France began colonizing the Americas in the 16th century and continued into the following centuries as it established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere . France established colonies in much of eastern North America, on several Caribbean islands, and in South America. Most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, rice, sugar, and furs.
132-459: The French Colonial Historic District is a historic district that encompasses a major region of 18th-century French colonization in southwestern Illinois . The district is anchored by Fort de Chartres and Fort Kaskaskia , two important French settlements and military posts in what was then the Illinois Country . The Kaskaskia village site is also included within the district; it includes
264-630: A storm suddenly destroyed his fleet. On 20 September 1565 the Spaniards, commanded by Menéndez de Avilés, attacked and massacred all the Fort Caroline occupants including Jean Ribault. The French interest in Canada focused first on fishing off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. However, at the beginning of the 17th century, France was more interested in fur from North America. The fur trading post of Tadoussac
396-484: A France Équinoxiale further North, in what is today French Guiana , in 1626, 1635 (when the capital, Cayenne , was founded) and 1643. Twice a Compagnie de la France équinoxiale was founded, in 1643 and 1645, but both foundered as a result of misfortune and mismanagement. It was only after 1674, when the colony came under the direct control of the French crown and a competent Governor took office, that France Équinoxiale became
528-532: A French expedition departed from Cancale , Brittany, France, under the command of Daniel de la Touche, Seigneur de la Ravardière, and François de Razilly , admiral. Carrying 500 colonists, it arrived in the Northern coast of what is today the Brazilian state of Maranhão . De la Ravardière had discovered the region in 1604 but the death of the king postponed his plans to start its colonization. The colonists soon founded
660-593: A colony at the Cape of Good Hope on the southern African coast, as a victualing station for its ships on the route between Europe and Asia. Dutch immigration in the Cape rapidly swelled as prospective colonists were offered generous grants of land and tax exempt status in exchange for producing the food needed to resupply passing ships. The Cape authorities also imported a number of Europeans of other nationalities, namely Germans and French Huguenots , as well as thousands of slaves from
792-526: A great military disadvantage against the British. The war between the colonies resumed in 1744, lasting until 1748. A final and decisive war began in 1754. The Canadiens and the French were helped by numerous alliances with Native Americans, but they were usually outnumbered on the battlefield. On May 17, 1673, explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette began exploring the Mississippi River, known to
924-615: A haven for the Huguenots , and was ultimately destroyed by the Portuguese in 1567 . On November 1, 1555, French vice-admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon (1510–1575), a Catholic knight of the Order of Malta , who later would help the Huguenots to find a refuge against persecution, led a small fleet of two ships and 600 soldiers and colonists, and took possession of the small island of Serigipe in
1056-488: A nephew of Villegagnon. They were joined by 14 Calvinists from Geneva, led by Philippe de Corguilleray , including theologians Pierre Richier and Guillaume Chartrier. The new colonists, numbering around 300, included 5 young women to be wed, 10 boys to be trained as translators, as well as 14 Calvinists sent by Calvin, and also Jean de Léry, who would later write an account of the colony. They arrived in March 1557. The relief fleet
1188-869: A network of forts going from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River . Fort Saint Louis was established in Texas in 1685, but was gone by 1688. Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit (modern-day Detroit ) in 1701 and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville founded La Nouvelle Orléans ( New Orleans ) in 1718. Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville founded Baton Rouge in 1719. The European settlement of Mobile, Alabama began with French colonists, who in 1702 constructed Fort Louis de la Louisiane , at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff on
1320-528: A population of 1,700 people), Newfoundland and Hudson Bay . Under the Sovereign Council, the population of the colony grew faster. However, the population growth was far inferior to that of the British Thirteen Colonies to the south. In the middle of the 18th century, New France accounted for 60,000 people while the British colonies had more than one million people. This placed the colony at
1452-559: A reality. To this day, French Guiana is a department of France. Dutch colonial empire 18th century 19th century 20th century The Dutch colonial empire ( Dutch : Nederlandse koloniale rijk ) comprised the overseas territories and trading posts controlled and administered by Dutch chartered companies —mainly the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company —and subsequently by
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#17328697634581584-753: A result of Portugal's incorporation in the Iberian Union with Spain by Philip II in 1580, all Portuguese territories were thereafter Spanish Habsburg branch territory, and thus all Portuguese markets were closed to the United Provinces. Thus, in 1595, the Dutch decided to set sail on their own to acquire products for themselves, making use of the "secret" knowledge of the Portuguese trade routes, which Cornelis de Houtman had managed to acquire in Lisbon. The coastal provinces of Holland and Zeeland had been important hubs of
1716-530: A rich and complex History as well as proud descendants far beyond Québec and Acadia original heartlands. A major French settlement lay on the island of Hispaniola , where France established the colony of Saint-Domingue on the western third of the island in 1664. Nicknamed the "Pearl of the Antilles", Saint-Domingue became the richest colony in the Caribbean due to slave plantation production of sugar cane. It had
1848-549: A series of floods resulted in Bienville ordering that the settlement be relocated in 1711 several miles downriver to its present location at the confluence of the Mobile River and Mobile Bay . A new earth-and-palisade Fort Louis was constructed at the new site during this time. By 1712, when Antoine Crozat was appointed to take over administration of the colony, its population had reached 400 persons. The capital of La Louisiane
1980-467: A series of successful expeditions, he gradually extended the Dutch possessions from Sergipe on the south to Maranhão in the north. The WIC also succeeded in conquering Gorée , Elmina Castle , Saint Thomas, and Luanda on the west coast of Africa. Both regions were also used as bases for Dutch privateers plundering Portuguese and Spanish trade routes. The dissolution of the Iberian Union in 1640 and Maurits's recall in 1643 led to increased resistance from
