Besides expanding the fur trade, the French wanted to find a river passage across North America (for a trade route to Asia), explore and secure territory, and establish Christian missions to convert Native peoples.

When did the French start exploring America?

French, Dutch, and English explorers began to make inroads into the Americans in the late 1500s and early 1600s.

What were the French looking for in America?

The French began their exploration of the New World by looking for new fishing waters and the Northwest Passage. At first, they only founded temporary trading posts, but as profits increased and more French people found their way to the New World, permanent settlements were established, such as New Orleans.

Where did the French explore in North America and why?

In 1524, Francis sent Italian-born Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the region between Florida and Newfoundland for a route to the Pacific Ocean. Verrazzano gave the names Francesca and Nova Gallia to the land between New Spain and English Newfoundland, thus promoting French interests.

Where did the French first arrive in America?

Samuel de Champlain was employed in the interests of successive fur-trading monopolies and sailed into the St. Lawrence in 1603. In the next year he was on the Bay of Fundy and had a share in founding the first French colony in North America—that of Port-Royal, (now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia).

Why did the French and other Europeans come to North America?

Mercantilism and Competition



Countries decided that they need to claim other land as their own to have more power. With that being said the Europeans in the new found land (North America) wanted to look good to the other Europeans so they wanted to claim North American as their own.

What did the French want from the Native Americans?

France saw Indigenous nations as allies, and relied on them for survival and fur trade wealth. Indigenous people traded for European goods, established military alliances and hostilities, intermarried, sometimes converted to Christianity, and participated politically in the governance of New France.

Why did the French come to America in the 1900s?

Many were political refugees fleeing from the failed 1848 revolution. In 1851 over 20,000 French immigrants arrived in the United States and the French newspaper, Le Republican, began to be published in New York.