New France and Colonial North America c. 1700

In 1663 King Louis XIV decided to make New France a royal province with a governor and ceremonial head of state, which meant cancelling the charter of the Company of New France, which had organized the colonization of North America up to this point. A regiment of soldiers sent from France, under the command of Alexandre de Prouville, defeated the Iroquois in 1666 and made peace, creating conditions where more than 3,000 settlers went out to the new colony, including marriageable women. Luis Joillet explored the Mississippi River and in 1671 Simon François d’Aumont took possession of the American interior for France. British colonists fiercely resisted these claims to domination, seizing Acadia and attempting to take Quebec. Meanwhile the French were making border raids into New England. Eventually the Treaty of Rijswik (1697) agreed that New France would hold Hudson Bay, but not Newfoundland, both territories that were disputed with England. The brilliant young Canadian military leader Pierre le Moyne, headed south and founded Louisiana, another part of New France, in 1699. Following peace treaties between French settlers and the Iroquois in 1700 and 1701 New France was set to reach the height of its powers.