2112-563: A series of three wars which took place between the English and the Dutch from 1652 to 1674. The causes included political disputes and increasing competition from merchant shipping. The English in the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–54) had the naval advantage with larger numbers of more powerful " ships of the line " which were well suited to the naval tactics of the era. The English also captured numerous Dutch merchant ships. Holmes's Bonfire
2244-654: A settlement in the ruins of the Spanish settlement of Valdivia , in southern Chile . The purpose of the expedition was to gain a foothold on the west coast of the Americas, an area that was almost entirely under the control of Spain (the Pacific Ocean , at least most of it to the east of the Philippines, being at the time almost a "Spanish lake"), and to extract gold from nearby mines. Uncooperative indigenous peoples, who had forced
2376-530: A village, which was named "Saint-Louis", in honor of the French king Louis IX . This later became São Luís in Portuguese,[1] the only Brazilian state capital founded by France. On 8 September, Capuchin friars prayed the first mass, and the soldiers started building a fortress. An important difference in relation to France Antarctique is that this new colony was not motivated by escape from religious persecutions to Protestants (see French Wars of Religion). The colony did not last long. A Portuguese army assembled in
2508-460: A year before being destroyed by the Spanish from St. Augustine . An attempt to settle convicts on Sable Island off Nova Scotia in 1598 failed after a short time. In 1599, a sixteen-person trading post was established in Tadoussac (in present-day Quebec ), of which only five men survived the first winter. In 1604 Pierre Du Gua de Monts and Samuel de Champlain founded a short-lived French colony,
2640-453: A year before it was recaptured by a joint Spanish-Portuguese expedition., In 1630, the Dutch occupied the Portuguese sugar-settlement of Pernambuco and over the next few years pushed inland, annexing the sugar plantations that surrounded it. In order to supply the plantations with the manpower they required, a successful expedition was launched from Brazil to capture the Portuguese slaving post of Elmina in 1637, and successfully captured
2772-752: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . French colonization of the Americas The first French colonial empire stretched to over 10,000,000 km (3,900,000 sq mi) at its peak in 1710, which was the second largest colonial empire in the world, after the Spanish Empire . As they colonized the New World, the French established forts and settlements that would become such cities as Quebec , Trois-Rivières and Montreal in Canada; Detroit , Green Bay , St. Louis , Cape Girardeau , Mobile , Biloxi , Baton Rouge and New Orleans in
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#17328697634582904-496: Is an overseas department of France, while St. Barthélemy and St. Martin each became an overseas collectivity of France in 2007. France Antarctique (formerly also spelled France antartique) was a French colony south of the Equator , in Rio de Janeiro , Brazil , which existed between 1555 and 1567, and had control over the coast from Rio de Janeiro to Cabo Frio . The colony quickly became
3036-565: Is one of the oldest permanent European settlements in America. In 1634, Sieur de Laviolette founded Trois-Rivières. In 1642, Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve , founded Fort Ville-Marie which is now known as Montreal . Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette founded Sault Sainte Marie (1668) and Saint Ignace (1671) and explored the Mississippi River . At the end of the 17th century, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle established
3168-518: Is today the province of Quebec, Canada, and for a very short period (12 years) also Antarctic France (France Antarctique, in French), in present-day Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. All of these settlements were in violation of the papal bull of 1493, which divided the New World between Spain and Portugal. This division was later defined more exactly by the Treaty of Tordesillas . France équinoxiale started in 1612, when
3300-533: The Compagnie van Verre ("Company of Far Lands") was founded in Amsterdam, with the aim of sending two fleets to the spice islands of Maluku . The first fleet sailed in 1596 and returned in 1597 with a cargo of pepper, which more than covered the costs of the voyage. The second voyage (1598–1599), returned its investors a 400% profit. The success of these voyages led to the founding of a number of companies competing for
3432-848: The American Revolutionary War , Britain declared war on the Netherlands, the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War , in which Britain seized the Dutch colony of Ceylon. Under the Peace of Paris (1783), Ceylon was returned to the Netherlands and Negapatnam ceded to Britain. In 1795, the French Revolutionary Army invaded the Dutch Republic and turned the nation into a satellite of France, named the Batavian Republic . Britain, which
3564-585: The Captaincy of Pernambuco , under the command of Alexandre de Moura, was able to mount a military expedition, which defeated and expelled the French colonists in 1615, less than four years after their arrival in the land. Thus, it repeated the disaster spelt for the colonists of France Antarctique, in 1567. A few years later, in 1620, Portuguese and Brazilian colonists arrived in number and São Luís started to develop, with an economy based mostly in sugar cane and slavery. French traders and colonists tried again to settle
3696-586: The Dutch East Indies . Anglo-Dutch rivalry in Southeast Asia continued to fester over the port of Singapore , which had been ceded to the British East India Company in 1819 by the sultan of Johore. The Dutch claimed that a treaty signed with the sultan's predecessor the year earlier had granted them control of the region. However, the impossibility of removing the British from Singapore, which
3828-560: The Dutch Republic (1581–1795), and by the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands after 1815. By Jan van Riebeeck 's landing at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, it had colonial provinces in eastern North America , the Caribbean , South America ( Suriname and Brazil ), Africa (on the Gold Coast and at the Cape ), mainland India , Sri Lanka , Indonesia and Taiwan . It also chartered new lands of Australia and New Zealand . It
3960-527: The Dutch Republic . The Second Anglo-Dutch War was precipitated in 1664, when English forces moved to capture New Netherland . Under the Treaty of Breda (1667), New Netherland was ceded to England in exchange for the English settlements in Suriname, which had been conquered by Dutch forces earlier that year. Though the Dutch would again take New Netherland in 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, it
4092-466: The Guanabara Bay , in front of present-day Rio de Janeiro, where they built a fort named Fort Coligny . The fort was named in honor of Gaspard de Coligny (then a Catholic statesman, who about a year later would become a Huguenot), an admiral who supported the expedition and would use the colony in order to protect his fellow believers. To the still largely undeveloped mainland village, Villegaignon gave
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4224-714: The Huron and Ottawa against their traditional enemies, the Iroquois . Champlain and other French travelers then continued to explore North America, with canoes made from birch bark , to move quickly through the Great Lakes and their tributaries. In 1634, the Normand explorer Jean Nicolet pushed his exploration to the West up to Wisconsin. Following the capitulation of Quebec by the Kirke brothers,
