• French explorers led expeditions along the North American Atlantic seaboard during the 1500s• The explorers established a number

of French settlements along the St. Lawrence River, later part of present-day Canada

•Giovanni da Verrazano and Jacques Cartier –Northwest Passage – a water route to Asia through the cold waters of present-day Canada.

• NEW FRANCE:–NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS:• French trade for furs because they are rare in Europe

and greatly desired = $•Native Americans trade fur for–Metal arrowheads, hoes, axes, knives, and hatchets;

all useful tools and weapons.–Because of trade with French the Native Americans

invaded their neighbors territories to get more beaver fur

• NEW FRANCE:A. NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS

i. Unlike the Spanish, the Canadian French could not afford to intimidate, dispossess, or enslave the Native Americans

ii. The French needed them as hunters and suppliers of furs

• NEW FRANCE:A. NATIVE AMERICAN

RELATIONSi. Jesuit Missionaries: Like

the Spanish, the French dispatched Catholic priests to convert Native Americans

• LIFE IN NEW FRANCE:–New France’s government resembled that

of New Spain. Both were strictly controlled by the powerful monarchs of the homeland.–Like the Spanish, the French king did not

permit an elected assembly in Canada–French established a handful of small

settlements in the Great Lakes and Illinois countries, including Detroit.

• NEW FRANCE CLIMATE:–Cold, long winters.–They could farm so mild

weather did return after the long cold winter

• Alliances with Native Americans Bring Benefits:–French adopted some of the Native

Americans’ ways;–Many fur traders married Native

American women, the children of these marriages became known as metis–French allied with the Great Lakes Indians

• Louisiana and New Orleans:–French explorer Robert de LaSalle claimed

the territory around the Mississippi River basin for France, naming it Louisiana.–Near the mouth of the Mississippi River,

the French founded New Orleans, which became the colony’s largest town and leading seaport

• Louisiana and New Orleans:–Hot climate and swampy landscape

promoted deadly diseases, especially dysentery and malaria–French primarily valued Louisiana as a

military base to keep the English from grabbing the immense Mississippi watershed