Meanwhile both sides were preparing to occupy and hold the contested fields. New France already had a weak chain of water-side forts and commercial stations, the rendezvous of priests, fur-traders, travellers, and friendly Indians, extending, with long intervening stretches of savage-haunted wilderness, through the heart of the continent,—chiefly on the shores of the Great Lakes, and the banks of the principal river highways,—from Lower Canada to her outlying post of New Orleans. Around each of these frontier forts was a scattered farming community, the holdings being narrow fields reaching far back into the country from the water-front, with the neat log-cabins of the habitants nestled in close neighborhood upon the banks. In the summer the men, aided by their large families, tilled the ribbon-like patches in a desultory fashion, and in the winter assisted the fur-traders as oarsmen and pack-carriers. Many were married to squaws, and the younger portion of the population was to a large extent half-breed. They were a happy, contented people, without ambition beyond the day's enjoyment, combining with the light-heartedness of the French the improvidence of the savage.
The French covet the Ohio.
From 1700 on, the conflict seemed inevitable. The French realized that they could not keep up connection between New Orleans and their settlements on the St. Lawrence if not permitted to hold the valley of the Ohio. Governor La Jonquière (1749-1752) understood the situation, and pleaded for the shipment of ten thousand French peasants to settle the region; but the government at Paris was just then as indifferent to New France as was King George to his colonies, and the settlers were not sent.
114. Effect of French Colonization.
Characteristics of New France.
Of the region in which were scattered the permanent French settlements, the southern shore of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi valley eventually became a part of the United States; although these settlements were few and small, the influence of French operations in the West, on the development of the English colonies, was far reaching. New France will always be renowned for the immense area held by a small European population. She was from the first hampered by serious drawbacks,—centralization, paternalism, official corruption, instability of system, religious exclusiveness, the fascination of the fur-trade, a deadly Indian foe, and an inhospitable climate,—the sum of which was in the end to destroy her (page [49]). She expanded with mushroom growth, but was predestined to collapse. Yet more than any other part of North America, the French colonies in what is now Canada preserve the language and the customs of the time of their settlement.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE COLONIZATION OF GEORGIA (1732-1755).
115. References.