Sometimes I think about the languages my ancestors spoke-- French, on my mother's side; Irish, on my father's; and wonder how they both managed to disappear in the United States, so that everyone speaks English there now. Ireland... that's a long story, and I won't go into that here; but in the 1600s, France was the most powerful country in Europe. How did it manage to lose the American colonies? It's especially astonishing when you see the territory France claimed around 1700. The little British colonies squashed against the east coast must have felt hemmed in by the vast power of France.
Do you know what I think happened to New France?
This is what.
Versailles is the reason I speak English, not French.
It's always such a delight when you put up a post.Now I know that we,Russians also paid for St.Petersburg.
Posted by: olga kotova | 10 November 2010 at 04:15
Louisiana was sold in 1803
I'm pretty sure it was Napoleon and not Versailles that is the cause.
Napoleon needed to fund his upcoming wars and needed the money. He also had just lost Haiti and did not have the man power to go back and retake it.
And he was probably right to sell it, since it had very little access to shipping routes and was mostly landlocked,except through New Orleans, which was under constant threat from the British.
Posted by: michellenyc | 13 November 2010 at 19:27
You're right about Napoleon selling it, but he hadn't even had Louisiana very long again-- the Spanish had it for most of the fifty years before that.
But I wasn't talking here about the Louisiana Purchase but about the French and Indian War, in which France lost almost all its territory in the New World. Shortly after that, my Cajun ancestors were "ethnically cleansed" by the British from what later became Nova Scotia, and ended up in Louisiana. And I do think Versailles is the reason for that.
Posted by: Sedulia | 13 November 2010 at 22:48
AH, yes of course. I do think you are right about that, of course.
Posted by: michellenyc | 14 November 2010 at 00:24
Great blog.
New France was huge but pretty much empty hence her weakness. Unlike British, Irish and later Germans, Italians... French people have never massively emigrated (except French protestants).
In the 17th and 18th Century, New England welcome a couple of million people while New France had only about 70,000 people at her peak. Not easy to defend such a huge territory with so few people.
Anyway that's what we learn in French history class.
Posted by: Sebastien | 26 November 2010 at 10:45
That makes sense, Sebastien! I wonder why the French never wanted to emigrate? The 17th and 18th centuries weren't easy for most French people.
Posted by: Sedulia | 26 November 2010 at 16:06