French West India Company

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The French West India Company (French: Compagnie française des Indes occidentales) was a French trading company founded in 1664 by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and dissolved in 1674. The company received the French possessions of the Atlantic coasts of Africa and America, and the monopoly on trade with America for forty years. It was supposed to populate Canada, using the profits of the sugar economy that began in Guadeloupe. Its capital was six million pounds and its headquarters was in Le Havre.

The stock of the company was so considerable, that in less than 6 months, 45 vessels were equipped, with which they took possession of all the places in their grant, and settled a commerce. In 1674, the grant was revoked, and the various countries reunited to the King's dominions, as before; the King reimbursed the actions of the adventurers.

This revocation was owing partly to the poverty of the company, caused by its losses in the wars with England, which had necessitated it to borrow large sums; and even to alienate its exclusive privilege for the coasts of Guinea, but also to its having in good measure answered its end, which was to recover the commerce of the West Indies from the Dutch, who had taken it away from them. The French merchants being so accustomed to traffic to the Antilles, by permission of the company, were so attached to it, that it was not doubted they would support the commerce after the dissolution of the company.

Action of the company in New France (Canada)[edit]

In 1665 the Company obtained the Regiment Carignan-Salt to provide security against Iroquois invasion, and contributed to the settlement of the colony, by the arrival of 1200 men from the Dauphiné, Liguria, Piedmont and Savoy. In 1666, Jean Talon organized the first census, counting 3215 inhabitants. The population of the colony grew to 6700 inhabitants in 1672, as a result of policies encouraging marriage and fertility. In 1667, several tribes of Iroquois, the Mohawks and Oneidas, agreed to make peace.

Charles Aubert de La Chesnaye, fur trader in Tadoussac between 1663 and 1666, was appointed general clerk of the Company from 1666 o 1669, when he left the company for logging in Lac-Saint-Jean, a brick and a long stay in La Rochelle, which allows him to establish business relations with several European countries and owning several vessels .

Upon his return to Canada Charles Aubert de La Chesnaye obtained shortly after the dissolution of the company, from 1675 and until 1681, the rights of the farm of the Company of the West and his friend Jean Oudiette, and holding the monopoly of beaver pelts, then Canada's main export. In 1672, Jean Talon granted him, with two other partners, the lordship of Percé to serve as a port for fishing boats. He received the seigniory of Riviere-du-Loup December 23, 1673. Chesnaye also bought half the fiefs of St. Francis and St. John (1677), the lordships of the park, east of Rivière-du-Loup (1675), and Hare Island (1677).

Action in the Caribbean[edit]

Tobacco plantations were highly developed in other French colonies. The company got a monopoly on the slave trade from Senegal, which since 1658 belonged to the Company of Cape Verde and Senegal. In 1666 the Company created two counters in Dahomey (Benin), Savi and Ouidah, which bought other tropical products.

The company faced the interests of the French settlers in the Caribbean, who were engaged in smuggling with the Dutch. Its commercial monopoly led to the resale price of sugar becoming prohibitive compared to that in its English competitors, Barbados and Jamaica.

The sugar planters complained and accused the company of not delivering enough slaves, while the British island of Jamaica imported on a large scale from the early 1670s.

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