TODAY’S LEARNING GOAL: EXPLAIN WHY SETTLERS
CAME TO NEW FRANCE
Success Criteria:
-I can describe the groups of people who were the CITIZENS of New France (the men
in the trades, the women/filles du roi, the indentured servants, criminals, slaves,
First Nations people)
THE CITIZENS OF NEW FRANCE…WHO WERE THEY?
The ORDINARY people made up most of the population in New France
These ordinary people had many different occupations (jobs)
How did they know who made up the population in New France?
By taking a CENSUS which recorder information about each
household’s age, occupation, religion etc.
Censuses are still taken in Canada today, every 5 years. This is a job done by
Statistics Canada.
CENSUS INFO…
*four settlements made up 65% of the population in New France
(Quebec, Montreal, Trois-Rivieres and Ile d’Orleans)
*there were a shortage of women in New France and that is why the filles du roi were
brought in
*without women, the population could not grow!
THE TRADES IN NEW FRANCE…
According to the census, there were 17 trades in New France, all carried out by men
Men were allowed to become skilled workers, but females were not
Some of these trades included, soldiers, carpenters, masons, tailors and merchants.
THERE WAS A HIERARCHY OF CITIZENS…
Groups considered to be at the bottom were:
a) Indentured Servants - poor men who were under contract to serve their employer
-hard physical labour for little pay!)
-after 3 years of service they could seek better paying jobs
b) Criminals – prisoners from France were given the choice to work as a labourer in
New France or to serve their sentence in France
-after 3 years of indentured service (work) they would be free and could have a fresh
start
CRIMINALS IN NEW FRANCE…
Although these criminals helped to increase the population, Jean-Baptiste Colbert
(advisor to King Louis XIV) did not like this idea!
He believed the following:
“It is important in the establishment of a country to plant there good seed,” and
criminals were not considered “good seed” or to have good character!
OTHER CITIZENS IN NEW FRANCE…
Slaves were “owned” by rich lawyers and merchants in New France, and rarely got their
freedom
First Nations – there were a number of different First Nations living in New France (Cree,
Montagnais, Iroquois, Huron, Ottawa, Mohawk)
-their skills of hunting and trapping were needed in the fur trade
-the French didn’t really see the First Nations as being a part of the colony
-the First Nations weren’t even included in the census!
DID YOU MEET TODAY’S LEARNING GOAL?
Go back to slide #2 and see how you did!