The American Nation: A History, Vol. 7: France in America, 1497–1763
About this audiobook
A Dusty Tomes Audio BookIn Cooperation with Spoken Realms
France in America, 1497–1763 by Reuben Gold Thwaites LL.D. Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin
Narrated by Joseph Tabler
Volume 7 of 27 in The American Nation: A History published by Harper Brothers (1904–1918). Edited by Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor of History at Harvard University.
Editor’s Introduction to the Series: That a new history of the United States is needed, extending from the discovery down to the present time, hardly needs a statement. No such comprehensive work by a competent writer is now in existence. Individual writers have treated only limited chronological fields. Meantime there is a rapid increase of published sources and of serviceable monographs based on material hitherto unused. On the one side there is a necessity for an intelligent summarizing of the present knowledge of American history by trained specialists; on the other hand there is need of a complete work, written in untechnical style, which shall serve for the instruction and the entertainment of the general reader.
Editor’s Introduction to Volume Seven: In laying out a series like The American Nation, one of the fundamental difficulties is to bring into its proper relations the French colonies and their influence on the British settlements. Beginning simultaneously with the earliest English colonization, the French colonies, except in Maine and Acadia, were during their whole history separated from the English by immense expanses of trackless forest. Hence it is not until well into the eighteenth century that the two parallel threads of neighborhood colonization are really intertwisted.It has seemed wise, therefore, to treat French colonization as a continuous episode ...
AUTHOR’S PREFACE: The story of the rise and fall of New France is the most dramatic chapter in American history. It has been so admirably related by Francis Parkman that to follow in his footsteps may seem a daring venture. But the work of Parkman runs through twelve octavo volumes, and in this busy world, comparatively, few are willing to undertake the task of reading them all, despite the fact that France and England in North America are quite as entertaining as the best of fiction, and possesses the additional charm of verity. There would seem to be needed a one-volume history of New France, from the standpoint of relationship with her English neighbors to the south.
I. The Planting of New France (1497–1632)II. The Acadian Frontier (1632–1728)III. The St. Lawrence Valley (1632–1713)IV. Discovery of the Mississippi (1634–1687)V. Louisiana and the Illinois (1697–1731)VI. Rivalry with England (1715–1745)VII. King George’s War (1743–1748)VIII. The People of New France (1750)IX. Basis of the Final Struggle (1748–1752)X. Outbreak of War (1752–1754)XI. A Year of Disaster (1755)XII. Guarding the Western Frontier (1755–1756)XIII. A Year of Humiliation (1757)XIV. The Turning of the Scale (1758)XV. The Fall of Quebec (1759)XVI. Conquest Approaching (1759–1760)XVII. The Treaty of Paris (1760–1763)XVIII. Louisiana under Spain (1762–1803)
About the author
Thwaites was born in 1853 in Dorchester, Massachusetts. His parents were William George and Sarah Bibbs Thwaites, who had moved to Dorchester in 1850 from Yorkshire, England.[1] The family moved to Omro, Wisconsin, in 1866, where Reuben worked on the farm, studied college-level coursework and reported for the Oshkosh Times. In 1874–1875 he studied English literature, economic history and international law at Yale University. Thwaites studied at Yale as a special student, and beyond that never formally studied at the collegiate level,[2] although later in his life he was awarded an LLD from the University of Wisconsin.[3]From 1876 to 1886, Thwaites was managing editor of the Wisconsin State Journal, at Madison. In 1885 he became assistant corresponding secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, and when Lyman Draper retired as secretary 1887, Thwaites was appointed to succeed him.[3] While leading the historical society he edited volumes XI-XIX of the Wisconsin Historical Collections, The Jesuit Relations, Early Western Travels, 1748–1846, and Original Journals of Lewis and Clark. He also authored a number of papers and monographs including a biography of Daniel Boone,[4] a biography of Jacques Marquette,[5] and a history of colonial North America.[6]Thwaites is credited with raising the scholarship surrounding the Lewis and Clark expedition to a new level. Previous to the editions that were published under his leadership, general knowledge as well as serious scholarship were for the most part hampered by legend. Thwaites discovered and uncovered various additional original sources, including the journal of Charles Floyd, the only member of the Corps of Discovery to die on the expedition. By including these disparate sources and tying them together in a cohesive set of volumes, the nature and importance of the expedition became more generally recognized.[7]
Albert Bushnell Hart (1854–1943) was one of the first generation of professionally trained historians in the United States and a prolific author and editor of historical works. Hart became, as Samuel Eliot Morison described him, “The Grand Old Man” of American history, looking the part with his “patriarchal full beard and flowing moustaches.”
