New France and Louisiana (Atlantic History)

Introduction

The colonies France founded on the mainland of North America in the 17th century—Acadia, Canada, and Louisiana—have rich, distinctive literatures. A growing scholarly literature over the last twenty years or so has also deepened our knowledge of the 18th-century French colonies of Ile Royale, on Cape Breton Island, and Illinois. By contrast, the failed 16th-century Huguenot colony of Caroline and the French outpost at Placentia, on Newfoundland, have not received the attention they deserve. In contrast to Britain’s North American empire, France’s colonies are rarely discussed as a group, and French imperial history in the 17th and 18th centuries remains a field in the making. Among American and British scholars, two features of France’s colonial experience in North America garner the most attention: the foundations of the peculiar racial politics of Louisiana, and relations between Native Americans and the French in the Great Lakes region.

General Overviews

Perhaps the longest-standing scholarly debate about France’s American colonies revolves around the question of whether French culture produced a distinctive style of imperialism. Seed 1995 is the most influential recent assertion that the French approached colonization differently as a consequence of their Old World cultural inheritance. Aubert 2004 similarly emphasizes the transatlantic transmission of old French ideas. Banks 2002 and Pritchard 2004 suggest, by contrast, that the difficulty of communication and the challenges of the local environments sent the various French colonies on divergent trajectories. Eccles 1990 is an admirably succinct and accessible overview of France’s North American empire. Mathieu 2001 provides an overview from a geographical perspective. Havard and Vidal 2003 is much more detailed and enriched by recent scholarship. Berthiaume 1990 examines the French North American empire through its travel literature.

Aubert, Guillaume. “The Blood of France: Race and Purity of Blood in the French Atlantic World.” William and Mary Quarterly 61.3 (2004): 439–478.
DOI: 10.2307/3491805Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Challenging long-standing, common assumptions that the French had a more fluid understanding of race than did the Spanish or the English, Aubert argues that colonists in New France and Louisiana brought with them from their home country a hierarchical ideology based on “purity of blood.”
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Banks, Kenneth J. Chasing Empire across the Sea: Communications and the State in the French Atlantic, 1713–1763. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2002.
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In this study of French colonial political culture, Banks emphasizes the distance between France and its colonies in Canada, Louisiana, and the Caribbean, and the inability of the French state to direct policy on the other side of the Atlantic.
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Berthiaume, Pierre. L’aventure américaine au XVIIIe siècle: Du voyage à l’écriture. Cahiers du Centre de Recherche en Civilisation Canadienne-Française 27. Ottawa, ON: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1990.
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Berthiaume examines France’s American colonial project through the lens of travel literature.
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Eccles, W. J. France in America. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1990.
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Although his work is now dated, Eccles provides an account of French imperialism that is unusually accessible to Anglo-American readers. Eccles devotes most of his attention to Canada, but he discusses Louisiana and France’s colonies in the West Indies as well.
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Havard, Gilles, and Cécile Vidal. Histoire de l’Amérique française. Paris: Flammarion, 2003.
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French historians Havard and Vidal provide the most comprehensive, up-to-date survey available of France’s North American imperial ventures, with the greatest attention paid to Canada.
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Mathieu, Jacques. La Nouvelle-France: Les Français en Amérique du Nord, XVI–XVIIIe siècle. 2d ed. Sainte Foy, QC: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2001.
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Mathieu surveys France’s North American empire from a geographical perspective.
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Pritchard, James. In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670–1730. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511808555Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examining the French empire across a wide terrain, including the Caribbean, Louisiana, and Canada, Pritchard details the social and political forces that drove the various French colonies along sharply divergent historical trajectories.
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Seed, Patricia. Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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With separate discussions of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch imperialism, Seed argues that the European colonial powers brought to the Americas distinctive understandings of the roots of authority. The author suggests that the French arrived already believing that they would have to conduct elaborate rituals dramatizing the indigenous peoples’ support for the French king.
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Primary Sources

There is a rich published source base for the study of France’s North American colonies. Charlevoix 1994 and Lescarbot 1907–1914 are representative volumes from much larger collections. Thwaites 1896–1901 is the best single source available for the study of the Great Lakes region in the early modern period. Le Page Du Pratz 1763 is also uniquely valuable for Louisiana.

Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier de. Journal d’un voyage fait par ordre du roi dans l’Amérique septentrionale. 2 vols. Bibliothèque du Nouveau Monde. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1994.
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Charlevoix (b. 1682–d. 1761) is sometimes identified as the first historian of New France. His account of his travels is important in its own right, but this edition is noteworthy also because it is part of a larger publishing project entitled Bibliothèque du Nouveau Monde, which includes other volumes of importance for the study of New France.
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Le Page Du Pratz, M. History of Louisiana, or the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina. 2 vols. London, 1763.
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Originally published in installments in the French language in Paris in the 1750s, Du Pratz’s History of Louisiana is an important source for the study of Louisiana’s relations with the Natchez and other Indian groups. Republished by General Books in 2010.
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Lescarbot, Marc. History of New France. 3d ed. 3 vols. Edited and translated by W. L. Grant. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1907–1914.
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Lescarbot’s account of his voyage to Acadia in 1606 and 1607 is an important source to consult for the history of that colony and region. The volume is one of several narratives important for Canadian history published by the Champlain Society.
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Thwaites, Reuben Gold, ed. The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: 1610–1791. 71 vols. Cleveland, OH: Burrows, 1896–1901.
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The Jesuit Relations is an indispensible source for the study of France’s interactions with Native American peoples. The free online edition is fully word-searchable. Republished by Burrows in 1985 and as an eBook in 2005 by Creighton University (Omaha, NE).
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Journals

The Canadian Historical Review, Louisiana History, and Acadiensis define their remits geographically, and along with articles on later periods devote considerable space to the founding French colonies within their respective regions. The Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française and French Colonial History concentrate on the French.

Acadiensis. 1971–.
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Acadiensis is a leading regional history journal in Canada, concentrating on the Maritime provinces. It is an important outlet for research on Acadia. Last five years of publication available online to subscribers.
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Canadian Historical Review. 1920–.
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The Canadian Historical Review is the most prominent historical journal devoted to Canada. Available online to subscribers.
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French Colonial History. 2002–.
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Since its inception in 2002, French Colonial History has published articles on a wide range of topics related to the French empire, including many on the colonies in North America. Available online to subscribers only.
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Louisiana History. 1960–.
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Louisiana History publishes historical work on Louisiana from the time of the founding of the colony to the recent past.
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Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique Française. 1947–.
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Established in 1947, Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française publishes articles on the French in North America from the early colonial period to the recent past. Recent editions available online to subscribers; others available in html or pdf for free.
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New France

The term “New France” has some intrinsic ambiguity. The governors of the colony claimed to hold authority over Acadia, for example, but that colony was older, retained practical autonomy, and developed a distinctive local culture. For the purposes of this entry, New France refers to the French-settled parts of the St. Lawrence valley and watershed. Decades since its publication in French, Dechêne 1992 remains one of the most influential works on the history of New France, so defined. Partly under the influence of Dechêne, scholars have shown much greater interest in long-term developments as compared to event-driven chronology. In Greer 1997, the author organizes a short survey into thematic rather than chronological chapters. Moogk 2000 seeks continuities across hundreds of years. Magnuson 1992 takes a long view on education. A sense of the longue durée informs Davis 1995. In comparison with these others, Miquelon 1987 is more interested in politically driven transitions and precise periodization.

Davis, Natalie Zemon. Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
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In this study of three women on the geographical or cultural margins of European society in the 17th century, Davis provides an evocative account of a religious woman, Marie de l’Incarnation, who moved from France to Canada.
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Dechêne, Louise. Habitants and Merchants in Seventeenth-Century Montreal. Translated by Liana Vardi. Studies on the History of Quebec. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1992.
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This study of French colonial Montreal, first published in French in 1974, remains a classic. Deploying the methodology and perspective of the Annales school, Dechêne examines the life cycles, economic activities, and social interactions of fur traders and farmers from 1642 to 1725.
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Greer, Allan. The People of New France. Themes in Canadian Social History 3. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.
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Greer provides a brief thematic overview of Canada’s French colonial history.
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Magnuson, Roger. Education in New France. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1992.
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Magnuson surveys formal education in the colony, moving from the work of missionaries to the Indians through later schools for white children in Montreal, Trois Rivières, and Quebec.
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Miquelon, Dale. New France, 1701–1744: A Supplement to Europe. Canadian Centenary Series 4. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1987.
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Miquelon provides a survey of Canadian history during the critical period when, he argues, New France found its place within the French Empire.
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Moogk, Peter. La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada—A Cultural History. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2000.
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In this collection of thematic essays, Moogk searches for the roots of modern French-Canadian culture in the colonial period.
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French-Indigenous Relations

In contrast with the English, the French in North America have long had a reputation for working successfully with the local indigenous peoples. Axtell 1986 suggests that the reputation might be well deserved, at least because of the work of their missionaries. White 2012 emphasizes French influences on Native American material culture. Greer 2005 examines the extraordinary impact of French Catholicism on certain Native Americans, by focusing on the life and legacy of one Mohawk saint. Sleeper-Smith 2001 is less interested in religion than in subsistence strategies and economics, but she too finds French influence persisting among Native Americans long after the fall of France’s formal North American empire. White 1991 suggests that the French negotiated effectively with the Indians because they recognized that they never could control their nominal empire, and that power could be exerted only through a process of constant negotiation. Richard White’s work has framed much of the debate on French-Indian relations. Both Rushforth 2014 and Havard 2003 suggest that White underestimated the resilience of French power. In an important corrective to much of this literature, DuVal 2008 argues that historians have concentrated too much on the French side of these relationships. Various indigenous groups had their own distinctive objectives.

