French India

Understand

The word empire traditionally describes a state ruled by an emperor (with claims to succeed the Roman Empire); a title possessed by Napoleon Bonaparte and Napoleon III. In a more general sense, the French Empire described France's colonies and dominions overseas.

First Empire

France's colonial history can be divided into two periods. The first French colonial empire consisted mainly of possessions in the Americas, both on the North American continent and in the Caribbean archipelago. France acquired them during the conquest of the "New World" by European powers in the 16th and 17th centuries. Many major North American cities were founded by the French, including not only Montreal, Quebec City and New Orleans, but also Detroit, St. Louis and Chicago. In the Seven Years' War of 1756–1763 (known as the French and Indian War in North America), France lost much of its North American territories to Britain. What once was "New France" became known as Canada. The British expelled most of the French-speaking residents of Acadia — France's colony in what are now Canada's Maritime Provinces and parts of Maine — and many went to Louisiana where Acadien mutated into Cajun. Louisiana – consisting not just of today's state of the same name, but a vast territory in the South, Midwest and Great Plains of what now are the United States — was split along the Mississippi. The eastern half became the British "Indian Reserve", the western part was ceded to the Spanish Empire. France re-acquired Spanish Louisiana during the Napoleonic Wars in 1802, only to sell it to the United States for fifteen million dollars a year later (Louisiana Purchase, or vente de la Louisiane from the French point-of-view). Inspired by the French Revolution, the colony of Haiti declared itself an independent republic in 1804. After that France only kept a few tiny possessions in India and remote islands. Napoleon's Empire was eventually defeated in 1815, and replaced by the Bourbon Monarchy which made conc