4356-460: The Lesser Antilles at various times. Islands that came under French rule during part or all of this time include Dominica , Grenada , Guadeloupe , Marie-Galante , Martinique , St. Barthélemy , St. Croix , St. Kitts , St. Lucia , St. Martin , St. Vincent and Tobago . Control of many of these islands was contested between the French, the British and the Dutch; in the case of St. Martin,
4488-618: The Mediterranean and the Levant . In the 1590s, Dutch ships began to trade with Brazil and the Dutch Gold Coast of Africa, towards the Indian Ocean, and the source of the lucrative spice trade . This brought the Dutch into direct competition with Portugal , which had dominated these trade routes for several decades, and had established colonial outposts on the coasts of Brazil, Africa and
4620-547: The Mobile River , as the first capital of the French colony of La Louisiane . It was founded by French Canadian brothers Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville , to establish control over France's claims to La Louisiane . Bienville was appointed as royal governor of French Louisiana in 1701. Mobile's Roman Catholic parish was established on July 20, 1703, by Jean-Baptiste de la Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier , Bishop of Quebec . The parish
4752-630: The Pierre Menard House , the only surviving building from Illinois' first state capital. Over a dozen French houses in Prairie du Rocher are also part of the district, including the poteaux-sur-sol Creole House and the 1735 Meilliere House. In addition to the French sites, the district also includes several Native American archaeological sites, such as the Modoc Rock Shelter , the Kolmer Site ,
4884-656: The Secretary of State of the Navy to give him the command of Louisiana . He believed that it was close to New Spain by drawing a map on which the Mississippi seemed much further west than its actual rate. He set up a maritime expedition with four ships and 320 emigrants, but it ended in disaster when he failed to find the Mississippi Delta and was killed in 1687. In 1698, Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville left La Rochelle and explored
5016-634: The Straits of Magellan . The directors of the company, the " Heeren XVII ", were given the legal authority to establish "fortresses and strongholds", to sign treaties, to enlist both an army and a navy, and to wage defensive war. The company itself was founded as a joint stock company , similarly to its English rival that had been founded two years earlier, the English East India Company . Dutch enterprise, companies and government institutions were inspired by their English counterparts. Shortly after
5148-574: The Treaty of Rijswijk until 1701, when the two parties agreed on peace. Then, the war against the English took over in the War of the Spanish Succession . In 1690 and 1711, Quebec City had successfully resisted the attacks of the English navy and then British army. Nevertheless, the British took advantage of the second war. With the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, France ceded to Britain Acadia (with
5280-601: The Union of Utrecht declared independence from the Spanish Empire with the 1581 Act of Abjuration , in 1588 establishing the de facto independent northern Dutch Republic (alias the United Provinces), whose sovereignty was recognised by the Treaty of Antwerp (1609) . The eight decades of war came at a massive human cost, with an estimated 600,000 to 700,000 victims, of which 350,000 to 400,000 were civilians killed by disease and what would later be considered war crimes. The war
5412-790: The Valley of Ohio , migrated into the Spanish territory West of the Mississippi and were instrumental in pushing further West toward the Pacific through their longer experience of the new continent and its native inhabitants. Only the islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon are still in French hands. In 1802 Spain returned Louisiana to France, but Napoleon sold it to the United States in 1803. The French and their descendants left many toponyms ( Illinois , Vermont , Bayous ...) and ethnonyms ( Sioux , Coeur d'Alene , Nez Percé ...) in North America along with
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5544-727: The West Indies islands around the Caribbean Sea — Aruba , Curaçao , and Sint Maarten —remain as constituent countries represented within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This list does not include several former trading posts stationed by Dutch , such as Dejima in Japan. In the 1560s, the Eighty Years' War broke out in the Habsburg Netherlands . A coalition of rebel provinces united in
5676-414: The loss of Ormuz to England in 1622, but the Dutch Empire was the main beneficiary. The VOC began immediately to prise away the string of coastal fortresses that, at the time, comprised the Portuguese Empire. The settlements were isolated, difficult to reinforce if attacked, and prone to being picked off one by one, but nevertheless, the Dutch only enjoyed mixed success in its attempts to do so. Amboina
5808-399: The Banda Islands was a process of military conquest from 1609 to 1621 by the Dutch East India Company of the Banda Islands . The Dutch, having enforced a monopoly on the highly lucrative nutmeg production from the islands, were impatient with Bandanese resistance to Dutch demands that the Bandanese sell only to them. Negotiations collapsed after Bandanese village elders deceived and murdered
5940-438: The British retook the Cape Colony and the Dutch West Indies. The British also invaded and captured the island of Java in 1811 . In 1806, Napoleon dissolved the Batavian Republic and established a monarchy with his brother, Louis Bonaparte , on the throne as King of the Netherlands. Louis was removed from power by Napoleon in 1810, and the country was ruled directly from France until its liberation in 1813. The following year,
6072-435: The British occupied the city of Quebec and Canada from 1629 to 1632. Samuel de Champlain was taken prisoner and there followed the bankruptcy of the Company of One Hundred Associates . Following the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye , France took possession of the colony in 1632. The city of Trois-Rivières was founded in 1634. In 1642, the Angevin Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière founded Ville-Marie (later Montreal ) which
6204-514: The Dutch East India Company—in the early seventeenth century, based on England's model that was slowly developed a century before. The companies' domination of global commerce contributed greatly to a commercial revolution and a cultural flowering in the Netherlands of the 17th century, known as the Dutch Golden Age . In their search for new trade passages between Asia and Europe , Dutch navigators explored and charted distant regions such as Australia , New Zealand , Tasmania , and parts of
6336-412: The Dutch Republic about the legality, utility, and moral permissibility of this act. As a result, in September 1604 jurist Hugo Grotius wrote a treatise titled De Jure Praedae Commentarius ("Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty"), later published in 1609 as Mare Liberum, sive de jure quod Batavis competit ad Indicana commercia dissertatio ("The Freedom of the Seas, Or, The Right Which Belongs to