Axtell, James. The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
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Axtell compares French Jesuit missionaries with their English Protestant counterparts and argues that the Jesuits’ more adaptive persuasive strategy was the key to their relative success.
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DuVal, Kathleen. “Indian Intermarriage and Métissage in Colonial Louisiana.” William and Mary Quarterly 65.2 (2008): 267–304.
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DuVal argues convincingly that scholars have placed too great an emphasis on the distinctiveness of the French and neglected distinctions between Indian groups. In addition to examining the Quapaw and Choctaw closely, DuVal provides a valuable, critical review of the expanding literature on French-Indian intermarriage.
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Greer, Allan. Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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Examining the life of a Mohawk woman who became a saint, Greer sets her story in a multifaceted Atlantic context, paying attention to Native American and European perspectives.
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Havard, Gilles. Empire et métissages: Indiens et Français dans le Pays d’en Haut, 1660–1715. Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2003.
DOI: 10.14375/NP.9782894483213Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Havard examines the Great Lakes region as a French imperial domain, tracing both France’s ambitions and the persistent power of discrete, coherent Native American groups. He challenges Richard White’s assessment of French power and his depiction of the region as a land of refugees.
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Rushforth, Brett. Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014.
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Rushforth argues that the slave trade was an essential component of New France’s relations with indigenous peoples, and gave rise to a distinctive form of slavery in the colony. With a detailed and multifaceted examination of the practice of slavery in New France, he places the colony within a wide network spanning much of the North American continent and the Atlantic world.
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Sleeper-Smith, Susan. Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes. Native Americans of the Northeast. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001.
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Examining the western Great Lakes region, Sleeper-Smith argues that strategic, economic, and affectionate bonds between Native Americans and French colonists persisted through the British conquest of New France and the subsequent creation of the United States. She argues that the Native Americans’ close ties to the French helped shape the contours of their cultural survival in the American Midwest.
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White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815. Cambridge Studies in North American Indian History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511584671Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
In this massively influential, sweeping historical survey of the Great Lakes region, White analyzes power relations on a human scale. He suggests that in the French colonial period, power relations were constantly being tested and renegotiated. The French could not exert their will alone. There was frequent violence, and chaos reigned for some time in the 17th century. Nonetheless, over time, until 1763, Indian and French people developed shared expectations for each other’s behavior.
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White, Sophie. Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians: Material Culture and Race in Colonial Louisiana. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.
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Using clothing as a marker of ethnic identity, White examines the mixing of cultures in all the various regions of French colonial Louisiana.
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Louisiana

The historical scholarship on Louisiana, even for the French colonial period, has been profoundly influenced by its ultimate absorption into the United States. Usner 1992 identifies the colony as a “frontier,” with the implication that the interaction of peoples there represented one distinct manifestation of a process playing out in different ways in various parts of America. Hall 1992 emphasizes Louisiana’s distinctiveness and suggests that the pattern of race relations differed in Louisiana because of the peculiarities of the local slave trade. Hall’s work has inspired many subsequent scholars to situate Louisiana, and New Orleans in particular, within that fluid multiracial cultural mix often associated with the Atlantic world. Spear 2009 concentrates on local racial dynamics in New Orleans. Clark 2007, Dawdy 2008, and Bond 2005 all examine Louisiana within an Atlantic context. Despite the recent scholarly trends, Giraud 1991 remains valuable as a rare work on Louisiana written from the perspective of France.

