The French Founders of North America and Their Heritage

by Sabra Holbrook

A history of the French in North America from the earliest explorers to today's separatist movement in Quebec. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689304900
• ISBN13: 9780689304903
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: Atheneum Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Being first doesn't win the race

The book summarizes french colonization between Maine and Hudson Bay. The question I was interested in was, why were the French colonies, which supported exploration as far as the west coast centuries before Lewis and Clark, utterly unable to compete with the British economically or demographically by the time of the French-Indian War? The book offered insight: 1) Territory- Quebec was not nearly as self sustaining as the colonies south. The economy was very one way- Canadians produced furs and almost nothing else. The terrain and weather severely limited what could be done. 2) Indians- I may be wrong, but I don't think the English had the same problems with Iriquois that plagued Canada. The Iriquois were explicitly allied with the English during the 17th century. The indians would later switch allegiance, but by that time demographics made them irrelevant. 3) Character of the Immigrants- Seems like the Frenchmen that came over were on a basic level anti-social. Two icons: The coreur, who went off alone into the woods to live like an indian and bring back furs once a year. The french have always had a land fetish, this was an extreme manifestation. The swindler/trader, who came to get rich off the market between Europe and the coreur. In short, these were not families that came over to start a new life, but rather individuals (men) who came to make a quick buck or hit the sticks. Consider the women- the King of France had to send ships full of women to get the colony rolling, almost certainly not there by choice. I don't recall anything even remotely like that in English colonies. So in summary, the lopsided environment attracted people not really interested in the long term future of the colonies (the first response of every governor who hit a problem was to request transfer back to France- New France was NOT a desirable place to be for it's decision makers), so naturally they made bad decisions. That, combined with a powerful and hostile indian neighbor (the Iriquois) prevented the colony from becoming truly self sustaining. The people there were tough enough to survive, but lacked the resources to grow, and that made all the difference compared to the English.