FRENCH

FRENCH. French interest in the Americas was stimulated by the earlier voyages of the Spanish, Portuguese, and English. During the seventeenth century, explorers sailing under the French flag navigated the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. They founded settlements along the MISSISSIPPI RIVER in what would become Louisiana and along the St. Lawrence River in New France or Quebec, with much smaller settlements at Beaufort, South Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida.

Emigration from France was strictly regulated by law. French settlers in the New World were usually trappers, soldiers, or clerics until 1685, when King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes stripping the Protestant Huguenots of their political rights unless they converted to Roman Catholicism. In response, many Huguenots chose to emigrate to North America. Among France’s most skilled artisans, the Huguenots were well-educated members of the wealthy middle class. Their departure crippled the French economy but led to the creation of prosperous settlements at New Rochelle, Staten Island, Harlem, and New Paltz in what would become the state of New York. Huguenot families also settled in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina, Conflicting accounts make it difficult to provide accurate figures on the numbers of Huguenots who settled in the future United States. Estimates range from as few as 3,000 to as many as 15,000 before the first U.S. Census in 1790.

The first U.S. Census in 1790 listed 11,307 residents of French origin. New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Maryland had the largest numbers of French-speaking residents. Other states with significant French populations included North Carolina, Virginia, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and what was then the territory of Maine.

Between 1819 and 1870, 245,812 French immigrants arrived in the United States. Their numbers steadily rose—from 8,868 during the 1820s to 45,575 during the 1830s. The next two decades witnessed further increases of French immigrants: 77,262 during the 1840s and 76,358 during the 1850s. The increased numbers of French immigrants during each of those decades reflect the disorder caused by political revolutions in France in 1830, 1848, and 1852.

During the 1860s, the decade in which the U.S. CIVIL WAR was fought, the number of new French immigrants declined to 37,749. The 1870 U.S. Census counted 115,260 U.S. residents born in France, with the largest numbers in New York, Ohio, Louisiana, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. The loss of the French province of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany in 1871 increased the number of French Alsatians, particularly French Jews, who relocated to the United States. Nevertheless, the 1880 U.S. Census saw a decline in the number of French-born residents of the United States to 104,143. By this time, California had replaced Ohio among the five states with the most French residents.

The 1900 census showed a further decline in the size the French-born population, whose numbers had dropped to 102,535. The largest communities were in New York, Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana. Between 1875 and 1914, France’s politics and national economy was stabilizing, and most French emigrants chose to see economic opportunities in French colonies in North Africa and Southeast Asia.

In Dubuque, French influence included: Alexander LEVI and Mathias LORAS, and Julien DUBUQUE

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Source:

Immigration in America. http://immigrationinamerica.org/510-french-immigrants.html