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Sunday, December 31, 2023

Phytophthora infestans

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytophthora_infestans

Phytophthora infestans

Symptom of late blight on the underside of a potato leaf
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Clade:	Diaphoretickes
Clade:	SAR
Clade:	Stramenopiles
Phylum:	Oomycota
Order:	Peronosporales
Family:	Peronosporaceae
Genus:	Phytophthora
Species:	P. infestans
Binomial name
*Phytophthora infestans* (Mont.) de Bary

Phytophthora infestans is an oomycete or water mold, a fungus-like microorganism that causes the serious potato and tomato disease known as late blight or potato blight. Early blight, caused by Alternaria solani, is also often called "potato blight". Late blight was a major culprit in the 1840s European, the 1845–1852 Irish, and the 1846 Highland potato famines. The organism can also infect some other members of the Solanaceae. The pathogen is favored by moist, cool environments: sporulation is optimal at 12–18 °C (54–64 °F) in water-saturated or nearly saturated environments, and zoospore production is favored at temperatures below 15 °C (59 °F). Lesion growth rates are typically optimal at a slightly warmer temperature range of 20 to 24 °C (68 to 75 °F).

Etymology

The genus name Phytophthora comes from the Greek φυτό (phyto), meaning "plant" – plus the Greek φθορά (phthora), meaning "decay, ruin, perish". The species name infestans is the present participle of the Latin verb infestare, meaning "attacking, destroying", from which the word "to infest" is derived. The name Phytophthora infestans was coined in 1876 by the German mycologist Heinrich Anton de Bary (1831–1888).

Life cycle, signs and symptoms

The asexual life cycle of Phytophthora infestans is characterized by alternating phases of hyphal growth, sporulation, sporangia germination (either through zoospore release or direct germination, i.e. germ tube emergence from the sporangium), and the re-establishment of hyphal growth. There is also a sexual cycle, which occurs when isolates of opposite mating type (A1 and A2, see § Mating types below) meet. Hormonal communication triggers the formation of the sexual spores, called oospores. The different types of spores play major roles in the dissemination and survival of P. infestans. Sporangia are spread by wind or water and enable the movement of P. infestans between different host plants. The zoospores released from sporangia are biflagellated and chemotactic, allowing further movement of P. infestans on water films found on leaves or soils. Both sporangia and zoospores are short-lived, in contrast to oospores which can persist in a viable form for many years.

People can observe P. infestans produce dark green, then brown then black spots on the surface of potato leaves and stems, often near the tips or edges, where water or dew collects. The sporangia and sporangiophores appear white on the lower surface of the foliage. As for tuber blight, the white mycelium often shows on the tubers' surface.

Under ideal conditions, P. infestans completes its life cycle on potato or tomato foliage in about five days. Sporangia develop on the leaves, spreading through the crop when temperatures are above 10 °C (50 °F) and humidity is over 75–80% for 2 days or more. Rain can wash spores into the soil where they infect young tubers, and the spores can also travel long distances on the wind. The early stages of blight are easily missed. Symptoms include the appearance of dark blotches on leaf tips and plant stems. White mold will appear under the leaves in humid conditions and the whole plant may quickly collapse. Infected tubers develop grey or dark patches that are reddish brown beneath the skin, and quickly decay to a foul-smelling mush caused by the infestation of secondary soft bacterial rots. Seemingly healthy tubers may rot later when in store.

P. infestans survives poorly in nature apart from on its plant hosts. Under most conditions, the hyphae and asexual sporangia can survive for only brief periods in plant debris or soil, and are generally killed off during frosts or very warm weather. The exceptions involve oospores, and hyphae present within tubers. The persistence of viable pathogen within tubers, such as those that are left in the ground after the previous year's harvest or left in cull piles is a major problem in disease management. In particular, volunteer plants sprouting from infected tubers are thought to be a major source of inoculum (or propagules) at the start of a growing season. This can have devastating effects by destroying entire crops.