6468-454: The Dutch Republic lost a number of its colonial possessions and trade monopolies to the British Empire and French colonial empire , along with the conquest of the Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey by the British East India Company . Nevertheless, major portions of the empire survived until the advent of global decolonisation following World War II , namely the East Indies and Dutch Guiana . Three former colonial territories in
6600-479: The Dutch Second Fleet sent to the Spice Islands were blown off course in a storm and landed there in 1598. They named it in honour of Prince Maurice of Nassau , the Stadtholder of the Netherlands. The Dutch found the climate hostile and abandoned the island after several further decades. The Dutch established a colony at Tayouan (present-day Anping ), in the south of Taiwan , an island then largely dominated by Portuguese traders and known as Formosa ; and, in 1642
6732-461: The Dutch by 1648. On the north-east coast of North America, the West India Company took over a settlement that had been established by the Company of New Netherland (1614–1618) at Fort Orange at Albany on the Hudson River , relocated from Fort Nassau which had been founded in 1614. The Dutch had been sending ships annually to the Hudson River to trade fur since Henry Hudson 's voyage of 1609. To protect its precarious position at Albany from
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#17328697634586864-550: The Dutch forced Spain to divert financial and military resources away from its attempt to quell Dutch independence. Thus began the several decade-long Dutch–Portuguese War . In the 1590s, the voorcompagnie ën ("pioneer companies") emerged, which were given "express instructions to focus on trade and engage in violence only in self-defense". The Dutch took inspiration from England's many joint-stock companies and private investment, including Muscovy Company , Eastland Company , Levant Company , and East India Company . In 1594,
6996-430: The Dutch proved unable to control their own settlers, who disregarded the agreement and crossed into Xhosa territory, sparking one of Southern Africa's longest colonial conflicts: the Xhosa Wars . In 1651, the English parliament passed the first of the Navigation Acts which excluded Dutch shipping from the lucrative trade between England and its Caribbean colonies, and led directly to the outbreak of hostilities between
7128-454: The Dutch representative Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff . Under the command of Jan Pieterszoon Coen the Dutch resorted to a forcible conquest of the islands, which became severely depopulated as a result of Coen’s massacres, forced deportations, and the resulting starvation and disease. The Dutch East India Company, which was founded in 1602 as an amalgamation of 12 voorcompagnies , had extensive financial interests in maritime Southeast Asia ,
7260-414: The Dutch to Take Part in the East Indian Trade"), in which the act of aggression was justified. In the meantime, the States-General had already passed a resolution on 1 November 1603, authorising VOC ships "to damage the enemies and inflict harm on their persons, ships and goods by all means possible, so that they may with reputation not only continue their trade, but also expand it and make it grow". This
7392-429: The Dutch took northern Formosa from the Spanish by force. The Dutch colonisation of the Americas started with many mixed results. In the Atlantic, the West India Company concentrated on wresting from Portugal its grip on the sugar and slave trade, and on opportunistic attacks on the Spanish treasure fleets on their homeward bound voyage. Bahia on the north east coast of Brazil was captured in 1624 but only held for
7524-410: The Dutch were disrupting the Spanish-Portuguese trade, and they eventually ranged as far afield as the Philippines. The Dutch sought to dominate the commercial sea trade in Southeast Asia, going so far in pursuit of this goal as to engage in what other nations and powers considered to be little more than piratical activities. During the negotiations for and implementation of the Twelve Years' Truce in
7656-418: The Dutch were reunited with the Southern Netherlands in a constitutional monarchy, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands . The union lasted just 15 years. In 1830, a revolution in the southern half of the country led to the de facto independence of the new state of Belgium . The bankrupt Dutch East India Company was liquidated on 1 January 1800, and its territorial possessions were nationalized as
7788-456: The Dutch were unable in four attempts to capture Macau , from where Portugal monopolized the lucrative China-Japan trade , the Tokugawa shogunate 's increasing suspicion of the intentions of the Catholic Portuguese led to their expulsion in 1639. Under the subsequent sakoku policy , from 1639 till 1854 (215 years), the Dutch were the only European power allowed to operate in Japan, confined in 1639 to Hirado and then from 1641 at Dejima . In
7920-417: The East Indies, to bolster the local Dutch workforce. Nevertheless, there was a degree of cultural assimilation between the various ethnic groups due to intermarriage and the universal adoption of the Dutch language, and cleavages were likelier to occur along social and racial lines. The Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope expanded beyond the initial settlement and its borders were formally consolidated as
8052-429: The European maritime trade network for centuries prior to Spanish rule. By the 1580s, the Eighty Years' War led many financiers and traders to emigrate from Antwerp , a major city in Brabant and then one of Europe's most important commercial centres, to Dutch cities, particularly Amsterdam , Efficient access to capital enabled the Dutch in the 1580s to extend their trade routes beyond northern Europe to new markets in
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#17328697634588184-596: The French Verrazzano. He would later give the names Francesca and Nova Gall to that land between New Spain and English Newfoundland, thus promoting French interests. In 1534, Francis I of France sent Jacques Cartier on the first of three voyages to explore the coast of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence River . He founded New France by planting a cross on the shore of the Gaspé Peninsula . The French subsequently tried to establish several colonies throughout North America that failed, due to weather, disease, or conflict with other European powers. Cartier attempted to create
8316-445: The French and Indians were usually peaceful. As the 19th-century historian Francis Parkman stated: "Spanish civilization crushed the Indian; English civilization scorned and neglected him; French civilization embraced and cherished him." To boost the French population, Cardinal Richelieu issued an act declaring that Indians converted to Catholicism were considered "natural Frenchmen" by the Ordonnance of 1627: "The descendants of
8448-476: The French who have accustomed to this country [New France], together with all the Indians who will be brought to the knowledge of the faith and will profess it, shall be deemed and renowned natural Frenchmen, and as such may come to live in France when they want, and acquire, donate, and succeed and accept donations and legacies, just as true French subjects, without being required to take no letters of declaration of naturalization." Louis XIV also tried to increase
