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Article: North America
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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NORTH AMERICA
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, France's North American colonies stretched westward from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes and southward from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The early proprietary governments gave way to a royal regime in the mid-seventeenth century, although the proprietary model was
resuscitated on a limited basis in the eighteenth century. Forms of social organization varied from colony to colony, but everywhere there were new realities, belying the characterization of New France as an archaic feudal society. Economically the colonies differed from one another as well, but in general the absence of a labor-intensive ...