Mating types

The mating types are broadly divided into A1 and A2. Until the 1980s populations could only be distinguished by virulence assays and mating types, but since then more detailed analysis has shown that mating type and genotype are substantially decoupled. These types each produce a mating hormone of their own. Pathogen populations are grouped into clonal lineages of these mating types and includes:

A1

A1 produces a mating hormone, a diterpene α1. Clonal lineages of A1 include:

CN-1CN-1, -2, -4, -5, -6, -7, -8 – mtDNA haplotype Ia, China in 1996–97
CN-3 – Ia, China, 1996–97
CN-10 – Ia, China, 2004
CN-11 – IIb, China, 2000 & 2002
CN01 – IIa, China, 2004–09
CN03 – Ia/IIb, China, 2004–09
FAM-1 – (only presumed to be A1), mtDNA haplo Ia subtype HERB-1, Japan, Philippines, India, China, Malaysia, Nepal, present some time before 1950
IN-1 – Ia, India, Nepal, 1993
IN-2 – Ia, India, 1993
JP-2JP-2/SIB-1/RF006 – mtDNA haplo IIa, distinguishable by RG57, intermediate level of metalaxyl resistance, Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, 1996–present
JP-3 – IIa, distinguishable by RG57, intermediate level of metalaxyl resistance, Japan, 1996–present
JP-4 – IIa, distinguishable by RG57, intermediate level of metalaxyl resistance, Japan, 1996–present
KR-1 Zhang sensu Zhang (not to be confused with #KR-1 sensu Gotoh below) – IIa, Korea, 2002–04
KR_1_A1KR_1_A1 – mtDNA haplo unknown, Korea, 2009–16
MO-6 – Ia, China, 2004
NP-1 – Ia, India, Nepal, 1993, 1996–97
NP-2 – Ia, Nepal, 1997
NP1 – Ia, Nepal, 1999–2000
NP2 A1 – (Also A2, see #the A2 type of NP2 below) Ia, Nepal, 1999–2000
NP3 (not to be confused with #US-1 below) – Ib, Nepal, 1999–2000
US-1 (not to be confused with #NP3/US-1 above) – Ib,China, India, Nepal, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, 1940–2000
NP4, 5, 7, and 9 – Ia, Nepal, 1999–2000
NP6 – mtDNA haplo unknown, Nepal, 1999–2000
US-11 – IIb, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, 1998–2016
US-16 – IIb, China, 2002 & 2004
US-17 – IIa, Korea, 2003–04
US-23
US-24
2_A1 – Ia, Indonesia, 2016–19
T30-4

A2

Discovered by John Niederhauser in the 1950s, in the Toluca Valley in Central Mexico, while working for the Rockefeller Foundation's Mexican Agriculture Program. Published in Niederhauser 1956. A2 produces a mating hormone α2. Clonal lineages of A2 include:

CN02 – See #13_A2/CN02 below
US-22 – with mtDNA haplotype H-20
JP-1 – IIa, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, late 1980s–present
KR-1 Gotoh sensu Gotoh (not to be confused with #KR-1 sensu Zhang above) – IIa, differs from JP-1 by one RG57 band, Korea, 1992
KR_2_A2 – mtDNA haplo unknown, Korea, 2009–16
CN-9 – Ia, China, 2001
NP2 A2 – (Also A1, see #the A1 type of NP2 above) Ia, Nepal, 1999–2000
NP8 – Ib, Nepal, 1999–2000
NP10 & 11 – Ia, Nepal, 1999–2000
TH-1 – Ia, Thailand, China, Nepal, 1994 & 1997
Unknown – Ib, India, 1996–2003
BR-1 – Brazil
US-7
US-8
US-14 – IIa, Korea, 2002–03
13_A2/CN02 – Ia, China, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Myanmar, 2005–19

Self-fertile

A self-fertile type was present in China between 2009 and 2013.

Physiology

PiINF1 is the INF1 in P. infestans. Hosts respond with autophagy upon detection of this elicitor, Liu et al. 2005 finding this to be the only alternative to mass hypersensitivity leading to mass programmed cell death.

Genetics

P. infestans is diploid, with about 8–10 chromosomes, and in 2009 scientists completed the sequencing of its genome. The genome was found to be considerably larger (240 Mbp) than that of most other Phytophthora species whose genomes have been sequenced; P. sojae has a 95 Mbp genome and P. ramorum had a 65 Mbp genome. About 18,000 genes were detected within the P. infestans genome. It also contained a diverse variety of transposons and many gene families encoding for effector proteins that are involved in causing pathogenicity. These proteins are split into two main groups depending on whether they are produced by the water mold in the symplast (inside plant cells) or in the apoplast (between plant cells). Proteins produced in the symplast included RXLR proteins, which contain an arginine-X-leucine-arginine (where X can be any amino acid) sequence at the amino terminus of the protein. Some RXLR proteins are avirulence proteins, meaning that they can be detected by the plant and lead to a hypersensitive response which restricts the growth of the pathogen. P. infestans was found to encode around 60% more of these proteins than most other Phytophthora species. Those found in the apoplast include hydrolytic enzymes such as proteases, lipases and glycosylases that act to degrade plant tissue, enzyme inhibitors to protect against host defence enzymes and necrotizing toxins. Overall the genome was found to have an extremely high repeat content (around 74%) and to have an unusual gene distribution in that some areas contain many genes whereas others contain very few.

