A History of French Louisiana: The Reign of Louis XIV, 1698--1715
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
The death of Louis XIV in 1715 and the accession of his more progressive younger brother as Regent of France might have brought some hopeful changes to Louisiana, France's tiny, struggling outpost on the Gulf of Mexico. However, the continuation of the debilitating regime of the merchant Antoine Crozat and the extreme impoverishment of the French Treasury Following the disastrous wars of Louis XIV meant that no radical changes were possible. Instead, these few years at the beginning of the Regency represented a period of transition for the colony, when the need for a new administrative regime for Louisiana was met in France by a growing awareness of the strategic and economic potential of the Mississippi settlements. All of these conditions prepared the way for the appearance on the scene of the Company of the West in 1717.In his detailed survey of this brief but crucial period of Louisiana's history, Marcel Giraud assesses the new mood and conditions in France -- the personnel and objectives of the Council of the Navy, which oversaw the colony's administration; the advances in scientific opinion and their impact on Louisiana; and the political, fiscal, and economic conditions that created a new appreciation of the colony of official circles -- while describing actual conditions in the colony. Giraud portrays the Louisiana of 1715 as a few clusters of squalid buildings scattered along the Gulf Coast from Alabama to Natchitoches, inhabited by largely dispirited settlers and soldiers who for the most part lacked the barest necessities of life.Crozat's essentially self-serving regime made this a period of virtual stagnation. Rivalries among the colony's administrative personnel, especially between the governors and the Le Moyne family and their supporters, impeded development, as did the inadequacy of the priests sent to minister to the colony; the paucity of women, farmers, and skilled workers; and the infertile soil around the sties chosen for the forts and settlements.Relations with the indigenous populations were hindered by the lack of acceptable trade goods, as were efforts by the French colonists to establish commercial relations with the neighboring Spanish colonies. At the same time, Louisiana bore the encroachments of better-supplied British traders who were moving into Alabama and the Illinois country and developing regular trade with Indian tribes whom the French claimed as their own clients. With his customary thoroughness and scrupulous attention to documentary details, Marcel Giraud provides a vivid description of a struggling colony hovering between extinction and the spark of growth that would, in years to come, establish it as a viable French outpost in North America. Despite the obstacles facing Louisiana during these difficult years of transition, the colony survived to experience new expansion and development under the Company of the West.
Related to A History of French Louisiana
Related ebooks
The Tomar Hoard Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Welsh Castle Builders: The Savoyard Style Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJonathan Dickinson: A shipwreck and survival during the last days of Spanish Florida Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrisoners of Chance: Romance Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Andrew Pettegree's The Invention of News Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Disaster of Darien Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Huguenots in France Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe French Revolution 1789-1795 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great Fortress : A chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sovereignty of the Sea: An Historical Account of the Claims of England to the Dominion of the British Seas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Empire and the Papacy, 918-1273 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnglish Seamen in the Sixteenth Century: Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Making of England, Volume 1 (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBritish Policy in the Illinois Country, 1763-1768 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775: With Numerous Illustrative Notes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Anglo-French Entente in the Seventeenth Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElizabethan Sea-Dogs (Barnes & Noble Digital Library): A Chronicle of Drake and His Companions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNew York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904: Report of the New York State Commission Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNorman's New Orleans and Environs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreat Cities of the United States - Historical, Descriptive, Commercial, Industrial Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Colonization of North America: 1492-1783 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlorida at Sea: A Maritime History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe History of the Thirteen Colonies of North America: 1497-1763: Illustrated Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCanada Under British Rule: 1760-1900 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOld Houses in Holland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrance and the American Tropics to 1700: Tropics of Discontent? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTerre Napoleon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
United States History For You
A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for A History of French Louisiana
0 ratings0 reviews