In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670-1730

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Jan 22, 2004 - History - 484 pages
Elusive Empire is the first full account of how during 1670 and 1730 French settlers came to the Americas. It examines how they and thousands of African slaves together with Amerindians constructed settlements and produced and traded commodities for export. Bringing together much new evidence, the author explores how the newly constructed societies and new economies, without precedent in France, interacted with the growing international violence in the Atlantic world in order to present a fresh perspective of the multifarious French colonizing experience in the Americas.
 

Contents

Colonial Populations
5
12 Aboriginal populations
6
13 African Immigrants
13
14 European Immigrants
18
15 Size and Structures
30
16 New France
33
17 The French CircumCaribbean
45
18 Conclusion
72
57 Conclusion
262
Colonies Defended
267
The FrancoDutch War 16721678
269
62 Opening Hostilities
271
63 Colonial Initiatives
277
64 Metropolitan Responses
285
65 Naval Assaults
290
66 Conclusion
297

Settlements and Societies
74
22 Material Conditions
76
23 Landholding
80
24 Social Groups
90
25 Institutions of Social Life
108
26 Conclusion
123
Production
125
32 Tobacco
132
33 Fish
141
34 Fur
152
35 Sugar
164
36 Conclusion
189
Trade and Exchange
191
42 Ineffectual Policies Legislative Futility
192
43 Commercial Trade
195
44 Shipping
210
45 The Slave Trade
217
46 Money Capital and Credit
226
47 Conclusion
230
Government and Politics
232
52 Absolutism
233
53 Colbert and His Successors
236
54 Colonial Government
243
55 Colonial Justice
251
56 Colonial Resistance
256
The Nine Years War in America 16881697
303
72 The Windward Islands
305
73 Saint Domingue
315
74 Spanish America
322
75 New France
335
76 Acadia Newfoundland and Hudson Bay
343
77 Conclusion
357
The War of the Spanish Succession in America 17021713
360
82 The Trade and Treasure of Spanish America
364
83 Trade and War in the CircumCaribbean
376
84 La Course Royale Reappears in the Americas
386
85 Northern Colonies Abandoned
393
86 Conclusion
402
Elusive Empire
404
92 Rivals for a Continent
405
93 FrancoSpanish Hostilities
410
94 Piracys Resurgence
412
95 Colonies in Search of a Navy
419
96 Elusive Empire
422
Appendixes
425
2 Slave Populations of the French West Indies 16701730
430
3 Provisional List of Colonial Administrators 16701730
434
Bibliography
443
Index
475
Copyright

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Page 448 - MÉMOIRES des Commissaires du Roi et de ceux de Sa Majesté Britannique sur les possessions et les droits respectifs des deux Couronnes en Amérique ; Avec les Actes publics et Pièces justificatives.
Page xxiv - I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Vancouver Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis.

About the author (2004)

James Pritchard is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Queen's University. He is the author of Louis XV's Navy, 1748-1762 (1987), and Anatomy of a Naval Disaster (1995), which was awarded the Keith Matthews Prize by the Canadian Nautical Research Society and received a John Lyman Book Award from the North American Society for Oceanic History.