Bond, Bradley G., ed. French Colonial Louisiana and the Atlantic World. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005.
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A collection of essays by leading scholars on French Louisiana, locating the colony in its diverse Atlantic contexts. Revised and enlarged versions of papers presented at a symposium cosponsored by the department of history at the University of Southern Mississippi in March 1999.
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Clark, Emily. Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society, 1727–1834. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
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Clark examines the life and work of Ursuline nuns in a New Orleans convent to illuminate the complex, multicultural world of colonial New Orleans.
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Dawdy, Shannon. Building the Devil’s Empire: French Colonial New Orleans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226138435.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Dawdy places the early history of New Orleans into its local geographical and imperial contexts and explains how, despite the frustrations of many of its founders, the city remained vibrant and ultimately developed its unique cultural mix.
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Giraud, Marcel. A History of French Louisiana. Vol. 5, The Company of the Indies, 1723–1731. Translated by Brian Pearce. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991.
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This is the last volume of Giraud’s meticulously detailed narrative of early Louisiana, drawing on materials from French archives.
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Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.
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A seminal work in Atlantic history as well as in Louisiana history, Africans in Colonial Louisiana argues that the enslaved in colonial Louisiana retained much of their African heritage and, mixing with Indians and white settlers, developed an “Africanized” culture.
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Spear, Jennifer M. Race, Sex, and Social Order in Early New Orleans. Early America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
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Working with local archival sources, Spear examines the factors that contributed to the growth of a large, free, black and mixed-race population in colonial New Orleans, and the reasons why its presence disrupted elite notions of racial hierarchy and social order.
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Usner, Daniel H. Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi Valley before 1783. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
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Indians, Settlers, and Slaves is a rare accomplishment. While it is common for textbooks to devote attention simultaneously to white colonists, Indians, and black slaves, few research-driven monographs have accomplished this feat. Usner ties these groups together by examining in detail the operations of the regional economy.
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Fort Caroline, Acadia, Plaisance, and Ile Royale

We have difficulty grasping the full variety of French colonial experiences in North America, for the simple reason that some French colonies are rarely if ever studied. McGrath 2000 is one of the few recent works on the first French colony in North America, the ill-fated Fort Caroline. Martel 2013 examines the colony within its Protestant context. Plaisance, the French post on Newfoundland, was much more successful in its day, but it has generated even less scholarly interest; Brière 1983 provides an introduction to the history of the French presence on the island. The literature on Acadia and Ile Royale is much richer, thanks in part to the work of Griffiths 2005 and Johnston 2001. Hodson 2012 argues that Acadians figured prominently in French imperial ambitions long after Acadia had been conquered and its original colonial population had been dispersed.

Brière, Jean-François. “Pêche et politique à Terre-Neuve au XVIIIe siècle: La France véritable gagnante du traité d’Utrecht?” Canadian Historical Review 64 (1983): 168–187.
DOI: 10.3138/CHR-064-02-03Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The French colonial presence on Newfoundland demands greater scholarly attention, especially the fishing port of Plaisance, which thrived in the late 17th and early 18th centuries and provided Louisbourg many of its early migrants. Brière provides a clear overview of the French presence on the island, and a sharp analysis of France’s imperial interests.
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Griffiths, Naomi E. S. From Migrant to Acadian: A North American Border People, 1604–1755. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2005.
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Griffiths has devoted a rich and productive career to the study of Acadia. Her analysis of the period after the British conquest in 1713 may be too kind to the conquerors, but Griffiths is the leading authority on the social and political history of the French colony.
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Hodson, Christopher. The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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Although Hodson examines a period long after Acadia had been conquered by the British, his work is an important contribution to French imperial history, as in several chapters he explores the efforts of French imperial schemers to used the exiled Acadians in new colonial schemes.
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Johnston, A. J. B. Control and Order in French Colonial Louisbourg, 1713–1758. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2001.
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Johnston has written several books on Louisbourg and Ile Royale. Though written from a decidedly top-down perspective, Control and Order in French Colonial Louisbourg is the best social history of this bizarre French colony, populated almost entirely by men.
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Martel, Heather E. “Timucua in Deer Clothing: Friendship, Resistance and Protestant Identity in Sixteenth-Century Florida.” Atlantic Studies 10.1 (2013): 13–33.
DOI: 10.1080/14788810.2013.764181Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examining Huguenot explanations for the violent destruction of La Caroline, Martel emphasizes the importance of providentialism and the Calvinists’ fear of assimilating into native societies.
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McGrath, John T. The French in Early Florida: In the Eye of the Hurricane. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.
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McGrath carefully reconstructs the events leading to the destruction of Fort Caroline and the end of the first French effort to plant a colony in the American South.
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Illinois

Illinois was the last French colony established in North America. It has most commonly drawn the attention of historians examining French-Indian relations on a continental scale (see especially DuVal 2008, discussed in French-Indigenous Relations). Ekberg 2000 gains much by maintaining its focus on the colony itself and its local stories. Morgan 2010 reminds us that even small colonies can have a large impact, by generating radiating waves of environmental transformation.

Ekberg, Carl J. French Roots in the Illinois Country: The Mississippi Frontier in Colonial Times. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2000.
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Ekberg examines village life and agricultural practices in various settlements in Illinois and finds, even in the organization of the landscape, manifest signs of the settlers’ French heritage.
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Morgan, M. J. Land of Big Rivers: French and Indian Illinois, 1699–1778. Shawnee Books. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010.
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In this expansive environmental history of colonial Illinois, Morgan reconstructs in exquisite detail the colony’s impact on the wider region’s plants and animals. Although Illinois itself was small, Morgan demonstrates that it altered an enormous landscape.
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