The pathogen shows high allelic diversity in many isolates collected in Europe. This may be due to widespread trisomy or polyploidy in those populations.

Research

Study of P. infestans presents sampling difficulties in the United States. It occurs only sporadically and usually has significant founder effects due to each epidemic starting from introduction of a single genotype.

Origin and diversity

The highlands of central Mexico are considered by many to be the center of origin of P. infestans, although others have proposed its origin to be in the Andes, which is also the origin of potatoes.^[ A recent study evaluated these two alternate hypotheses and found conclusive support for central Mexico being the center of origin. Support for Mexico – specifically the Toluca Valley – comes from multiple observations including the fact that populations are genetically most diverse in Mexico, late blight is observed in native tuber-bearing Solanum species, populations of the pathogen are in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, the two mating (see § Mating types above) types occur in a 1:1 ratio, and detailed phylogeographic and evolutionary studies. Furthermore, the closest relatives of P. infestans, namely P. mirabilis and P. ipomoeae are endemic to central Mexico. On the other hand, the only close relative found in South America, namely P. andina, is a hybrid that does not share a single common ancestor with P. infestans. Finally, populations of P. infestans in South America lack genetic diversity and are clonal.

Migrations from Mexico to North America or Europe have occurred several times throughout history, probably linked to the movement of tubers. Until the 1970s, the A2 mating type was restricted to Mexico, but now in many regions of the world both A1 and A2 isolates can be found in the same region. The co-occurrence of the two mating types is significant due to the possibility of sexual recombination and formation of oospores, which can survive the winter. Only in Mexico and Scandinavia, however, is oospore formation thought to play a role in overwintering. In other parts of Europe, increasing genetic diversity has been observed as a consequence of sexual reproduction. This is notable since different forms of P. infestans vary in their aggressiveness on potato or tomato, in sporulation rate, and sensitivity to fungicides. Variation in such traits also occurs in North America, however importation of new genotypes from Mexico appears to be the predominant cause of genetic diversity, as opposed to sexual recombination within potato or tomato fields. In 1976 – due to a summer drought in Europe – there was a potato production shortfall and so eating potatoes were imported to fill the shortfall. It is thought that this was the vehicle for mating type A2 to reach the rest of the world. In any case, there had been little diversity, consisting of the US-1 strain, and of that only one type of: mating type, mtDNA, restriction fragment length polymorphism, and di-locus isozyme. Then in 1980 suddenly greater diversity and A2 appeared in Europe. In 1981 it was found in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, 1985 in Sweden, the early 1990s in Norway and Finland, 1996 in Denmark, and 1999 in Iceland. In the UK new A1 lineages only replaced the old lineage by end of the '80s, and A2 spread even more slowly, with Britain having low levels and Ireland (north and Republic) having none-to-trace detections through the '90s. Many of the strains that appeared outside of Mexico since the 1980s have been more aggressive, leading to increased crop losses. In Europe since 2013 the populations have been tracked by the EuroBlight network (see links below). Some of the differences between strains may be related to variation in the RXLR effectors that are present.

Disease management

P. infestans is still a difficult disease to control. There are many chemical options in agriculture for the control of damage to the foliage as well as the fruit (for tomatoes) and the tuber (for potatoes). A few of the most common foliar-applied fungicides are Ridomil, a Gavel/SuperTin tank mix, and Previcur Flex. All of the aforementioned fungicides need to be tank mixed with a broad-spectrum fungicide such as mancozeb or chlorothalonil not just for resistance management but also because the potato plants will be attacked by other pathogens at the same time.

If adequate field scouting occurs and late blight is found soon after disease development, localized patches of potato plants can be killed with a desiccant (e.g. paraquat) through the use of a backpack sprayer. This management technique can be thought of as a field-scale hypersensitive response similar to what occurs in some plant-viral interactions whereby cells surrounding the initial point of infection are killed in order to prevent proliferation of the pathogen.

