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France and England in North America
Pioneers of France in the New World
Francis Parkman was a 19th century American historian. He is best known for his works The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and the 7 volume France and England in North America. Published in 1907 Pioneers of France in the New World is an in depth look at the history of Canada and the Northwest. Some of the topics covered area as follows: Early French Adventure in North America; La Roche-Champlain-De Monts, Acadia Occupied, Lescarbot and Champlain, Early Spanish Adventure, Villegagnon, The Great War Party; Hostile Sects-Rival Interests, and The English at Quebec
148 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1865
About the author
Francis Parkman
1,584 books57 followersFrancis Parkman was an American historian.
He is best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as historical sources and as literature. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a Professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and author of several books on the topic.
Parkman was a trustee of the Boston Athenæum from 1858 until his death in 1893.
He is best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as historical sources and as literature. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a Professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and author of several books on the topic.
Parkman was a trustee of the Boston Athenæum from 1858 until his death in 1893.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 4, 2013
Parkman was a contemporary of Melville and is perhaps more well known for his earlier book, The Oregon Trail, but his greatest work is the massive, seven-volume, 3000-page history titled France and England in North America, charting the early settlements and periodic conflicts of the two European powers in the New World from about 1600 to 1760. The present title (covering the period to circa 1625) is the first installment, and all seven are collected in two sturdy Library of America hardbacks, which I recommend. You’ll be hard pressed to find them in print otherwise.
Pioneers of France in the New World I found astonishing, enlightening, and totally engrossing. I devoured it in a week and could barely keep myself from jumping straight into volume two. It charts, in Gibbonesque scope, France’s earliest explorations and attempts at colonization in the Americas. You learned less than five percent of this stuff in school.
Parkman begins with the failed French Huguenot settlements of “Antarctic France” (near present-day Rio de Janeiro) and along the St Johns River in Florida, in the mid-1500s. Both end crushed, with utter absence of pity, by the Spanish. The defeated Protestant Huguenots in Florida are granted safe conduct and then massacred, with explicit royal and implicit papal blessing, by the Spanish commander Menendez, who clearly believes he’s doing God’s work. Faith need not be kept with infidels. Parkman has no sympathy for the Spanish.
After the demise of French Florida, Parkman turns to Cartier, Champlain and others on their more successful ventures in Acadia (present-day Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) and along the St Lawrence River. As religious politics from the mother country infiltrate the overseas wilderness, the missionary territory of the diverse and mostly Huguenot settlement of Acadia is battled over by the Franciscans and the Jesuits, and made a target of territorial dispute by the well-armed English settlers of early Jamestown colony in Virginia.
The latter half of the book is devoted entirely to the character and exploits of Champlain, the foundation of Quebec and Montreal, and the birth of Canada in the trading, missionary, and exploratory venture of New France. Champlain cuts a medieval figure in his gleaming armor and sword, arquebus at the ready, but his methods are relatively enlightened by comparison with those of the English and Spanish at the time. He meets the native tribes largely on their own terms. He promises and delivers them military aid against the Iroquois in return for access to trade. He presses, by their help and hospitality, as far inland as the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, while English settlers still cling like frightened limpets to a few dozen square miles of eastern seaboard.
It’s not merely the grasping and fighting of colonial powers that interests Parkman. He’s just as interested in the aboriginal peoples of North America. Though his personal judgments and language (“savages”) don’t always coincide with those of the 21st-century, he communicates something, I think, of what it must have been like to see strangers – like creatures from another world – arrive on your shores, and how the distance from Europe and the examples of new ways of life and new lands might inspire unforeseen changes in the perspectives of those first adventurers and colonists.
While the academics will tell you that some of Parkman’s methods are passé now and some of his research in need of an update, the great pleasure of Parkman’s book is in the reading of it. Parkman is a masterful prose stylist and storyteller with tremendous imaginative scope. His narrative is propulsive, his anecdotes (of ferocious battles, of anxious negotiations and political maneuverings, of winter madness and isolation, starvation and endurance, of wild sorcerers in the woods and timid monks paddling upriver to meet unguessable fates) are wonderful, chilling, and endlessly fascinating.
Pioneers of France in the New World I found astonishing, enlightening, and totally engrossing. I devoured it in a week and could barely keep myself from jumping straight into volume two. It charts, in Gibbonesque scope, France’s earliest explorations and attempts at colonization in the Americas. You learned less than five percent of this stuff in school.
