New France

C

2

The French and Indian War (1754-1763)

In 1753 the governor of Virginia sent an emissary, Major George Washington, to the French commander at Fort Le Boeuf in the Ohio Valley, ordering him to retire from the lands claimed by Great Britain. The commander received Washington courteously but rejected the ultimatum. The next year Washington was sent back with a force of militia. The clash of arms that followed marked the start of the French and Indian War.

For the first two years, the war went badly for the British and their colonists. Attempts to capture Fort Niagara, near Lake Ontario, and Fort Saint-Frédéric, on Lake Champlain, failed. An army led by Major General Edward Braddock marched on Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio, but was destroyed by the French and their indigenous allies. Only in Nova Scotia did the British enjoy any success; there they captured Fort Beauséjour. The British then expelled the original French settlers, the Acadians. Many went to France, although some returned years later. Others made their way to Louisiana, where their descendants, the Cajuns, reside to this day.

As the war progressed, the French destroyed British frontier forts and ravaged the frontier settlements. Then the tide turned. The British sent 20,000 regular troops to their colonies, along with a quarter of the ships of the British navy. In rapid succession Fort Duquesne, then Fort Niagara, were taken, and a British fleet and army laid siege to Québec. A battle there on the Plains of Abraham, lasting half an hour, resulted in the surrender of the city in September 1759. The next year the French failed in an attempt to recapture it. The remnants of the French forces, facing three British armies, were forced to capitulate. Three years later, when peace was negotiated, the French ceded Canada and the remaining part of Acadia to Great Britain, and Louisiana to Spain, France’s wartime ally.

So ended New France. Of that vast area, France kept only some fishing rights in Newfoundland and the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, which are still French territory today. Louisiana briefly came back into French hands in 1800, but was sold in 1803 to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase.

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III

Life in New France in 1750

By the mid-18th century the population of New France, compared to that of the 13 British colonies, appeared pathetic. All told, the settlers numbered some 88,500, whereas the British colonies had a population of some 2,500,000. Immigration was down to a trickle. However, the birth rate exceeded the death rate, and thus the population was doubling every generation. Eighty percent of the people lived in rural areas, and 20 percent lived in towns. In contrast, 85 percent of the population of France was rural. Moreover, 40 percent of the rural population of Canada lived within easy reach of one of the three towns (Québec, Montréal, and Trois-Rivières); that is, they could go to town and return home the same day.

A

Land Tenure

The land tenure system of New France was adapted from the system used in France. The king granted seigneuries (large parcels of land) to seigneurs (manorial landlords), who had to meet certain conditions. A seigneur had to settle the land grant with farmers, called habitants, who had perpetual leases on parcels of 150 to 200 acres, called concessions. Each habitant was required to clear the forest and bring his concession into production. The seigneur had to grant a concession to anyone who requested one, and that land remained in the habitant’s family. Only if a habitant failed to develop his land, or to pay the very modest yearly dues owed the seigneur, could a seigneur displace him and grant the land to another. Similarly, if a seigneur failed to find settlers for his seigneury, it was returned to the king. Because the habitants’ dues were so low, a seigneur could not usually make a profit until he had 50 families settled on his seigneury. In addition, each seigneur was obliged to construct a grist mill on his seigneury; if he did not, then anyone who chose could do so.

If a habitant wished to sell his lease to someone outside his family, he had to pay his seigneur one-twelfth of the price. This was an effective way to curb land speculation. Although the seigneurs’ incomes were limited, they more than made up for it with their enhanced social privileges and prestige.

B

Social Classes

Society was structured basically as it was in France, with sharply defined social classes, modified to suit local conditions. At the top were the nobles, high-ranking military officers, and officials of both state and church. Below them was the higher middle class, consisting of merchants and clergy below the rank of bishop. Seigneurs who were not nobles were in this class. Below them were the habitants, artisans, and laborers. At the bottom were slaves, both indigenous and African. Slaves were expensive, and thus only the wealthier people owned them. Most of the African slaves were employed in Louisiana and the Illinois country.

In the 17th century this social structure was somewhat flexible in New France, allowing a degree of upward social mobility, particularly for women. By the 18th century, however, the social classes had become virtual castes. Everyone knew his or her place and was expected to keep it.

Women were well protected under French law. A wife kept control of the property she brought to the marriage; her husband could not dispose of it as he saw fit. Every family was required by law and custom to care for its own in times of distress; aged parents had to be cared for by their children.

B

1

Habitants’ Way of Life

The aim of the typical habitant family was to be an independent economic unit, meeting their needs as much as possible from their 150 to 200 acres. The forest provided firewood and timber to build a house. In the 18th century, stone replaced wood for houses in the towns, to reduce the fire hazard, and to a degree in the countryside, particularly for churches, grist mills, and sawmills. Wheat was the chief crop; the French clung to their old staple food, bread, supplemented with root vegetables, fruits, nuts, and meat of all descriptions. Wheat could not be grown in lower Louisiana; it had to be milled into flour in the Illinois settlements of Kaskaskia and Cahokia, then shipped down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Rice thus became the staple crop in lower Louisiana. The habitants, unlike the peasants of Europe, had the right to hunt and fish on the seigneury. All told, the habitants of New France were far better fed than the peasants of Europe.

The Canadians quickly adopted the winter garb of the indigenous nations: fur coats, hats, mittens, leggings, moccasins, and bison and bear hides for cover while riding in sleighs. Women adopted the indigenous women’s short shift that reached down to mid-thigh for indoor wear. The habitant women produced an excellent woolen cloth for blankets and clothing. Habitant men wore their hair in a pigtail.

Little stress was placed on literacy. Only the nobility, seigneurs, military officers, and merchants who aspired to enter the nobility demanded it for their children. The majority were illiterate. The literacy rate was higher among women than men. In a habitant family, one member able to read and write sufficed; thus a girl could be spared to attend a parish school rather than a boy, whose labor was needed on the farm.

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