8580-464: The Gulf of Mexico and established a fort at Mobile in 1702. From 1699 to 1702, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville was governor of Louisiana. His brother succeeded him in that post from 1702 to 1713. He was again governor from 1716 to 1724 and again 1733 to 1743. In 1718, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville commanded a French expedition in Louisiana. He founded the city of New Orleans, in homage to Regent Duke of Orleans . The architect Adrian de Pauger drew
8712-454: The Illinois River, along with 23 French and 18 Native Americans. In April 1682, they arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi; they planted a cross and a column bearing the arms of the king of France. In 1686 de Tonti left 6 men near the Quapaw village of Osotouy, creating the settlement of Arkansas Post. De Tonti's Arkansas Post would be the first European settlement in the Lower Mississippi River valley. La Salle returned to France and won over
8844-420: The Indian Ocean to facilitate them. The rivalry with Portugal, however, was not entirely economic: from 1580, after the death of the King of Portugal, Sebastian I , and much of the Portuguese nobility in the Battle of Alcácer Quibir , the Portuguese crown had been joined to that of Spain in an " Iberian Union " under the heir of Emperor Charles V, Philip II of Spain . By attacking Portuguese overseas possessions,
8976-427: The Mississippi River to Britain. This area was made a part of the expanded British West Florida colony. The British changed the name of Fort Condé to Fort Charlotte , after Queen Charlotte . The French were eager to explore North America but New France remained largely unpopulated. Due to the lack of women, intermarriages between French and Indians were frequent, giving rise to the Métis people . Relations between
9108-412: The Portuguese colonists who still made up a majority of the Brazilian settlers. The Dutch were finally overcome during the 1650s but managed to receive 4 million reis (63 metric tons of gold) in exchange for extinguishing their claims over Brazil in the 1661 Treaty of the Hague . The war between Phillip II's possessions and other countries led to a deterioration of the Portuguese Empire, as with
9240-406: The Portuguese had never been able to capture the entire island of Ceylon, they had been able to keep the coastal regions under their control for a considerable time before the coming of the Dutch in war. Portugal's South American colony, Brazil , was partially conquered by the United Provinces. In 1621, the Dutch West India Company (WIC) was set up and given a 25-year monopoly to those parts of
9372-453: The Portuguese in Brazil and Africa were short-lived. Years of settlement had left large Portuguese communities under the rule of the Dutch, who were by nature traders rather than colonisers. In 1645, the Portuguese community at Pernambuco rebelled against their Dutch masters, and by 1654, the Dutch had been ousted from Brazil. In the intervening years, a Portuguese expedition had been sent from Brazil to recapture Luanda in Angola, expelling
9504-611: The Portuguese settlements in Angola in 1641. In 1642, the Dutch captured the Portuguese possession of Axim in Africa. By 1650, the West India Company was firmly in control of both the sugar and slave trades, and had occupied the Caribbean islands of Sint Maarten , Curaçao , Aruba , and Bonaire in order to guarantee access to the islands' salt-pans . Unlike in Asia, Dutch successes against
9636-786: The Sioux as does Tongo, or to the Miami-Illinois as missisipioui ( the great river ). They reached the mouth of the Arkansas and then up the river, after learning that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico and not to the California Sea (Pacific Ocean). In 1682, the Normand Cavelier de la Salle and the Italian Henri de Tonti came down the Mississippi to its Delta. They left from Fort Crevecoeur on
9768-490: The Spanish to leave Valdivia in 1604 contributed to get the expedition to leave after some months of occupation. This occupation triggered the return of the Spanish to Valdivia and the building of one of the largest defensive complexes of colonial America. By the middle of the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company had overtaken Portugal as the dominant player in the spice and silk trade, and in 1652 founded
9900-689: The Straits of Singapore". Thus the archipelago was divided into two spheres of influence: a British one, on the Malay Peninsula , and a Dutch one in the East Indies. For most of the Dutch East Indies history, and that of the VOC before it, Dutch control over their territories was often tenuous, but was expanded over the course of the 19th century. Only in the early 20th century did Dutch dominance extend to what
10032-792: The United States; and Port-au-Prince , Cap-Haïtien (founded as Cap-Français ) in Haiti , Saint-Pierre and Fort Saint-Louis (formerly as Fort Royal ) in Martinique , Castries (founded as Carénage ) in Saint Lucia , Cayenne in French Guiana and São Luís (founded as Saint-Louis de Maragnan ) in Brazil. 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
10164-515: The VOC was founded, the problem of justifying attacks on Spanish and Portuguese ships became more acute when in February 1603, the Portuguese carrack Santa Catarina was captured off the coast of Singapore by three VOC ships under the command of Jacob van Heemskerck . When Heemskerck returned to Amsterdam in 1604 with the enormous booty from the Santa Catarina , this caused a major controversy in
10296-743: The Waterman Site, and the Henke Site. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 3, 1974. This article about a property in Randolph County, Illinois on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a property in Monroe County, Illinois on the National Register of Historic Places
10428-412: The area around the mouth of the Mississippi. He stopped between Isle-aux-Chats (now Cat Island) and Isle Surgeres (renamed Isle-aux-Vascular or Ship Island) on February 13, 1699, and continued his explorations to the mainland, with his brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville to Biloxi . He built a precarious fort, called 'Maurepas' (later 'Old Biloxi'), before returning to France. He returned twice in
10560-535: The capital of the Dutch East Indies . Meanwhile, the Dutch continued to drive out the Portuguese from their bases in Asia. Malacca finally succumbed in 1641 (after a second attempt to capture it), Colombo in 1656, Ceylon in 1658, Nagapattinam in 1662, and Cranganore and Cochin in 1662. Goa , the capital of the Portuguese Empire in the East, was unsuccessfully attacked by the Dutch in 1603 and 1610. Whilst
10692-453: The city of Rio de Janeiro on March 1, 1565, and fought the Frenchmen for two more years. Helped by a military reinforcement sent by his uncle, on January 20, 1567, he imposed final defeat on the French forces and decisively expelled them from Brazil, but died a month later from wounds inflicted in the battle. Coligny's and Villegaignon's dream had lasted a mere 12 years. Equinoctial France was
10824-527: The colony by calling for more colonists in 1556. He sent one of his ships, the Grande Roberge , to Honfleur, entrusted with letters to King Henry II, Gaspard de Coligny and according to some accounts, the Protestant leader John Calvin. After one ship was sent to France to ask for additional support, three ships were financed and prepared by the king of France and put under the command of Sieur De Bois le Comte,
