Colonial America

French North America

Dr. Kane

mkane2@albany.edu Social Science 116 | MWF 12:35-1:30 PM

Office Hrs: M 10:20 - 11:20 & F 1:30 - 3:30 Social Science 60S

Wednesday, November 1

coming up

• Final proposals - Friday Nov 3
• Locations paper - Nov 17
• check the Blackboard syllabus

today's class

• British vs. French colonization
• Pierre Radisson - Canada
• Eunice Williams - Canada
• Esther Wheelwright - Canada
• Louis Congo - Louisiana
• Marie Rouensa - Illinois

Taylor, French America

• why did so few French choose to emigrate?
• why did present giving in Native diplomacy become a problem for the French?

British vs. French colonization

• French royal colonies from 1650
• greater French women's property rights
• less unfree labor (except Louisiana)
• focus on expansion rather than density
• professional, trained legal profession

habitants, marchands & seignerus

• seignerial grants: land owning low nobility
• habitants: low rent, but no land ownership
• very high rate of return to France
• why no Bacon's Rebellion?

economic power

• Canadian fisheries & Illinois farms feeding Caribbean plantations
• Caribbean plantations subsidizing North America
• fur trade and intermarriage as diplomacy
• reliance on Native allies in interior and for protection

British claims

French claims

Pierre Radisson

• Montreal nearly burned to the ground, 1699
• torture and adoption of male captives
• role of Native women in adopting captives
• importance of language in later life

Eunice Williams

• 1704 Deerfield MA raid, Queen Anne's War
• women and children not tortured before adoption
• Kahnawake Mohawk - French Catholic
• New England horror of Catholicism
• why would she stay?

Esther Wheelwright

• 1703 Wells Maine raid, Queen Anne's War
• education of daughters of important Native leaders at Quebec convent
• Gov. Vaudreuil's need to show progress
• Catholic superiority over Protestantism

Louis Congo

• Catholic morality & Code Noir - slaves must be baptized
• enslaved women must be freed if made pregnant by a white man
• enslaved people must be clothed and fed to certain standards, maintained in old age
• fear of Native uprising & poor whites

Marie Rouensa

• daughter of chief of Kaskaskia (Illinois)
• French & Illinois patriarchal marriage
• French Catholic worship of Virgin Mary & networks of women
• godparentage as alliance & frenchification