If infected tubers make it into a storage bin, there is a very high risk to the storage life of the entire bin. Once in storage, there isn't much that can be done besides emptying the parts of the bin that contain tubers infected with Phytophthora infestans. To increase the probability of successfully storing potatoes from a field where late blight was known to occur during the growing season, some products can be applied just prior to entering storage (e.g. Phostrol).

Around the world the disease causes around $6 billion of damage to crops each year.

Resistant plants

Potatoes after exposure. The normal potatoes have blight but the cisgenic potatoes are healthy.

Breeding for resistance, particularly in potato plants, has had limited success in part due to difficulties in crossing cultivated potato to its wild relatives,which are the source of potential resistance genes. In addition, most resistance genes only work against a subset of P. infestans isolates, since effective plant disease resistance only results when the pathogen expresses a RXLR effector gene that matches the corresponding plant resistance (R) gene; effector-R gene interactions trigger a range of plant defenses, such as the production of compounds toxic to the pathogen.

Potato and tomato varieties vary in their susceptibility to blight. Most early varieties are very vulnerable; they should be planted early so that the crop matures before blight starts (usually in July in the Northern Hemisphere). Many old crop varieties, such as King Edward potato are also very susceptible but are grown because they are wanted commercially. Maincrop varieties which are very slow to develop blight include Cara, Stirling, Teena, Torridon, Remarka, and Romano. Some so-called resistant varieties can resist some strains of blight and not others, so their performance may vary depending on which are around. These crops have had polygenic resistance bred into them, and are known as "field resistant". New varieties such as Sarpo Mira and Sarpo Axona show great resistance to blight even in areas of heavy infestation. Defender is an American cultivar whose parentage includes Ranger Russet and Polish potatoes resistant to late blight. It is a long white-skinned cultivar with both foliar and tuber resistance to late blight. Defender was released in 2004.

Genetic engineering may also provide options for generating resistance cultivars. A resistance gene effective against most known strains of blight has been identified from a wild relative of the potato, Solanum bulbocastanum, and introduced by genetic engineering into cultivated varieties of potato. This is an example of cisgenic genetic engineering.

Melatonin in the plant/P. infestans co-environment reduces the stress tolerance of the parasite.

Reducing inoculum

Blight can be controlled by limiting the source of inoculum. Only good-quality seed potatoes and tomatoes obtained from certified suppliers should be planted. Often discarded potatoes from the previous season and self-sown tubers can act as sources of inoculum.

Compost, soil or potting medium can be heat-treated to kill oomycetes such as Phytophthora infestans. The recommended sterilisation temperature for oomycetes is 120 °F (49 °C) for 30 minutes.

Environmental conditions

There are several environmental conditions that are conducive to P. infestans. An example of such took place in the United States during the 2009 growing season. As colder than average for the season and with greater than average rainfall, there was a major infestation of tomato plants, specifically in the eastern states. By using weather forecasting systems, such as BLITECAST, if the following conditions occur as the canopy of the crop closes, then the use of fungicides is recommended to prevent an epidemic.

A Beaumont Period is a period of 48 consecutive hours, in at least 46 of which the hourly readings of temperature and relative humidity at a given place have not been less than 10 °C (50 °F) and 75%, respectively.
A Smith Period is at least two consecutive days where min temperature is 10 °C (50 °F) or above and on each day at least 11 hours when the relative humidity is greater than 90%.

The Beaumont and Smith periods have traditionally been used by growers in the United Kingdom, with different criteria developed by growers in other regions. The Smith period has been the preferred system used in the UK since its introduction in the 1970s.

Based on these conditions and other factors, several tools have been developed to help growers manage the disease and plan fungicide applications. Often these are deployed as part of Decision support systems accessible through web sites or smart phones.

Several studies have attempted to develop systems for real-time detection via flow cytometry or microscopy of airborne sporangia collected in air samplers. Whilst these methods show potential to allow detection of sporangia in advance of occurrence of detectable disease symptoms on plants, and would thus be useful in enhancing existing Decision support systems, none have been commercially deployed to date.

