French colonization of North America and the greater Caribbean led to the creation of new societies, born from the encounters between Europeans, Indigenous Peoples, and Africans.

  After Portugal and Great Britain, France was the third most active power involved in the transatlantic Slave Trade.

Women of all classes engaged in commercial enterprises in New France. Their activities were facilitated by the colony’s Custom of Paris, which gave them broader property rights than most other French legal codes. ...

To reinvigorate the kingdom of France which was in a poor state after the death of Louis XIV, the Scotsman John Law set up the Compagnie d’Occident, to support trade and the colonies, while ridding the state of the burden...

Beginning with the Compagnie de Saint-Christophe (1626-1635), to the final Compagnie des Indes (1785-1793), many French companies benefited from privileged access to overseas commerce during the Ancien Régime. ...

In 1683, Jacques de Meulles, the Intendant of New France, wrote: “One might say that this fishery is a Peru and if it were carried out only by the king’s subjects, this country [New France] would soon be flourishing.” ...

In Canada, the fur trade led to the creation in the 17th century of a special social category: the “coureur de bois” (literally: “wood runner”). These Frenchmen who travelled among Indigenous peoples were long seen as vag...

In North-East America, the exchange system we call the fur trade emerged in the 16th century, mainly on the shores of what are now known as the Gulfs of Maine and Saint Lawrence.