LIFE IN NEW FRANCE

150 years of French Rule.

ROLE OF THE CHURCH

IN NEW FRANCE
The Church Had two Roles in New France:
1: Religious Role :
to provide religious services to the colony

to convert the Natives to Christianity ( Main Reason)

Social Role
to take care of the educational needs of children
to take care of the sick
to help the poor and the less fortunate

The parish priests were very

close to their parishioners and
they had much influence over
the population

1. MISSIONARIES AND NATIVE PEOPLE

From the point of view of the Catholic Church, the MAIN
reason for establishing a colony in North America was to
convert Native people to Christianity as they were
considered savages.
The Church sent MISSIONARIES to New France to
accomplish this
Missionaries, along with the fur traders, were the first
Europeans to arrive in New France

1. MISSIONARIES AND NATIVE PEOPLE

The first group of missionaries
to arrive were known as the
RECOLLETS in 1615. They were
kicked out of the colony in the
mid 1630s.

The Jesuits (aka: The Black

Robes). replaced the Recollets
in 1630.

1. MISSIONARIES AND NATIVE PEOPLE

1634- the Jesuits established a permanent mission at Huronia they named it St.
Marie.
The Jesuits were known for being linguists, explorers and ethnographers.
They learned Aboriginal languages and customs, developed dictionaries and
grammars, translated and preserved much of the history and traditions in
their documents
Huronia was a region of in the Canadian province of Ontario, this land was
the original settlement of the Huron. The Hurons were so-named by the
French settlers and missionaries who first interacted with them. The Hurons
refer to themselves as the Wendat nation.
Sulpicians- Were the Seigneurs of Montral until the English Conquest, they
were missionaries and educators, and trained some of the clergy.

2: PROBLEMS OF CONVERSION:
The Native people had their own religion and
spirituality and thus resented the missionaries.
Some missionaries were even burned at the
stake.
The missionaries brought disease to the Native
peoples such as small-pox, typhus and the
plague.
50-75% of all Native peoples in North America
were wiped out from these epidemics.
SMALL POX: SEE NOTES
TYPHUS: SEE NOTES

2: PROBLEMS OF CONVERSION
In 1637, the missionaries began to establish villages
for the Native people to settle in, in order to train
them to be farmers like other colonists - this plan was
not very successful.

3. THE CHURCH AND THE COLONISTS

The Catholic Church played an extremely important role in
all aspects of the colony including government. It owned
about 66% of the land in New France and was the center of
daily life.

3. THE CHURCH AND THE COLONISTS

A Bishop headed the Church in New France.
The colony was divided into PARISHES, an area of land, each of which had a priest, a
church and a school.

Colonists paid a portion of their income to the Church (TITHE)

The Church ran and established all schools and hospitals, and supported the poor
and orphaned.

ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
( HOW THEY RAN NEW FRANCE)

The - Seigneurial
System:
This was the feudal
system of France that
was adopted in the
colony
Developed with the
purpose of colonizing
New France

SEIGNEURIAL SYSTEM
Feudal system was a type of government that was concerned with the distribution
of land and farming duties

Seigneurs: granted rights to work farm plots on his land to his vassals or habitants

The Habitants were:French settlers who farmed the land along the two shores of
the St. Lawrence Gulf and River in what is the present-day Province of Quebec in Canada
The habitants were required to pay feudal dues (yearly) to the seigneurs. They also had
to work the seigneurs land for three or four days a year.
This was known as a Corvee- a day's unpaid labor owed by a vassal to his feudal lord.

Feudal Dues Were taxes and fees paid to the Seigneur. could be paid with
money or Labour.