Use of fungicides

Fungicides for the control of potato blight are normally only used in a preventative manner, optionally in conjunction with disease forecasting. In susceptible varieties, sometimes fungicide applications may be needed weekly. An early spray is most effective. The choice of fungicide can depend on the nature of local strains of P. infestans. Metalaxyl is a fungicide that was marketed for use against P. infestans, but suffered serious resistance issues when used on its own. In some regions of the world during the 1980s and 1990s, most strains of P. infestans became resistant to metalaxyl, but in subsequent years many populations shifted back to sensitivity. To reduce the occurrence of resistance, it is strongly advised to use single-target fungicides such as metalaxyl along with carbamate compounds. A combination of other compounds are recommended for managing metalaxyl-resistant strains. These include mandipropamid, chlorothalonil, fluazinam, triphenyltin, mancozeb, and others. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency has approved oxathiapiprolin for use against late blight. In African smallholder production fungicide application can be necessary up to once every three days.

In organic production

In the past, copper(II) sulfate solution (called 'bluestone') was used to combat potato blight. Copper pesticides remain in use on organic crops, both in the form of copper hydroxide and copper sulfate. Given the dangers of copper toxicity, other organic control options that have been shown to be effective include horticultural oils, phosphorous acids, and rhamnolipid biosurfactants, while sprays containing "beneficial" microbes such as Bacillus subtilis or compounds that encourage the plant to produce defensive chemicals (such as knotweed extract) have not performed as well. During the crop year 2008, many of the certified organic potatoes produced in the United Kingdom and certified by the Soil Association as organic were sprayed with a copper pesticide to control potato blight. According to the Soil Association, the total copper that can be applied to organic land is 6 kilograms per hectare (5.4 lb/acre)/year.

Control of tuber blight

Ridging is often used to reduce tuber contamination by blight. This normally involves piling soil or mulch around the stems of the potato blight meaning the pathogen has farther to travel to get to the tuber. Another approach is to destroy the canopy around five weeks before harvest, using a contact herbicide or sulfuric acid to burn off the foliage. Eliminating infected foliage reduces the likelihood of tuber infection.

Historical impact

The effect of Phytophthora infestans in Ireland in 1845–52 was one of the factors which caused over one million to starve to death and forced another two million to emigrate from affected countries. Most commonly referenced is the Great Irish Famine, during the late 1840s, from which the Irish population has still not fully recouped. The first recorded instances of the disease were in the United States, in Philadelphia and New York City in early 1843. Winds then spread the spores, and in 1845 it was found from Illinois to Nova Scotia, and from Virginia to Ontario. It crossed the Atlantic Ocean with a shipment of seed potatoes for Belgian farmers in 1845. All of the potato-growing countries in Europe were affected, but the potato blight hit Ireland the hardest. Implicated in Ireland's fate was the island's disproportionate dependency on a single variety of potato, the Irish Lumper. The lack of genetic variability created a susceptible host population for the organism after the blight strains originating in Chiloé Archipelago replaced earlier potatoes of Peruvian origin in Europe.

During the First World War, all of the copper in Germany was used for shell casings and electric wire and therefore none was available for making copper sulfate to spray potatoes. A major late blight outbreak on potato in Germany therefore went untreated, and the resulting scarcity of potatoes led to the deaths of 700,000 German civilians from starvation.

Since 1941, Eastern Africa has been suffering potato production losses because of strains of P. infestans from Europe.

France, Canada, the United States, and the Soviet Union researched P. infestans as a biological weapon in the 1940s and 1950s. Potato blight was one of more than 17 agents that the United States researched as potential biological weapons before the nation suspended its biological weapons program. Whether a weapon based on the pathogen would be effective is questionable, due to the difficulties in delivering viable pathogen to an enemy's fields, and the role of uncontrollable environmental factors in spreading the disease.

Late blight (A2 type) has not yet been detected in Australia and strict biosecurity measures are in place. The disease has been seen in China, India and south-east Asian countries.

A large outbreak of P. infestans occurred on tomato plants in the Northeast United States in 2009.

In light of the periodic epidemics of P. infestans ever since its first emergence, it may be regarded as a periodically emerging pathogen – or a periodically "re-emerging pathogen".

Atlantic World

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Atlantic World comprises the interactions among the peoples and empires bordering the Atlantic Ocean rim from the beginning of the Age of Discovery to the early 19th century. Atlantic history is split between three different contexts: trans-Atlantic history, meaning the international history of the Atlantic World; circum-Atlantic history, meaning the transnational history of the Atlantic World; and cis-Atlantic history within an Atlantic context. The Atlantic slave trade continued into the 19th century, but the international trade was largely outlawed in 1807 by Britain. Slavery ended in 1865 in the United States and in the 1880s in Brazil (1888) and Cuba (1886). While some scholars stress that the history of the "Atlantic World" culminates in the "Atlantic Revolutions" of the late 18th early 19th centuries, the most influential research in the field examines the slave trade and the study of slavery, thus in the late-19th century terminus as part of the transition from Atlantic history to globalization seems most appropriate.

