From the Office of Education study guide:

THE FRENCH AND NETHERLANDERS THE FRENCH-SPEAKING PEOPLES I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.—VOLTAIRE.

The first French contact with North America was probably made by fishermen who voyaged to the fishing grounds of Newfoundland. The earliest settlement, though not a success, was made near the present town of Quebec in 1541. Another French colony, established in Florida by settlers in 1562, was destroyed by the Spaniards three years later. French Explorers and Traders. French colonies in the New World were not successful until the early part of the seventeenth century. Then Champlain, founder of Quebec, and the great French governor, Frontenac, made the valley of the St. Lawrence the center of French life. From 1632 onward, French traders, missionaries, explorers, and trappers pushed westward, along the Great Lakes as far as Wisconsin. Trading posts and missions were built and the French traders and missionaries quickly made friends with the Indians. The greatest of these missionary-explorers were Father Marquette, Joliet, and LaSalle. It was LaSalle who discovered the great water route from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico—a discovery which later led to French mastery in the Mississippi Valley. The Louisiana Territory. At the close of the French-Indian Wars in 1763, France gave the Louisiana Territory to Spain. It remained Spanish until 1800 when Napoleon again got control of it. Three years later, he sold it to the United States for $15,000,000. However, the influence of the French has continued. It is estimated that more than half a million people still speak French in the State of Louisiana.

The Huguenots.

On the Atlantic Coast, the most famous French settlers were the Huguenots. They came to Manhattan Island, Massachusetts, and South Carolina when they were driven from France because of religious persecution. These Protestants furnished such leaders as John Jay—Chief Justice of the Supreme Court—Paul Revere, Alexander Hamilton, President Tyler, and Admiral Dewey. While the French never came in large numbers, yet they achieved much. During the War of '76, Lafayette and Rochambeau rendered great military service. Also the wealthy Stephen Girard placed his personal fortune at the disposal of the government. The French continued to come during the nineteenth century, though the average number of immigrants each year was less than 5,000. French-Canadians, Belgians, and Swiss. Into the lumber camps and factories of New England have come thousands of French-speaking Canadians. French-speaking Belgians follow the diamond-cutting trades. The French-speaking Swiss are our finest clock and watchmakers. With them the French have brought great gifts to literature, art, music, sculpture cooking, and science.

THE NETHERLANDERS

The Netherlanders are shrewd, hard-headed, calculating, and industrious, as con- ditions in their settlements abundantly testify.—GEORGE M. STEPHENSON. - -

In 1609, two years after the English came to Jamestown, Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the service of the Netherlands, sailed up the river which now bears his name. It was on this voyage that the claim of the Netherlands to a part of North America was based. It was not until 1626, however, that the Netherlanders built the fur-trading post of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. To encourage trade, the Dutch West India Company offered large grants of land to wealthy Netherlanders who would bring in settlers to develop the new colony. In 1655, the New Netherlanders captured the settlements of the Swedes and Finns along the Delaware. This triumph was short lived for, when war broke out between England and Holland in 1664, an English fleet captured New Amsterdam and renamed it New York. By this time the Netherlanders had settled in New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, and along the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers in New York. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that another wave of Netherlanders came. These came seeking freedom of religion. They settled in Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. The Netherlanders are leaders in educational work, in the woodworking trades of Michigan, and in the farming areas of Iowa and Wisconsin.

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