America Past; The French in America

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[moderator 1] Answering the call of the unknown, singing, dancing, trailblazing fur trading voyageurs established forts, trading posts and homes in what became a French colonial empire. That empire lasted until 1763. But the French left a legacy that was never completely subdued. [moderator 2] The French were interested in exploring the New World because they hoped to find gold.

The Spanish had found gold. Why shouldn't the French expect to find it? They pushed far into the interior of North America searching for it, established supply posts, sent more people over, but they didn't find gold. The forts that they built became the backbone of the famous French fur trade later. The fur trade will be significant, and the fur trading post will be the center of that business. If they couldn't find gold here, maybe they could find the short cut to China. That was always a possibility, what was called the Northwest Passage, what they hoped was a waterway across North America. Surely Hudson's Bay and they sailed into it. It would lead on to China. No luck. They came down the St. Lawrence into the region of the Great Lakes. Surely one of those lakes wasn't a lake but was the Pacific Ocean. They look like oceans, you can't see across them, but they have waves. No luck. One explorer crossed Lake

Michigan [gun shot] wearing a Chinese robe because he was sure on the other side he would find China. He found the Winnebago Indians. Another named rapids in St. Lawrence the Chinese Rapids, hopefully. But no luck. Who were some of these early explorers? Cartier? He explored the St. Lawrence, planted crosses along it, claimed it for France, read to the Indians out of his Latin version of the Bible. [drumming sounds] It's not recorded just how the Indians reacted to that. Samuel de Champlain, called the father of New France, established Québec in 1608, got the French interested in the fur trade which will later become [sounds of a water] their great money-maker. LaSalle, arrogant, headstrong, stubborn, sailed down the Mississippi River to its mouth and claimed everything that flowed into it for France. Now just what would that include? So you see, by doing that, he laid for the

French a claim to the whole central part of the United States. Just sending out explorers, and mapping and charting, doesn't win an empire; you have to get people over here to do that, [gunfire and man shouting] and to get people, you have to have some way for them to make a living. [noise in background throughout that line; gunfire; man speaking in French: "ready, aim, fire"; gunfire] The French hoped to make a living in the New World off of the fur trade; it didn't always work out that way, but that was their dream. And they certainly handled large numbers of furs, one account of as many as 100,000 furs going out to the city of Québec in one year. What were they going to do with all of those? Well, the answer to that is found in the tastes of the Europeans. [moderator 3] Basically, the beaver, the muskrat, and the otter were the choice pelts; they were the pelts that were in the greatest demand

because of the fashion of the hats,for instance, where they would take the beaver skin (they did not use the skin of the beaver, they used the fur, the hair), they would take this hair, shave it off from the skin, and make felt out of it, and then mold it or shape it into such things as this. This is a beaver tri-corn hat. This is a beaver top hat, and this was the fashion of the period. [moderator 2] Because of the fur trade, the Indians and the Frenchmen were thrown very closely together. It was for their mutual benefit to get along with one another. The Frenchmen learned from these Indians. The Indians built and repaired and ? paddled ? the canoes, but they taught the French other things as well. [moderator 3] The Indians taught the Frenchmen such things as how to raise the corn and various vegetables that they used here, potatoes, squash, things like that. They taught the Frenchmen, too, the ways of the wood,

how to survive. [moderator 2] Often all the frontier groups would rendezvous at these forts: the Indians, the trappers, the soldiers, the soldiers' families. At those times, singing and dancing played a major part in their life. [Music begins] Within the fur trading post could be found the Catholic Church. French missionaries, primarily Jesuit, operated at the side of the trapper and the explorer. Their annual reports provide a firsthand view of life in New France. [music] Missionaries were willing to study the Indian's customs, learn his language, live in his tent. And occasionally, he'll die at his hands. What territory are we talking about here? Well, the French occupied an area

extending from the St. Lawrence River, down to the mouth of the Mississippi, through the Great Lakes region, the Ohio Valley, the Mississippi Valley; on paper, a great empire. But you don't really control an area unless you have people living in it. And at their height, they had maybe 80,000 people living here, at a time when England had a million and a half. That will always be their problem. The average Frenchmen preferred to live in France; he didn't want to come over here and live in the wild. The French did everything they could to get people to come to the New World and have big families. If your family was large enough, you got some free land. If your daughter didn't get married at the appropriate age, you could be fined. They wanted large families, they wanted people to come, as long as you were Catholic, of course. The French Protestant was not allowed to come to the New World, and they were some of the ones who really wanted to come.