Parkman begins with the failed French Huguenot settlements of “Antarctic France” (near present-day Rio de Janeiro) and along the St Johns River in Florida, in the mid-1500s. Both end crushed, with utter absence of pity, by the Spanish. The defeated Protestant Huguenots in Florida are granted safe conduct and then massacred, with explicit royal and implicit papal blessing, by the Spanish commander Menendez, who clearly believes he’s doing God’s work. Faith need not be kept with infidels. Parkman has no sympathy for the Spanish.
After the demise of French Florida, Parkman turns to Cartier, Champlain and others on their more successful ventures in Acadia (present-day Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) and along the St Lawrence River. As religious politics from the mother country infiltrate the overseas wilderness, the missionary territory of the diverse and mostly Huguenot settlement of Acadia is battled over by the Franciscans and the Jesuits, and made a target of territorial dispute by the well-armed English settlers of early Jamestown colony in Virginia.
The latter half of the book is devoted entirely to the character and exploits of Champlain, the foundation of Quebec and Montreal, and the birth of Canada in the trading, missionary, and exploratory venture of New France. Champlain cuts a medieval figure in his gleaming armor and sword, arquebus at the ready, but his methods are relatively enlightened by comparison with those of the English and Spanish at the time. He meets the native tribes largely on their own terms. He promises and delivers them military aid against the Iroquois in return for access to trade. He presses, by their help and hospitality, as far inland as the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, while English settlers still cling like frightened limpets to a few dozen square miles of eastern seaboard.
It’s not merely the grasping and fighting of colonial powers that interests Parkman. He’s just as interested in the aboriginal peoples of North America. Though his personal judgments and language (“savages”) don’t always coincide with those of the 21st-century, he communicates something, I think, of what it must have been like to see strangers – like creatures from another world – arrive on your shores, and how the distance from Europe and the examples of new ways of life and new lands might inspire unforeseen changes in the perspectives of those first adventurers and colonists.
While the academics will tell you that some of Parkman’s methods are passé now and some of his research in need of an update, the great pleasure of Parkman’s book is in the reading of it. Parkman is a masterful prose stylist and storyteller with tremendous imaginative scope. His narrative is propulsive, his anecdotes (of ferocious battles, of anxious negotiations and political maneuverings, of winter madness and isolation, starvation and endurance, of wild sorcerers in the woods and timid monks paddling upriver to meet unguessable fates) are wonderful, chilling, and endlessly fascinating.
February 28, 2024
Parkman tells of the early French settlements in what is now Florida as well as later French settlements in Canada and the Northern American coast. First thing is that Parkman is a story teller. He makes his stories of settlements made and destroyed quite interesting. I was left with a number of observations.
Even in a book about the French, religion and religious differences are a constant source of friction. The religious animosities between French and other settlers, as well as among the French themselves, led to many lost lives and destroyed settlements. From the Spanish destroying the mostly Protestant French settlements in Florida, to the later pro- and anti-Catholic French settlements in Canada, to worries about what the Jesuits are thinking, understanding religion is a big part of the enterprise here.
Another observation is that most of the French settlements put mostly colonist who were unfit for colonizing. Most seemed to spend their time doing a little work, but mostly waiting for another ship full of supplies (and perhaps women, since they were almost entirely men). This waiting for the supply ship was so important that the settlers trained the natives to help them look for ships and to report when one was spotted. The two groups that seemed to thrive in the new world were the trappers/fur traders and the guys with the guns – the army.
You also see that this exploration business was quite risky. Financing was difficult and involved making deals with unfriendly powers, generally royals or the church. And the King granted licenses to settle and removed licenses capriciously. In this volume, I don’t believe any of the company founders got rich. In fact most lost all their money and died poor. Perhaps this was a French issue, the few Spanish mentioned here did well and reaped rewards.
I’m looking forward to reading more of Parkman’s works.
Even in a book about the French, religion and religious differences are a constant source of friction. The religious animosities between French and other settlers, as well as among the French themselves, led to many lost lives and destroyed settlements. From the Spanish destroying the mostly Protestant French settlements in Florida, to the later pro- and anti-Catholic French settlements in Canada, to worries about what the Jesuits are thinking, understanding religion is a big part of the enterprise here.
Another observation is that most of the French settlements put mostly colonist who were unfit for colonizing. Most seemed to spend their time doing a little work, but mostly waiting for another ship full of supplies (and perhaps women, since they were almost entirely men). This waiting for the supply ship was so important that the settlers trained the natives to help them look for ships and to report when one was spotted. The two groups that seemed to thrive in the new world were the trappers/fur traders and the guys with the guns – the army.