10956-456: The colony proved to be unprofitable. It was recaptured by the Dutch in 1676, but was returned again a year later, this time permanently. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 saw the Dutch William of Orange ascend to the throne, and win the English, Scottish, and Irish crowns, ending eighty years of rivalry between the Netherlands and England, while the rivalry with France remained strong. During
11088-620: The composite Dutch Cape Colony in 1778. At the time, the Dutch had subdued the indigenous Khoisan and San peoples in the Cape and seized their traditional territories. Dutch military expeditions further east were halted when they encountered the westward expansion of the Xhosa people . Hoping to avoid being drawn into a protracted dispute, the Dutch government and the Xhosa chieftains agreed to formally demarcate their respective areas of control and refrain from trespassing on each other's borders. However,
11220-593: The condition that they marry prostitutes and go with them to Louisiana. The newly married couples were chained together and taken to the port of embarkation. In May 1720, after complaints from the Mississippi Company and the concessioners about this class of French immigrants, the French government prohibited such deportations. However, there was a third shipment of prisoners in 1721. The Mississippi Company arranged for hundreds of German immigrants to move to Louisiana by ships in 1721. Charles Frederick d'Arensbourg
11352-607: The contemporary name given to the colonization efforts of France in the 17th century in South America, around the line of Equator, before "tropical" had fully gained its modern meaning: Equinoctial means in Latin "of equal nights", i.e., on the Equator, where the duration of days and nights is nearly the same year round. The French colonial empire in the New World also included New France (Nouvelle France) in North America, particularly in what
11484-452: The eastern coast of North America . During the period of proto-industrialization , the empire received 50% of textiles and 80% of silks import from the India's Mughal Empire , chiefly from its most developed region known as Bengal Subah . In the 18th century, the Dutch colonial empire began to decline as a result of being overwhelmed from the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War of 1780–1784, in which
11616-539: The enemies and inflict harm on their persons, ships and goods by all means possible, so that they may with reputation not only continue their trade, but also expand it and make it grow, otherwise by neglecting this they will certainly lose it. For this was the principal reason why the Gentlemen States General have undertaken the union of the Companies and awarded them a charter and authorisation to inflict damage on
11748-487: The enemies." – States-General resolution 1 November 1603 As a result of the problems caused by inter-company rivalry, the Dutch East India Company ( Dutch : Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie , VOC) was founded in 1602. The charter awarded to the company by the States-General granted it sole rights, for an initial period of 21 years, to Dutch trade and navigation east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of
11880-452: The first in Acadia , on Saint Croix Island , presently part of the state of Maine , which was much plagued by illness, perhaps scurvy. The following year the settlement was moved to Port Royal , located in present-day Nova Scotia . Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec (1608) and explored the Great Lakes . In 1634, Jean Nicolet founded La Baye des Puants (present-day Green Bay ), which
12012-485: The first permanent European settlement in North America at Cap-Rouge (Quebec City) in 1541 with 400 settlers but the settlement was abandoned the next year after bad weather and attacks from Native Americans in the area. A small group of French troops were left on Parris Island, South Carolina in 1562 to build Charlesfort , but left after a year when they were not resupplied by France. Fort Caroline established in present-day Jacksonville, Florida , in 1564, lasted only
12144-568: The highest slave mortality rate in the western hemisphere. A 1791 slave revolt, the only ever successful slave revolt, began the Haitian Revolution , led to freedom for the colony's slaves in 1794 and, a decade later, complete independence for the country, which renamed itself Haiti . France briefly also ruled the eastern portion of the island, which is now the Dominican Republic . During the 17th and 18th centuries, France ruled much of
12276-585: The independent Netherlands signed the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 with Britain. All the colonies Britain had seized were returned to the Netherlands, with the exception of the Dutch Cape Colony , Dutch Ceylon , and part of Dutch Guyana . After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, Europe's borders were redrawn at the Congress of Vienna . For the first time since the declaration of independence from Spain in 1581,
12408-556: The island was divided in two, a situation that persists to this day. Great Britain captured some of France's islands during the Seven Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars . Following the latter conflict, France retained control of Guadeloupe , Martinique , Marie-Galante , St. Barthélemy , and its portion of St. Martin ; all remain part of France today. Guadeloupe (including Marie-Galante and other nearby islands) and Martinique each
12540-607: The leadership of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny sent Jean Ribault and a group of Huguenot settlers in an attempt to colonize the Atlantic coast and found a colony on a territory which would take the name of the French Florida . They discovered the sound and Port Royal Island, which would be called Parris Island in South Carolina , on which he built a fort named Charlesfort . The group, led by René Goulaine de Laudonnière , moved to
12672-633: The mid-17th century, the Dutch also explored the western Australian coasts, naming many places . The Dutch tried to use military force to make Ming China open up to Dutch trade but the Chinese defeated the Dutch in a war over the Penghu islands from 1623 to 1624, forcing the VOC to abandon Penghu for Taiwan. Then Chinese defeated the Dutch again at the Battle of Liaoluo Bay in 1633. The Dutch colonised Mauritius in 1638, several decades after three ships out of
12804-516: The name of Henriville, in honour of Henry II , the King of France , who also knew of and approved the expedition, and had provided the fleet for the trip. Villegaignon secured his position by making an alliance with the Tamoio and Tupinambá Indians of the region, who were fighting the Portuguese. Unchallenged by the Portuguese, who initially took little notice of his landing, Villegaignon endeavoured to expand
12936-498: The nearby English and French, the Company founded the fortified town of New Amsterdam in 1625, at the mouth of the Hudson, encouraging settlement of the surrounding areas of Long Island and New Jersey . The fur trade ultimately proved impossible for the company to monopolize due to the massive illegal private trade in furs, and the settlement of New Netherland was unprofitable. In 1655,