The historiography of the Atlantic World, known as Atlantic history, has grown enormously since the 1990s.

Concept

Geography

The Atlantic World comprises the histories of Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Travel over land was difficult and expensive, so settlements were made along the coast, especially where rivers allowed small boats to travel inland. Distant settlements were linked by elaborate sea-based trading networks. Since the easiest and cheapest way of long-distance travel was by sea, international trading networks emerged in the Atlantic World, with major hubs at London, Amsterdam, Boston, and Havana. Time was a factor, as sailing ships averaged about 2 knots speed (50 miles a day). Navigators had to rely on maps of currents or they would be becalmed for days or weeks. These maps were not only for navigational purposes however, but also as a way to give insight in regards to power and ownership of lands that had already been claimed, essentially creating a greater desire to finding new routes and land. One major goal for centuries was finding the Northwest Passage (through what is now Canada) from Europe to Asia.

Emergence

Given the scope of Atlantic history it has tended to downplay the singular influence of the voyages of Columbus and to focus more on growing interactions among African and European polities (ca 1450–1500), including contact and conflict in the Mediterranean and Atlantic islands, as critical to the emergence of the Atlantic World. Awareness of the Atlantic World, of course, spiked post-1492: after the earliest European voyages to the New World and continuing encounters on the African coast, a Euro-centric division of the Atlantic was proclaimed between the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. The West Coast and Central Africa, which are distinct from one another and each made up of many competing polities, played core roles in shaping the Atlantic World and as major sources for slave labor. An elaborate network of economic, geopolitical and cultural exchange took shape—an "Atlantic World" comparable to the "Mediterranean World". It linked the nations and peoples that inhabited the Atlantic litoral of North and South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Europe.

The main empires that built the Atlantic World were the British, French, Spanish , Portuguese and Dutch; entrepreneurs from the United States played a role as well after 1789. Other countries, such as Sweden and Denmark, were active on a smaller scale.

Historical usage

American historian Bernard Bailyn traces the concept of the Atlantic World to an editorial published by journalist Walter Lippmann in 1917. The alliance of the United States and Great Britain in World War II, and the subsequent creation of NATO, heightened historians' interest in the history of interaction between societies on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Other scholars emphasize its intellectual origins in the more systematic and less political approach of the French Annales school, especially the influential work by Fernand Braudel on the Mediterranean World (trans. 2 vols, 1973).

In American and British universities, Atlantic World history is supplementing (and possibly supplanting) the study of specific European colonial societies in the Americas, e.g. British North America or Spanish America. Some historians have criticized the North Atlantic emphasis as downplaying the importance of African history and the transatlantic slave trade on Brazilian and Caribbean history. Atlantic World history differs from traditional approaches to the history of European colonization in its emphasis on inter-regional and international comparisons and its attention to events and trends that transcended national borders. Atlantic World history emphasizes how the colonization of the Americas reshaped Africa and Europe, provided a foundation for later globalization, and insists that our understanding of the past benefits from looking beyond the nation state as our primary (or sole) category of analysis.

Aspects

Environment

The beginning of extensive contact between Europe, Africa, and the Americas had sweeping implications for the environmental and demographic history of all the regions involved. In the process known as the Columbian Exchange, numerous plants, animals, and diseases were transplanted—both deliberately and inadvertently—from one continent to another. The epidemiological impact of this exchange on the indigenous peoples of the Americas was profound, causing very high death rates and population declines of 50% to 90% or even 100%. European and African immigrants also had very high death rates on their arrival, but they could be and were replaced by new shipments of immigrants (see the Population history of American indigenous peoples). Many foods that are common in present-day Europe, including corn (maize) and potatoes, originated in the New World and were unknown in Europe before the 16th century. Similarly, some staple crops of present-day West Africa, including cassava and peanuts, originated in the New World. Some of the staple crops of Latin America, such as coffee and sugarcane, were introduced by European settlers in the course of the Columbian Exchange.

