About this episode

The episode explores the development of French Canada and its interactions with indigenous allies during the mid-1600s, focusing on the impact of royal rule and subsequent conflicts.

We examine how French Canada and its indigenous allies weathered the apocalyptic disasters of the mid-1600s, giving shape in the process to a new, distinctly Canadian form of mystical and penitential piety. We trace how in the 1660s, the new absolutist regime under the young Louis XIV and Colbert took the colony under direct royal rule, investing immense resources into the colonizing venture, pacifying the enemies of the French, and enabling ambitious imperial officials like Jean Talon to enlarge Canada into a full-fledged province, comprising extensive agricultural lands along the Saint Lawrence, a complex tiered social structure, an autonomous church, and a sprawling network of outposts, forts, and missions stretching as far as the Mississippi and modern-day Manitoba. Finally, we see how English expansion both in the south and in the north ended the interval of peace, reigniting war along new frontiers, and ultimately pulling Canada into a vortex of inter-imperial war from which it would never fully escape. Please sign on as a patron to support the podcast and to hear all patron-only lectures: https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632 Image: Reliquary with relics of three of the…

People in this episode

Host: Samuel Biagetti

Topics covered

• French Canada
• indigenous allies
• absolutism
• colonial expansion
• inter-imperial conflict
• mystical piety

Keywords

• French Canada
• Louis XIV
• Jean Talon
• colonial history
• indigenous relations
• absolutism
• inter-imperial war

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: A Brief History of Canada, La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada, The History of Montreal, The Nations of Canada

Places: Canada, Quebec, Saint Lawrence, Mississippi, Manitoba

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