13068-530: The nearby colony of New Sweden on the Delaware River was forcibly absorbed into New Netherland after ships and soldiers were sent to capture it by the Dutch governor, Pieter Stuyvesant . Since its inception, the Dutch East India Company had been in competition with its counterpart, the English East India Company , founded two years earlier, for the same goods and markets in the East. In 1619,
13200-540: The new Governor-General of Brazil, received from the Portuguese government the command to expel the French. With a fleet of 26 warships and 2,000 soldiers, on 15 March 1560, he attacked and destroyed Fort Coligny within three days, but was unable to drive off their inhabitants and defenders, because they escaped to the mainland with the help of the Native Brazilians, where they continued to live and to work. Admiral Villegaignon had returned to France in 1558, disgusted with
13332-452: The occasion of the importation of the first African slaves , transported aboard a French supply ship from the French colony of Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean , where they had first been held. The population of the colony fluctuated over the next few years, growing to 279 persons by 1708, yet shrinking to 178 persons two years later due to disease. These additional outbreaks of disease and
13464-800: The orthogonal plane of the Old Square . In 1718, there were only 700 Europeans in Louisiana. The Mississippi Company arranged for ships to bring 800 more, who landed in Louisiana in 1718, doubling the European population. John Law encouraged Germans , particularly Germans of the Alsatian region who had recently fallen under French rule , and the Swiss to emigrate. Prisoners were set free in Paris in September 1719 onwards, under
13596-564: The population by sending approximately 800 young women nicknamed the " King's Daughters ". However, the low density of the population in New France remained a very persistent problem. At the beginning of the French and Indian War (1754–1763), the British population in North America outnumbered the French 20 to 1. France fought a total of six colonial wars in North America, (see the four French and Indian Wars as well as Father Rale's War and Father Le Loutre's War ). In 1562, Charles IX , under
13728-582: The population, Louis XIV sent between 800 and 900 ' King's Daughters ' to become the wives of French settlers. The population of New France reached subsequently 7,000 in 1674 and 15,000 in 1689. From 1689 to 1713, the French settlers were faced with almost incessant war during the French and Indian Wars . From 1689 to 1697, they fought the British in the Nine Years' War . The war against the Iroquois continued even after
13860-484: The religious tension that existed between French Protestants and Catholics, who had come also with the second group (see French Wars of Religion). Urged by two influential Jesuit priests who had come to Brazil with Mem de Sá, named José de Anchieta and Manuel da Nóbrega , and who had played a big role in pacifying the Tamoios, Mem de Sá ordered his nephew, Estácio de Sá to assemble a new attack force. Estácio de Sá founded
13992-606: The rivalry resulted in the Amboyna massacre , when several English Company men were executed by agents of the Dutch. The event remained a source of English resentment for several decades, and indeed was used as a cause célèbre as late as the Second Anglo-Dutch War in the 1660s; nevertheless, in the late 1620s the English Company shifted its focus from Indonesia to India. In 1643, the Dutch West India Company established
14124-592: 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. He would find parts of New York Harbor . The French would take narrow land ports of the Boroughs Queens and Brooklyn from the upper and lower parts of the harbor until 1609 when the British and the Dutch came to take control of it from
14256-450: The source of highly profitable spices which were in high demand in Europe. A Dutch expedition had already made contact with the islands in 1599, signing several contracts with Bandanese chiefs. The profitability of the spices was heightened by the fact that they grew nowhere else on Earth, making them extremely valuable to whoever controlled them. As the Dutch attempted to form a monopoly over
14388-620: The south where they founded the Fort Caroline on the Saint John's river in Florida on June 22, 1564. This irritated the Spanish who claimed Florida and opposed the Protestant settlers for religious reasons. In 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés led a group of Spaniards and founded Saint Augustine , 60 kilometers south of Fort Caroline. Fearing a Spanish attack, Ribault planned to move the colony but
14520-616: The spices and forbid the Bandanese from selling to any other group, they resisted, and the Dutch decided to conquer the islands by force. With the aid of Japanese mercenaries , the Dutch launched several military expeditions against the Bandanese. The Dutch attacked most of Portugal's far-flung trading network in and around Asia , including Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka ), and Goa , as well as attacks upon her commercial interests in Japan , Africa (especially Mina ), and South America . Even though
14652-455: The spring of 1604, conducted by Pierre Du Gua de Monts . It helped the foundation of a settlement on Saint Croix Island , the first French settlement in the New World, which would be given up the following winter. The expedition then founded the colony of Port-Royal . In 1608, Champlain founded a fur post that would become the city of Quebec , which would become the capital of New France. In Quebec, Champlain forged alliances between France and
14784-583: The sugarcane plantations and the slave ports needed to resupply their labour. Although weakened by the Iberian Union with Spain, whose attention was focused elsewhere, the Portuguese were able to fight off the initial assault before the Battle of Matanzas Bay provided the WIC with the funds needed for a successful operation. Johan Maurits was appointed governor of " New Holland " and landed at Recife in January 1637. In
14916-569: The trade. The competition was counterproductive to the companies' interests as it threatened to drive up the price of spices at their source in Indonesia whilst driving them down in Europe. "The present deputies of the East India Company are seriously admonished to look into and give orders to the effect that the ships, which are already equipped or afterwards shall be equipped to sail to the East Indies, can have charge and instruction to damage
15048-531: The two countries the following year, the first of three Anglo-Dutch Wars that would last on and off for two decades and slowly erode Dutch naval power to England's benefit. In 1661, amidst the Qing conquest of China, Ming general Koxinga led a fleet to invade Formosa. The Dutch defense, led by governor Frederick Coyett , held out for nine months . However, after Koxinga defeated Dutch reinforcements from Java, Coyett surrendered Formosa. The Anglo-Dutch Wars were
15180-441: The world not controlled by its East India counterpart: the Atlantic, the Americas and the west coast of Africa. The Dutch also established a trading post in Ayutthaya, modern day Thailand during the reign of King Naresuan , in 1604. In the 17th century, the " Grand Design " of the West India Company involved attempting to corner the international trade in sugar by attacking Portuguese colonies in Brazil and Africa, seizing both