Slavery and labor

The slave trade played a role in the history of the Atlantic World almost from the beginning. As European powers began to conquer and claim large territories in the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries, the role of chattel slavery and other forced labor systems in the development of the Atlantic World expanded. European powers typically had vast territories that they wished to exploit through agriculture, mining, or other extractive industries, but they lacked the work force that they needed to exploit their lands effectively. Consequently, they turned to a variety of coercive labor systems to meet their needs. At first the goal was to use native workers. Native Americans were employed through Indian slavery and through the Spanish system of encomienda. Indian labor was not effective on a large scale for complex reasons (e.g., high death rates and relative ease of escape to Native communities), so plantation owners turned to African slaves via the Atlantic slave trade. European workers arrived as indentured servants or transported felons who went free after a term of labor. In short, the Atlantic World was one of widespread inequality where the exploitation of human labor provided the foundation for a small handful of elites to reap enormous profits.

The Trans-Atlantic Slave trade played a massive role in shaping the demographics of the Americas, especially in areas where huge plantations were the norm, such as in Brazil and the Caribbean. Roughly three quarters of immigrants to the Americas before 1820 were African, and more than half of these Africans were originally from West or Central Africa. In Brazil, the population percentage of Africans was even higher, with about seven African to every one Portuguese immigrant. Because there was such a large population of Africans, it is unsurprising that African slaves aided in shaping the culture of these regions. In the early colonial period, there was a high prevalence of African spiritual practices, such as spirit possessions and healing practices. Presumably, these practices served as a point of connection and as an identity hold for slaves hailing from the same African origin. Such cultural practices allowed, at least to an extent, African slaves to maintain kinship structures similar to those that they might have seen in their homeland. In many cases, European authorities viewed spiritual positions that were highly esteemed in African societies to be socially unacceptable, morally corrupt, and heretical. This led to the disappearance or transformation of most African religious practices. For example, the practice of consulting kilundu, or Angolan spirits, was seen as homosexual by Portuguese authorities, a clear example of Eurocentrism in colonial societies, as European ideas of religion often did not match African ones. Unfortunately, there is a lack of documents written from the African point of view, so almost all information from this time period in these colonial societies is subject to cross-cultural misinterpretation, omission of facts, or other such changes that could affect the quality of description of African spiritual practices. Maintaining the integrity of cultural practices was difficult due to disagreement with European propriety and European tendency to generalize the African demographic makeup to merely "Central African", rather than acknowledging individual cultures. Eventually, most African traditions such as Kilundu, which was ultimately reduced to the popular Brazilian dance "Lundu", were either absorbed into other African traditions or reduced to a ritual simply resembling the original tradition.

The extent of voluntary immigration to the Atlantic World varied considerably by region, nationality, and time period. Many European nations, particularly the Netherlands and France, only managed to send a few thousand voluntary immigrants. Though 15,000 or so who came to New France multiplied rapidly. In New Netherland, the Dutch coped by recruiting immigrants of other nationalities. In New England, the massive Puritan migration of the first half of the 17th century created a large free workforce and thus obviated the need to use unfree labor on a large scale. Colonial New England's reliance on the labor of free men, women, and children, organized in individual farm households, is called the yeoman or household labor system. There is an important distinction to be made between "societies with slaves", such as colonial New England, and "slave societies", where slavery was so central that it can properly be said to define all aspects of life in that region.

The French colony of Saint-Domingue was one of the first American jurisdictions to end slavery, in 1794. Brazil was the last nation in the Western Hemisphere to end slavery, in 1888.

Governance

The Spanish conquistadores conquered the Aztec Empire, more accurately now referred to by scholars as the Mexica empire, in present-day Mexico, and the Inca Empire, in present-day Peru, with surprising speed, assisted by horses, guns, large numbers of Native allies, and, perhaps above all, by the devastating mortality inflicted by newly introduced diseases such as smallpox. To some extent the prior emergence of the large and wealthy Inca and Mexica civilizations aided the transfer of governance to the Spanish, since these native empires had already established road systems, state bureaucracies and systems of taxation and intensive agriculture that were often inherited wholesale and then modified by the Spanish. The early Spanish conquerors of these empires were also aided by political instability and internal conflict within the Mexica and Incan regimes, which they successfully exploited to their benefit.

One of the problems that most European governments faced in the Americas was how to exercise authority over vast expanses of territory. Spain, which colonized Mexico, Central America, and the greater part of South America, established a network of powerful viceroyalties to administer different regions of its New World holdings: the Viceroyalty of New Spain (1535), the Viceroyalty of Peru (1542), the Viceroyalty of New Granada (1717–1739), and the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata (1776). The result was strong government that became even stronger during the Bourbon reforms of the 18th century.

