  • First voyage
  • Sailed for the French
  • Sailed up the St. Lawrence and claimed land for France
  • Established relations with First Nations (Iroquois)
  • Donnacona’s sons came back to France
  • Reports mass resources
  • Second expeditions (let’s get them resources) 1535
  • Up the St. Lawrence (further this time)
  • Makes relations with First Nations at Stadacona
  • Smallpox decimates First Nations
  • Relations become strained due to death rate
  • Cartier takes captives to ensure cooperation
  • Captives die on the way
  • Third and final voyage
  • Stories of Kingdom of Saguenay secure more funding in 1541
  • Brought cattle, supplies, and farming gear
  • Problems
  • Scurvy
  • Bad winter
  • Unfriendly welcome from First Nations
  • Cartier driven home
  • results of Cartier’s voyages
  • Charted Gulf of St. Lawrence
  • Paved the way for future colonization
  • Civil war halts French colonization for 50 years

-France needs new sources of wealth

-decades of warfare have taken their resources and they need to recover

-N.A. is a source of resources

-Start of the “New France” company

-given a monopoly by the king (exclusive control in a market) over the fur trade

-Monopoly is over all Acadia

-Champlain sails with the head of the company

-Champlain becomes known as the “father of New France”

-colony is established at St. Croix in 1604

-later moved to Port Royal in 1605 (better location)

-this colony did not work out

-Champlain is determined to establish a lasting colony

-chooses Stadacona site

-names the new site “Quebec”

-from the Algonquin word “Kebec” (where the water narrows)

-new colony is the base for future French operations in the New World

-Government in New France

-Champlain needs investors to start fur trade

-creates a group of 100 investors called the One Hundred Associates

-purposes:

-establish French trade in the New World

-spread of Catholicism

-the investors are unsuccessful so King Louis XIV makes the colony a royal colony in 1663

-government structure

-What led to independence from France

1) France gets caught up in European wars and losing focus on the New World

2) New France is so far away that they need to act independently to take care of business

-relations between New France and Iroquois

-bad at first with attacks between them and French burning Iroquois villages (1666)

-French colonies form militias to defend

-all men 16-60 must defend

-Expansion of New France

-within 20 years they controlled a large section of land

-Role of the church in New France

-conduct religious ceremonies

-convert the First nations to Christianity

-Recollets and the Jesuits are the main groups

-Jesuits

-missionaries of the Society of Jesus

-primary goal of converting First Nations

-converted First Nations have conflict with non-converted First Nations

-French give the converted ones guns

-the Seigneurial System

-land is given to lords

-lords rent out land to censitaires, or habitants

-habitants pay to the church and land taxes

-The Fur Trade

-became the source of money

-driving purpose of the colonies

-drove the French further inland

-search for more beaver as the pelts grew scarce

-the “Voyageurs” or “Coureurs De Bois”

-moving inland for pelts

-come to prefer First Nations life vs. colony life

-Treaty of Utrecht

-British and France were at war both in Europe and N.A.

-Treaty of Utrecht changed the geography

-New France surrendered possession of…

-Newfoundland

-Hudson Bay

-Acadia (Nova Scotia)

-Expulsion of the Acadians

-“Acadia” was somewhat independent of New France

-caught between the French and the British empires

-asked to swear allegiance to British but were promised they would not have to fight the French

-1754 the new governor doesn’t like this and so he expels the Acadians from Nova Scotia

-The Seven Years War

-1750 France wants to win in Europe but England wants to win in N.A.

-both French and British rely on Aboriginal allies

-the Iroquois with the British and the Algonquin with the French

-Ohio valley is the key geographical issue

-The French couldn’t get supplies to their soldiers

-British were blocking them

-The British Conquest of Quebec

-general Wolfe brings 15,000 soldiers and 180 ships and lays waste to the French forces in Quebec

-General Wolfe defeats French forces

-The Treaty of Paris

-the Seven Years War is over

-the Europeans no longer need their Aboriginal allies

-relations decline

Questions to Answer:

1) How was the structure of the government of New France similar to the structure of the government of Canada today?

2) Why would the French settlers in 1663 welcome the decision to become a royal colony under France and be governed by the French Monarchy?

3) In your opinion, was it correct for the Jesuits to attempt to convert the First Nations people to Christianity? Why/why not?

4) If there had not been a fashion demand for beaver pelts in Europe how do you think this would have affected colonization efforts in Nouvelle-France?

5) Explain how the historical thinking concept of “Ethical Dimension” applies to the expulsion of the Acadians.

6) Why would the British conquest of New France be considered historically significant?