15312-410: The years 1608–1610, the Dutch sought to secure all sorts of commercially and strategically important positions in Southeast Asia, and the VOC rushed to conclude as many contracts as possible with local monarchs and polities in the so-called frontline regions: the Malay Peninsula (particularly Johor ), Sumatra , the Banda Islands , the Moluccas , Timor and southern India . The Dutch conquest of
15444-508: Was a "critical" event according to several historical studies, with Borschberg (2013) stating it "marked a major shift in policy of the VOC" and "set the cornerstone for the establishment of the Dutch colonial empire in Asia", because the resolution transformed the VOC "into an instrument of war and colonial expansion that was directed against the Iberian powers in Asia and later, of course, also against local Asian rulers and polities." Pursuing their quest for alternative routes to Asia for trade,
15576-423: Was a leader of the settlement called the German Coast . By the end of 1720, the Mississippi Company failed. Later, more Germans immigrated to Louisiana during the 1750s and 1770s. The last French and Indian War resulted in the dissolution of New France , with Canada going to Great Britain and Louisiana going to Spain , although mainly absent. French colonists descendants or "Canadiens" that had settled in
15708-410: Was a raid on the Vlie estuary in the Netherlands, executed by the English Fleet during the Second Anglo-Dutch War on 19 and 20 August 1666. The attack, named after the commander of the landing force, Rear-Admiral Robert Holmes , was successful in destroying by fire a large Dutch merchant fleet of 140 ships. During the same action, the town of West-Terschelling was burnt down, which caused outrage in
15840-436: Was abolished in 1791, and its colonies in Suriname and the Caribbean brought under the direct rule of the state. The economies of the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean had been based on the smuggling of goods and slaves into Spanish America , but with the end of the slave trade in 1814 and the independence of the new nations of South and Central America from Spain, profitability rapidly declined. Dutch traders moved en masse from
15972-419: Was at that time, a fort as protection against Iroquois attacks (the first great Iroquois war lasted from 1642 to 1667). Despite this rapid expansion, the colony developed very slowly. The Iroquois wars and diseases were the leading causes of death in the French colony. In 1663 when Louis XIV provided the Royal Government , the population of New France was only 2,500 European inhabitants. That year, to increase
16104-458: Was at war with France, soon moved to occupy Dutch colonies in Asia, South Africa , and the Caribbean. Under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens signed by Britain and France in 1802, the Cape Colony and the islands of the Dutch West Indies that the British had seized were returned to the Republic. Ceylon was not returned to the Dutch and was made a British Crown Colony . After the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and France again in 1803,
16236-411: Was becoming an increasingly important centre of trade, became apparent to the Dutch, and the disagreement was resolved with the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 . Under its terms, the Netherlands ceded Malacca and their bases in India to the British, and recognized the British claim to Singapore. In return, the British handed over Bencoolen and agreed not to sign treaties with rulers in the "islands south of
16368-415: Was captured from the Portuguese in 1605, but an attack on Malacca the following year narrowly failed in its objective to provide a more strategically located base in the East Indies with favourable monsoon winds. The Dutch found what they were looking for in Jakarta , conquered by Jan Pieterszoon Coen in 1619, later renamed Batavia after the putative Dutch ancestors the Batavians, and which would become
16500-488: Was composed of: Doctrinal disputes arose between Villegagnon and the Calvinists, especially in relation to the Eucharist, and in October 1557 the Calvinists were banished from Coligny island as a result. They settled among the Tupinamba until January 1558, when some of them managed to return to France by ship together with Jean de Léry , and five others chose to return to Coligny island where three of them were drowned by Villegagnon for refusing to recant. In 1560 Mem de Sá ,
16632-448: Was founded in 1600. Four years later, Champlain made his first trip to Canada on a trade mission for fur. Although he had no formal mandate on this trip, he sketched a map of the St. Lawrence River and in writing, on his return to France, a report entitled Savages (relation of his stay in a tribe of Montagnais near Tadoussac). Champlain needed to report his findings to Henry IV . He participated in another expedition to New France in
16764-450: Was initially a trade-based system which derived most of its influence from merchant enterprise and from Dutch control of international maritime shipping routes through strategically placed outposts, rather than from expansive territorial ventures. Because small European trading-companies often lacked the capital or the manpower for large-scale operations, the States General chartered larger organisations—the Dutch West India Company and
16896-451: Was largely fought on the European continent, but war was also conducted against Phillip II's overseas territories, including Spanish colonies and the Portuguese metropoles, colonies, trading posts and forts belonging at that time to the King of Spain and Portugal. The port of Lisbon in Portugal had since 1517 been the main European market for products from India, drawing merchants from across Europe to purchase exotic commodities. But as
17028-415: Was moved in 1720 to Biloxi , leaving Mobile to serve as a regional military and trading center. In 1723 the construction of a new brick fort with a stone foundation began and it was renamed Fort Condé in honor of Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon . In 1763, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Seven Years' War , which Britain won, defeating France. By this treaty, France ceded its territories east of
17160-420: Was returned to England the following year, thereby ending Dutch rule in continental North America, but leaving behind a large Dutch community under English rule that persisted with its language, church and customs until the mid-18th century. In South America, the Dutch seized Cayenne from the French in 1658 and drove off a French attempt to retake it a year later. However, it was returned to France in 1664, since
17292-402: Was the first French Catholic parish established on the Gulf Coast of the United States . In 1704 the ship Pélican delivered 23 French women to the colony; passengers had contracted yellow fever at a stop in Havana . Though most of the " Pélican girls" recovered, numerous colonists and neighboring Native Americans contracted the disease in turn and many died. This early period was also
17424-445: Was to become the boundaries of modern-day Indonesia. Although highly populated and agriculturally productive Java was under Dutch domination for most of the 350 years of the combined VOC and Dutch East Indies era, many areas remained independent for much of this time including Aceh , Lombok , Bali , and Borneo . In 1871, all of the Dutch possessions on the Dutch Gold Coast were sold to Britain . The Dutch West India Company
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