American Nation: A History, Vol. 7

A Dusty Tomes Audio BookIn Cooperation with Spoken Realms

France in America, 1497–1763 by Reuben Gold Thwaites LL.D. Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin

Narrated by Joseph Tabler

Volume 7 of 27 in The American Nation: A History published by Harper Brothers (1904–1918). Edited by Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor of History at Harvard University.

Editor’s Introduction to the Series: That a new history of the United States is needed, extending from the discovery down to the present time, hardly needs a statement. No such comprehensive work by a competent writer is now in existence. Individual writers have treated only limited chronological fields. Meantime there is a rapid increase of published sources and of serviceable monographs based on material hitherto unused. On the one side there is a necessity for an intelligent summarizing of the present knowledge of American history by trained specialists; on the other hand there is need of a complete work, written in untechnical style, which shall serve for the instruction and the entertainment of the general reader.

Editor’s Introduction to Volume Seven: In laying out a series like The American Nation, one of the fundamental difficulties is to bring into its proper relations the French colonies and their influence on the British settlements. Beginning simultaneously with the earliest English colonization, the French colonies, except in Maine and Acadia, were during their whole history separated from the English by immense expanses of trackless forest. Hence it is not until well into the eighteenth century that the two parallel threads of neighborhood colonization are really intertwisted.It has seemed wise, therefore, to treat French colonization as a continuous episode …

AUTHOR’S PREFACE: The story of the rise and fall of New France is the most dramatic chapter in American history. It has been so admirably related by Francis Parkman that to follow in his footsteps may seem a daring venture. But the work of Parkman runs through twelve octavo volumes, and in this busy world, comparatively, few are willing to undertake the task of reading them all, despite the fact that France and England in North America are quite as entertaining as the best of fiction, and possesses the additional charm of verity. There would seem to be needed a one-volume history of New France, from the standpoint of relationship with her English neighbors to the south.

I. The Planting of New France (1497–1632)II. The Acadian Frontier (1632–1728)III. The St. Lawrence Valley (1632–1713)IV. Discovery of the Mississippi (1634–1687)V. Louisiana and the Illinois (1697–1731)VI. Rivalry with England (1715–1745)VII. King George’s War (1743–1748)VIII. The People of New France (1750)IX. Basis of the Final Struggle (1748–1752)X. Outbreak of War (1752–1754)XI. A Year of Disaster (1755)XII. Guarding the Western Frontier (1755–1756)XIII. A Year of Humiliation (1757)XIV. The Turning of the Scale (1758)XV. The Fall of Quebec (1759)XVI. Conquest Approaching (1759–1760)XVII. The Treaty of Paris (1760–1763)XVIII. Louisiana under Spain (1762–1803)