Company of One Hundred Associates
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Company type | Chartered company |
---|---|
Industry | Fur trade |
Founded | 1627 |
Defunct | 1663 |
Fate | Dissolved by King Louis XIV |
Headquarters | France |
Area served | New France |
The Company of One Hundred Associates (
Background
French exploitation of North America's resources began in the 16th century when French and Basque fishermen used ports on the continent's Atlantic coastline as trading stations during the summer fishing season. Attempts at permanent settlements along the
From 1613 to 1620, the Compagnie des Marchands operated in New France but failed to fulfill their contractual obligations and therefore lost their rights in 1621 to the Compagnie de Montmorency. Six years later in 1627, Cardinal Richelieu withdrew the monopoly of the Compagnie de Montmorency, and established the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France, as part of a plan to develop trade.[1] Throughout all of these years, the monopoly holders were frequently troubled with rogue traders (from France and other nations) in North America on one side, and politically connected opponents of their monopoly in France on the other. Many of the directors of these companies were more interested in trade than in colonization, which was usually a drain on the company's finances. Champlain, who championed the colonization efforts, worked tirelessly to make sure the French colonies survived amid political and corporate changes of power.
Company history
The Compagnie de la Nouvelle France was capitalized with 3,000
From 1629 to 1635 Champlain was the company's commander in New France.
The company's first fleet of colonization and supply left France in April 1628 under the cloud of war, and over the objections of some of its directors. War had
The company encountered numerous further difficulties with its exploitation of New France including territorial battles with the English. By 1631 the company had to find new investors willing to accept the risks. In order to attract people and capital, the company had to allocate portions of its trading monopoly to new subsidiary companies. These subsidiary partners, such as the future founders of the Compagnie des Habitants in Quebec, were made up of wealthy members of the elite from various parts of France, several of them being a part of the group of newly established colonists in Canada. Nevertheless, over the ensuing two decades this concept too ran into numerous problems, and France's attention turned to Continental Europe and the ages old rivalry with the Holy Roman Empire when in 1635 it joined the Thirty Years' War in Europe.
Discontent with settlers in Quebec over the company's total control of the fur trade caused numerous problems, which led to control over the colony shifting for a time to the Canadian-based Compagnie des Habitants, and matters worsened during the 1650s when war with the Iroquois severely hampered the fur trade and threatened continued colonization.
The situation changed when King Louis XIV finally came of age, ending the long and chaotic Regency during his minority, and in 1663 one of his first major acts as a reigning monarch was to dissolve both the Company of One Hundred Associates and the Company of Habitants, shifting the fur trading rights of North America to the French West India Company, taking direct control of New France as a Province of the Realm, and subsequently deploying the Carignan-Salières Regiment to Canada in 1665 (the first European Regular unit deployed to the Western Hemisphere) to deal with the Dutch and English-backed Iroquois menace once and for all, actions which substantially increased the stability and development of the Colony of Canada in the following decades.[5]
See also
- Hudson's Bay Company
- List of trading companies
- European chartered companies founded around the 17th century (in French)
References
- ^ a b c "Company of New France", L’Encyclopédie de l'histoire du Québec
- ^ David Hackett Fischer, Champlain's Dream, p. 404
- ^ Trudel, Marcel (1979) [1966]. "Champlain, Samuel de". In Brown, George Williams (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. I (1000–1700) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
- ^ Fischer, p. 433
- ^ Maheu, Jacques. "New France". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
Bibliography
- Levi, Anthony (2000). Cardinal Richelieu: And the Making of France. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0-7867-0778-X.