The King of France was very frustrated. Louis the 14th for 72 years was King of France, called himself the Sun King. If you're as glorious as the sun, you need a glorious empire. You're not going to sit back and see Portugal and Spain and England and those degenerate countries getting empires and you getting nothing. You want your empire, so you tried everything. It just didn't work. He kept fairly strict control of the government or tried to. They had no self- government, no jury trials, no elected assemblies, that sort of thing. There was a governor in Québec appointed by the king. He had an assistant, usually a churchman. [Man yelling: "Company!" ? Allavant ? Marche!"] because the French were so scattered around, they probably didn't find the government regulations unduly severe, but there wasn't the idea of [background drum beats] self-government that was developing at the same time in the English colony. [drum beats] [Man: "Company, ? ? droit!"] Well, the French start to lose that empire

as a result of an event that took place here. This is Jumonville Glen. Now that is not exactly a household word. If you know anything about military history, you've probably heard of Gettysburg, Lexington, Concord, Saratoga, Vicksburg, Yorktown. But you don't hear people going around talking about ? Jemanville Glen ?, what happened here. Well, some French were encamped right down here under these cliffs. And George Washington, 22-year-old Virginian, showed up and he surrounded this area, and some men out in the trees and some stationed up here on the rocks, where they could shoot right down on to the French. Now as a result of that battle, which lasted all of 15 minutes, you get a series of events that lead to the French and Indian War. Incidentally, in this battle, all the French were either killed or captured, except one man. One man was able to slip away. Now why were the English and the French fighting each other in southwestern Pennsylvania,

and what were the results of that? That's what I want to look at today. You've got to remember, you see, that England and France were the two major countries in the world, the two major powers. And they were natural enemies; they had fought each other three times the last hundred years. They're getting ready to fight each other again after this offense here, at ? Jemanville ? They were envious of each other. They were rivals for power. Now those first three wars had started in Europe. But they had slopped over to the colonies. If the mother countries are fighting, the colonists get involved in it. So they've been fighting both in Europe and in America during those three wars, but they had started in Europe. The fighting over here was a minor event. The fourth war, which we call the French and Indian War, started here; it started in the Ohio River Valley. It started right here, ? in Jemanville ____?, as a matter of fact. We call it the French and Indian War. In Europe, it's known as the Seven Years' War.

Why? Well, the general cause I've already mentioned: English-French rivalry. That was the general cause, but what started it? Well, they both claimed the Ohio River Valley, that area north of the Ohio, south of the Great Lakes, both England and France said it was theirs. The French said it was theirs because LaSalle had sailed down the Mississippi River you remember and claimed all of the land that drained into it for France, and that would include the Ohio River. So they said this is our territory. But the English said it was theirs. Because when they had started the colonies, they had given them land that extended from coast to coast. Now as long as the colonies were just pinned in east of the mountains, there was no problem. But once the colonists increase their population and start to move west into the Ohio River Valley, the conflict's going to come, something's going to have to give. And many colonists wanted to go in there, claim land, sell it later, make money. And the French are in the way.

Well, both of them began fortifying the Ohio Valley. The English had forts out there, the French build them some forts. By far the best known was Fort Duquesne. Fort Duquesne is located where Pittsburgh is now. And you can tell by looking at that, that that's a good location. For a fort. You have the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River running together here, forming the Ohio. The French built them a fort right there. But there was a whole string of those throughout the Ohio River Valley, and the British have theirs in there too. Well, the governor of Virginia wanted these people out. So he sent George Washington, who was 21, 22 at the time,to meet with the French governor and tell him to leave. And Washington did that. And the French governor told him to essentially mind his own business, and Washington went back to Virginia.