Vassal -

a person granted the use of land, in return for rendering respect ( homage),
faithfulness, and usually military service or its equivalent to a lord. ( Seigneur)

NEW FRANCE:
SOVEREIGN COUNCIL

The Sovereign Council :

This was an appointed political body in New France that
made all of the decisions for the colony
Not a Democracy, but an Oligarchy.
An Oligarchy is when a country is Ruled by a small group of people. ( usually
wealthy people)

SOVEREIGN COUNCIL WAS COMPOSED OF 3

MAIN LEADERS:

1: Governor: The most prestigious and powerful; appointed by

the King. Almost absolute power in the Colony - direct representative
of the King.
Responsible for military defense and managing international relations
( Diplomacy)

Governor Frontenac (became Governor in 1672) became famous for his

defense against the British ( Also Apparently A Ghost)

SOVEREIGN COUNCIL WAS COMPOSED OF 3

MAIN LEADERS:

2: Intendant concerned mainly with finance, policing and justice

Responsible for trade, economy, justice, seigneurial system

Acted as peace-keeper between Governor and Bishop when they disagreed

Jean Talon was the most famous and the FIRST Intendant, He expanded the
colony and increased its population, by settling the Filles Du Roi.

SOVEREIGN COUNCIL WAS COMPOSED OF 3

MAIN LEADERS:
3. Catholic Bishop: provided religious leadership to the colony and
organized missionary work
Bishop also possessed political power

PEOPLE AND PLACES TO KNOW:

Filles Du Roi or King's Daughters, were some 770 women who arrived in
the colony of New France between 1663 and 1673, under the financial sponsorship of
King Louis XIV of France. Most were single French women and many were orphans

Acadia was a colony of New France in northeastern North America that

included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day Maine to
the Kennebec River.

Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons was a French Jesuit

settlement near modern Midland, Ontario, from 1639 to 1649. It was the first European
settlement in what is now the province of Ontario. An agriculturally self-sufficient
community with an easy access canoe route to Quebec.

PEOPLE AND
PLACES TO KNOW:
Cardinal de Richelieu
"The Red Eminence" Became a cardinal in 1622,
and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. Richelieu
encouraged Louis XIII to colonize the Americas. (At
this time had no more than 100 permanent
inhabitants)

Unlike the other colonial powers, France encouraged

a peaceful coexistence in New France between Natives
and Colonists and sought the integration of Indians
into colonial society.
Samuel de Champlain, governor of New France at
the time of Richelieu, saw intermarriage between
French and Indians as a solution to increase
population in its colony.

PEOPLE AND PLACES TO KNOW:

Superior Jean de Brbeuf was a French Jesuit missionary who travelled to New France (Canada) in 1625. There
he worked primarily with the Huron peoples and was personally involved with
teaching. His lengthy conversations with Huron friends left him with a good
knowledge of their culture and spirituality.
Brbeuf was killed at St. Ignace in Huronia on March 16, 1649. He had been taken
captive when the Iroquois destroyed the Huron mission village at Saint-Louis. The
Iroquois took the priests and subjected him and native converts to ritual torture
before killing them.

PEOPLE AND PLACES TO KNOW

Jean-Baptiste Colbert He was one of Louis XIV's most clever ministers and actively promoted the
development of France's colonies which had been almost ignored in the past. In New
France, Colbert encouraged settlement by sending young girls (les filles du roi) to
be brides for the fur traders. He also sent over livestock to assist pioneer life and the
first horses arrived in the colony in 1665.

King Louis XIV of France

The Sun King In 1663, the King Louis XIV took over direct control of the government
of New France, making it a Crown colony with Qubec becoming a Royal Province.
Royal governors and other officials replaced private commercial ( A Few People
Living in New France just to make money) interests in governing Qubec.
At the same time, the French government initiated an organized system of recruiting
and transporting marriageable women to the colony. ( Filles Du Roi)

ENGLAND AND FRANCE

Throughout most of New Frances history, France and England were at war in Europe.
Hostilities frequently spread from Europe to America where French and English
colonists raided each others territories.
In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht ended hostilities between Britain and France, both
in Europe and in North America.
The treaty defined who owned portions of Canada, including Acadia, the Maritimes
and Hudson Bay and eased the tension between the two countries.

Under the terms of the treaty, England took control of Acadia, which was renamed
Nova Scotia. In addition, France was required to abandon its claim to settlements in
Newfoundland and return all English forts that had been captured in the previous
thirty years.
Although the treaty provided three decades of peace between the English and the
French, it did not end the fight over territory in North America, and by 1744 England
and France were at war again.