What it was
Beginning with Jacques Cartier’s voyages and the founding of Quebec in 1608, New France grew as a thin network of settlements, missions, and trading posts. It reached from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi to Louisiana.
Role
Its economy rested on the fur trade, which depended on alliances with Indigenous nations, and on farming along the St. Lawrence. Its population stayed small compared with the British colonies.
Fate
France lost New France to Britain and Spain after the Seven Years’ War, ceding Canada in 1763. Its language, faith, and culture endure in Quebec and francophone communities today.