But he came back with some militiamen. He was styled a colonel in the militia or a lieutenant colonel at times. And he came into this area, building a road, and that's when he encountered the French here, at Jumonville Glen. Now that one man that got away I mentioned, he went for help. And Washington realized that he was going to have to fight the French again. So just, oh, two or three miles from here, he built himself a fort; since it was necessary to build it, he called it, "Fort Necessity." It doesn't look exactly like a great fortification, but it was surrounded by a kind of marshy land that made it difficult to attack, and he thought maybe he could hold out in there. But he thought wrong. The French outnumbered him, they captured him, and Washington's first military defensive [ sound of cans] action proved to be a disaster, and he's forced to surrender Fort Necessity to the French. You can still visit Fort Necessity today in southwestern Pennsylvania.

[Bird chirping] Now I'm only going to mention two battles in this war. One, the success; the other, a failure. There's really two ways to go down in history books. One is to do something so great that nobody ever forgets you, and the other, I guess, is to do something so stupid that nobody can forget you. These two battles fit into that classification. The first one is the Battle of Fort Duquesne. Now Fort Duquesne, remember, is what we now call Pittsburgh, and the British wanted to capture that. It was a major French fort; they thought they'd go take it. And the man they chose to do that was General Edward Braddock. Now Braddock was 60 years old and had been in the British army for 45 years. He was very popular with the soldiers, he was a good organizer, and he was used to fighting in Europe, but in Europe you fought by certain rules: you lined up, your enemy lined up,

and you shot at each other. And one row after another, and whoever had the most men left had won the battle. You didn't hide around between rocks and trees and shoot over fences and things. You do that with a certain dash. In one of these wars between England and France, an English general had ridden out in front of the armies, drunk a toast, announced that the gentlemen of France may have the first shot, whereupon they instantly killed him. Now that's, see, that's chivalry, that's dash. They didn't fight that way over here; the Indians didn't fight that way the Americans, didn't fight that way. But Braddock wanted to do it that way. So he starts marching toward Fort Duquesne, the road he built is still there, had fourteen hundred men, marched them in 14 columns along that road, which is about 12 feet wide. The army was strung out for miles, came through the forest in their red coats, the band playing the "British Grenadier," so just in case the French and Indians didn't see them they would be sure to hear them. Kept coming, kept coming. They let him come. Suddenly they attacked him. Now, he had not

sent out any scouts or skirmishers on the side of the line; that was his big mistake. Even in Europe you did that. He didn't. They just were all together. So he was totally surprised. They began shooting at them, the English tried to form up. They couldn't even see where the French and Indians were. They were fighting coward style, hiding behind things, trying to keep from being killed themselves. The front of Braddock's column began to retreat. The back came up against it. There was total confusion and by the time all was said and done, 900 men had been killed. Braddock was wounded; he eventually died. They buried him in his road and marched over it so the Indians would not find the body and mutilate it or anything. Later he was dug up from there and buried. There's a marker today near US 40 showing where Braddock was buried alongside of Braddock's Road. Well after the Battle of Fort Duquesne, things just seemed to go from bad to worse for the English. They finally get a new prime minister at home, William Pitt. William Pitt said, "I can save this

country and nobody else can." He was not short of confidence, and he proceeded to do it. He lifted their spirits, changed their approach to the war, picked new leaders, one of whom was young General James Wolfe, and he sent Wolfe over to capture the great French fortress of Québec. Québec is on the St. Lawrence River. It's the city that Champlain had founded, remember. Supposedly, it was impregnable. Well, as soon as you say something is impregnable, that it can't be captured, you know it's going to be captured. It's like saying a ship is unsinkable or a team is unbeatable. It's going to happen then. He marched up outside the city on what's known as the Plains of Abraham. And the French, rather than stay in the city, came out and met him out there on the plains. The French were commanded by the Marquis de Montcalm, also, a very young gentleman. Both Montcalm and Wolfe were killed with at the Battle of Québec. The battle lasted one day. The famous painting [gunfire] of the death of general Wolfe, Benjamin West painted it,

hangs in the National Gallery of Canada today. Odd thing about this painting is a lot of the people shown in it weren't there. They were there in their imagination, just like the painter was. But they bribed West to put them in the painting because that would look good to show that they were present at such a famous battle. Well, at the end of the battle, Montcalm and Wolfe may have lost their lives, but France lost an empire. That's the last major battle of the French and Indian War. The peace treaty was signed in Paris, naturally; if you're going to sign peace treaties and meet you want to go someplace interesting. So, if you're ever asked where ? a what's ? the name of a peace treaty, just put down the Treaty of Paris; you'll be right most of the time. The Treaty of Paris is sometimes called the Peace of Paris, 1763. The main result of that treaty? The French lost their empire in the New World. They kept a few islands, but the main idea I have is that after the Treaty of Paris, after the French and Indian War, the French are out of the New World. Everything west of the Mississippi River

belongs to Spain now. Plus the city of New Orleans. Everything east of the Mississippi was given to England. But the main idea after the French and Indian War is that the French lost their empire in the New World. There were some other results; for example, the British didn't think the colonists had carried their share of the load, and they're upset about it. They thought the colonists ought to pay for the war, or at least a third of it. So they're going to come up with some new taxes that's going to cause trouble. The colonists, for their part, want the British army out of here. They didn't mind the British army being here as long as it was protecting them against the French and the Indians. But they're defeated now. Why keep the army around? And they'd also seen that the British army could be defeated, and they didn't forget that. That stuck in their mind too. Within 20 years, of course, the British themselves will be out. They're going to fight the Revolution, they're going to lose it, they will be gone. As for the French, well,these hard-drinking, hard-living

lovers of the woods mapped the continent, but what permanent influence did they leave? Well, back in Canada, certainly a very French city. But are there any remains of the French in the United States? [Man shouting: "Company, ? ?"] If you're in a courtyard, Dixieland music in the background, the chances are pretty good you're [Dixieland music begins] in New Orleans. The French were in America for 200 years. What remains of all their efforts? Well, New Orleans remains. More than any other city, you find French influence in the city of New Orleans. LaSalle had suggested that New Orleans would make a good port. In 1718, the city was laid out, in the swampy land between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. So swampy that they had to build their cemeteries above ground. It's still one of the interesting things in New

Orleans is to visit those old cemeteries where the tomb's sitting above ground instead of below it. But to go into that area, the old area of New Orleans, the Vieux Carré, the French Quarter, was more like going into a European city. The narrow streets, artists lining the streets selling their works. The wrought iron balconies. That shows Spanish influence too because when France lost this area, the Spanish took it over. Now the houses in New Orleans were kind of unusual. The streets weren't very safe, so they tended to build them around a central courtyard. That way, if you wanted to go outside, you didn't have to go out where the pirates and no-telling-what was roaming around, you went into your own courtyard. Today, as you walk along, you'll see a narrow opening down a street. Now, in most of our towns, that would lead to some collection of garbage cans and trash. Not in New Orleans. There, you go down the passageway and it opens up into a courtyard. Maybe a restaurant; maybe someone's home. But it's one of the things that makes New Orleans distinctive.

Because New Orleans is a port city, the French mingle with other cultures to create a varied lifestyle. Part of that variety is very much in evidence in the French Quarter at night. [music ends] Old New Orleans was a tough city, and modern New Orleans has its Bourbon Street. [crowd noise] This is no town strictly of beautiful courts and genteel restaurants. Probably there's no other street in the world quite like Bourbon Street. A string of Dixieland joints, striptease joints, juggler, magicians, you name it, you're going to find it on the street. But it's all part of what makes this city interesting. It's part of what New Orleans is all about.

While the French influence is strong in New Orleans, it is even more obvious in the bayou country of southern Louisiana, where many still speak a variation of the French [end of crowd noise] language known as Cajun. [woman: "Les Cajuns, ils sonts toujours heureux de preserver ? le ?] [another woman: The Cajuns are always happy, and they love to speak the French language."] The Cajuns came from Canada, from a section called Acadia. They were French, but they lost a war to the English, and they moved out, moved down the Mississippi River to southern Louisiana. One of the poet Longfellow's best-known works, "Evangeline," deals with the migration of the Cajuns.

And in that area, they still preserve their language [man: Et, ? au les ?, on va parler ? ? ? couleur?] They still preserve their customs. They still preserve their unique form of music. [Cajun music begins] You can see it in the Catholic churches, dotted throughout the areas that were once occupied by the French. You can see it in Louisiana, being divided into parishes, instead of counties because that's the way they did it in France. And you realized what he [meant?]

when he said that the French would never be completely [sudden end, as if cut-off]