You also see that this exploration business was quite risky. Financing was difficult and involved making deals with unfriendly powers, generally royals or the church. And the King granted licenses to settle and removed licenses capriciously. In this volume, I don’t believe any of the company founders got rich. In fact most lost all their money and died poor. Perhaps this was a French issue, the few Spanish mentioned here did well and reaped rewards.
I’m looking forward to reading more of Parkman’s works.
September 28, 2017
I am a Parkman reader and this follows the line of his historical viewpoint. He is a man of his time and often uses information that is now proven to not be factual. But that idea, itself, is a historical perspective and reminds us historians that the viewpoint of history is forever evolving and not written in concrete; something that all scholars of history need to remember.
I have always admire Parkman's ability to gather his research in a period of time before technology, he is a true trailblazer for those of us who love history.
I have always admire Parkman's ability to gather his research in a period of time before technology, he is a true trailblazer for those of us who love history.
Currently Reading
January 25, 2026I found a beautiful five-copy set of the series for a steal at a used bookstore, and have finally opened the first book (an 1871 edition that is a joy to read); I have only finished the first chapter, but already can see that Parkman did an exquisite job writing these. They are beautifully annotated on the page, but not copiously done; the year and subject within the chapter is noted at the top of every page - I feel that I don't have to take any notes except a list of the top primary sources I want to pursue, because anything I want to refer back to will be so easy to find, as Parkman did all the work for me. It's too early to say much about his writing, but so far it is clear and concise, with a lovely use of vocabulary but nothing too stilted or academic.
September 10, 2018
ATrip to Quebec prompted me to return to Francis Parkman to read this volume of early French explorers,traders, and colonists in the new world who claimed half a continent with a skeletal group of settlers. Parkman is a beautiful writer tHough he can not shed his antipathy for catholic orthodoxy and the iron hand of the old regime. The French were intrepid and audacious but they were overwhelmed by their more enterprising, much more numerous and much more open neighbors to the south.
August 15, 2020
Parkman's a great prose stylist and when it comes to story-telling, he's downright fantastic. The book loses a bit of steam in its second half because the most compelling character, the sadistic Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez, disappears. Parkman is at his best when he's crafting Menendez into a truly terrifying villain, a religious fanatic with a taste for blood. But I enjoyed the entire book and will be continuing with this series.
April 5, 2025
Interesting Intro to French Colonization
Slow and difficult to read to start, but once you get used to his writing style, it's full of detail and interesting tidbits. He does not always identify his sources which makes cross-referencing and confirming some statements challenging.
Slow and difficult to read to start, but once you get used to his writing style, it's full of detail and interesting tidbits. He does not always identify his sources which makes cross-referencing and confirming some statements challenging.
February 6, 2026
The first of seven parts in his epic France and England in North America, this is great classic history. Parkman uses amazing prose and storytelling techniques to paint the picture of the failed settlements of Florida, the foundations of Quebec and Montreal, and the conflicts and interactions between France, Spain, England, and the Native Americans.
April 16, 2025
This book, first edition was 1865, narrates the French exploration and attempted colonization of Quebec. More like a compilation of the French’s unsuccessful colonization of Quebec. Comprehensive, sterling descriptions of the Canadian landscape, and detailed descriptions of interactions with the native Americans.
France’s initial attempt to colonize America was in Florida. Predating the arrival of the Spanish.
France’s initial attempt to colonize America was in Florida. Predating the arrival of the Spanish.
August 23, 2015
Francis Parkman's Pioneers of France in the New World is a very easy read of pre-colonial America written in an entertaining style by a nineteenth century historian. It gives you a good sense of the different efforts between the European colonies and why the British succeeded despite initially being confined to a narrow strip by the sea due to topographical reasons. This book focuses on the efforts of the French to colonize America and their various follies that ultimately lead to their losing the New World. Definitely not for the amateur historian but someone who is a North American history buff would relish this interesting book.
February 26, 2014
"The springs of American civilization, unlike those of the elder world, lie revealed in the clear light of History." And so begins Parkman's highly detailed and richly researched 19th C accounting of the first Frenchmen explorers and settlers in America...focusing on Florida in part one and the north country in part two. An enjoyable and enlightening read in spite of it's age.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews