Although we know today that part of Canada was once a French colony and that there is a small territory in South America called French Guiana, the history of French colonizationin theAmericas, sometimes is not addressed by some teachers. Well then, to understand the reasons that led the French to occupy the “New World”, it is necessary to keep in mind the context of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.
By studying the content of Protestant Reformations, in which proposals for the transformation and reinterpretation of the Western Christian tradition are seen, you have certainly learned that such reforms have also brought about intense political transformations in the Europe. The reformist process, which effectively began at the beginning of the 16th century (specifically in 1517), coincided with the beginning of the european maritime expansion, captained by the newly formed Catholic States of the Iberian Peninsula, Portugal and Spain. As a result of the reforms, a large part of the population began to have a Protestant orientation, which led to successive civil wars on the continent.
The hostile climate that has taken hold in Europe has led some of these people to try to settle in the newly discovered American continent. This was the case of the Puritans (English Calvinists) and the Huguenots (French Calvinists). The latter tried to occupy (receiving support from the French monarch who sympathized with Calvinism) on two occasions the Brazilian territory, then under the yoke of the Portuguese empire. The first attempt was in 1555, in the region of Baía da Guanabara, and the second, in 1612, in the region of the state of Maranhão. These attempts to French invasions in Brazil were called FranceAntarctica (for the Guanabara region) and FranceEquinoctial (for the Maranhão region).
In addition to their presence on Brazilian soil, the French also launched an occupation of the extreme north of South America, in the region known as the Guianas, and also in the Caribbean region, where they managed to install a mercantilist system in the so-called Antilles French. The strategy used by the French crown in these regions was the same used by Portugal, Holland and Spain: the implementation of plantations, large monoculture plantations, using slave labor.
However, it was in North America that the French embarked on their most far-reaching colonial project. From the beginning of the 17th century until the year 1763 (end of WarFromSevenYears between France and England), France occupied a region that stretched from Quebec, Canada, to New Orleans, in the southern United States. This region skirted, to the west, the thirteencolonies. The type of colonization undertaken was similar to that of the English Thirteen Colonies, that is, it was an effective settlement of settlements. Various economic activities, such as hunting, fishing and logging, were part of the daily lives of French settlers. These activities subsidized the settlers' expenses and served to boost the construction of infrastructure.
With the Seven Years' War between the crowns of England and France that took place between 1756 and 1763, the situation in French America changed radically. In the year 1759, the English army conquered the Quebec region, center of French occupation. In this process, the figure of the British general stood out Jameswolf, who, in alliance with the Indians of the Iroquoi tribe, managed to take Quebec from the French. In the years that followed, the French suffered gradual defeats. In 1763, the TreatedinParis, which implied, among other things, attributing the possession of the territories of Canada and the French Antilles to the English crown.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
