New France

The French colonies and possessions in North America, especially those in eastern Canada c. 1600–1763.

New France

Term used by late in the 16th century for lands held or claimed by the French crown in North America. From the founding of Québec City in 1608, the colony of New France grew to embrace a huge tract of territory extending from the mouth of the St Lawrence River through the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley.

The first French settlements in North America were Jacques Cartier's 1534 claim at Gaspé and the colony established at Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal), in Acadia (Nova Scotia) in 1605. From 1663 onwards, New France flourished as a royal province under Louis XIV. Yet by 1763, at the end of the Seven Years' War, the whole of New France had fallen into British hands. Only the small islands of St-Pierre et Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland remained as a base for the French fishing fleet. French control of lands in the Mississippi Valley was restored briefly after the American Revolution, but was relinquished again when the territory between the Mississippi and the Rockies was sold to the US government in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.