In the 17 th -XVIII e centuries, much of America was French. French colonial history in North America begins in 1603, when Samuel de Champlain stayed at the confluence of the Saguenay and the St. Lawrence and established a Franco-Amerindian alliance, which made possible a lasting settlement of the French in this region. . Five years later, with the support of Henri IV, the explorer founded the city of Quebec.
Very quickly, permanent settlements multiplied in the region:Trois-Rivières (1634), Montreal (1642)… From the St. Lawrence, the French entered the western lands, towards the Great Lakes, then south , in the Mississippi Valley. In 1699, they settled on the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico. New Orleans, the future capital of Louisiana, was founded there in 1718. Around 1700, the French caught up with their delay vis-à-vis Spanish and Portuguese colonization, and benefited from an undeniable lead over the English colonies, that their own empire encircles, going to occupy up to half of the North American continent. This empire was then organized around four main colonies:Newfoundland, Acadia, Canada and Louisiana. North America is about to become French.
But, against all odds, the 18 th century consecrates the decline of the French empire in America. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, concluded in the midst of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), ratified British ascendancy:the French had to cede Acadia, Newfoundland and Hudson Bay to Great Britain. Brittany. Louis XIV then preferred to sacrifice the colonies for the benefit of the preservation of French hegemony in Europe. However, France retains a vast territory stretching from the St. Lawrence to Louisiana. It was not until the end of the Seven Years' War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 that the French empire in America was completely dismantled:Canada and eastern Louisiana were ceded to the British, Spain having acquired New Orleans and the right bank of the Mississippi. France was then excluded from the continent:its presence in North America was reduced to the small archipelago of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. Triumphant, Great Britain now enjoys true supremacy across the Atlantic. At least until the riots of 1773.