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The French first came to the New World as travelers seeking a route to the Pacific Ocean and wealth. Major French exploration of North America began under the rule of Francis I, King of France. In 1524, Francis sent Italian-born Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the region between Florida and Newfoundland for a route to the Pacific Ocean.
These became the most enduring alliances between the French and the First Nation community. The French were, however, under pressure from religious orders to convert them to Catholicism. [17] Through alliances with various Native American tribes, the French were able to exert a loose control over much of the North American continent. Areas of ...
The total area of the French colonial empire, with the first (mainly in the Americas and Asia) and second (mainly in Africa and Asia), the French colonial empires combined, reached 24,000,000 km 2 (9,300,000 sq mi), the second largest in the world (the first being the British Empire).
France was expansive during all but the end of the seventeenth century: the French began trading in India and Madagascar, founded Quebec and penetrated the North American Great Lakes and Mississippi, established plantation economies in the West Indies and extended their trade contacts in the Levant and enlarged their merchant marine.
Louisiana (French: Louisiane) or French Louisiana [6] (Louisiane française) was an administrative district of New France.In 1682 the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle erected a cross near the mouth of the Mississippi River and claimed the whole of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River in the name of King Louis XIV, naming it "Louisiana".
The first French colonial empire stretched to over 10,000,000 km 2 (3,900,000 sq mi) at its peak in 1710, which was the second largest colonial empire in the world, after the Spanish Empire. [33] [34] In the French colonial regions, the focus of the economy was on sugar plantations in the French West Indies.
1541: Failed French settlement at Charlesbourg-Royal (Quebec City) by Cartier and Roberval. 1542: Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo reaches the California coast. 1559: Failed Spanish settlement at Pensacola, Florida. 1562: Failed Huguenot settlement in South Carolina (Charlesfort-Santa Elena site). 1564: French Huguenots at Jacksonville, Florida (Fort ...
The convention's first act was to establish the French First Republic and officially strip the king of all political powers. Louis XVI, by then a private citizen bearing his family name of Capet, was subsequently put on trial for crimes of high treason starting in December 1792. On 16 January 1793 he was convicted, and on 21 January, he was ...