Britain approached the task of governing its New World territories in a less centralized manner, establishing about twenty distinct colonies in North America and the Caribbean from 1585 onward. Each British colony had its own governor and most would have representative assemblies. Most of the North American Thirteen Colonies that became the United States had strong self-government via popular assemblies that countered the authority of governors with their own assertions of rights via parliamentary and other English sources of authority. Only property owners could vote in British polities, but since so many free men in mainland British Colonial America owned land, a majority could vote and participate in popular politics. The British challenge to the authority of colonial assemblies, especially via taxation, was a major cause of the American Revolution in the 1770s.

"Atlantic Revolutions"

A wave of revolutions shook the Atlantic World from the 1770s to the 1820s, including in the United States (1775–1783), France and French-controlled Europe (1789–1814), Haiti (1791–1804), and Spanish America (1806–1830). There were smaller upheavals in Switzerland, Russia, and Brazil. The revolutionaries in varied places were aware of recent anti-colonial struggles in other Atlantic societies and even interacted with one another in many cases.

Independence movements in the New World began with the American Revolution, 1775–1783, in which France, the Netherlands and Spain assisted the new United States of America as it secured independence from Britain. In August 1791 a coordinated slave uprising in the wealthy French sugar colony of St. Domingue began the Haitian Revolution. A long and destructive period of international warfare there came to a close with the creation of Haiti as an independent black republic in 1804. It has a complex and contested legacy as the largest successful slave revolt in history and was accompanied by widespread violence. With Spain tied down in European wars, the mainland Spanish colonies waged independence movements over a long period from 1806 to 1830, sometimes inspired by, but often fearful of, the Haitian example, which delayed effective independence movements in the slave societies of the Caribbean and Brazil until the late-19th century and later.

In long-term perspective, the revolutions were mostly successful. They spread widely the ideals of republicanism, the overthrow of aristocracies, kings and established churches. They emphasized the universal ideals of The Enlightenment, such as the equality of all men. They emphasized equal justice under law by disinterested courts, as opposed to particular justice handed down at the whim of a local noble. They showed that the modern notion of revolution, of starting fresh with a radically new government, could actually work in practice. Revolutionary mentalities were born and continue to flourish to the present day. When assessed in comparative perspective, the American Revolution (and especially the Federal Constitution that protected slavery as a legal institution) seems less radical and with a more oligarchic outcome than when viewed through a traditional nationalistic lens.

French colonization of the Americas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_colonization_of_the_Americas

Map of North America (1656–1750). France in blue, Great Britain in pink and purple, and Spain in orange.

France began colonizing the Americas in the 16th century and continued into the following centuries as it established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France established colonies in much of eastern North America, on several Caribbean islands, and in South America. Most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, rice, sugar, and furs.

The first French colonial empire stretched to over 10,000,000 km² (3,900,000 sq mi) at its peak in 1710, which was the second largest colonial empire in the world, after the Spanish Empire.

As they colonized the New World, the French established forts and settlements that would become such cities as Quebec, Trois-Rivières and Montreal in Canada; Detroit, Green Bay, St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, Mobile, Biloxi, Baton Rouge and New Orleans in the United States; and Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haïtien (founded as Cap-Français) in Haiti, Saint-Pierre and Fort Saint-Louis (formerly as Fort Royal) in Martinique, Castries (founded as Carénage) in Saint Lucia, Cayenne in French Guiana and São Luís (founded as Saint-Louis de Maragnan) in Brazil.

North America

Background

The French first came to the New World as travelers seeking a route to the Pacific Ocean and wealth. Major French exploration of North America began under the rule of Francis I, King of France. In 1524, Francis sent Italian-born Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the region between Florida and Newfoundland for a route to the Pacific Ocean. He would find parts of New York Harbor. The French would take narrow land ports of the Boroughs Queens and Brooklyn from the upper and lower parts of the harbor until 1609 when the British and the Dutch came to take control of it from the French Verrazzano. He would later give the names Francesca and Nova Gall to that land between New Spain and English Newfoundland, thus promoting French interests.

Colonization

In 1534, Francis I of France sent Jacques Cartier on the first of three voyages to explore the coast of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence River. He founded New France by planting a cross on the shore of the Gaspé Peninsula. The French subsequently tried to establish several colonies throughout North America that failed, due to weather, disease, or conflict with other European powers. Cartier attempted to create the first permanent European settlement in North America at Cap-Rouge (Quebec City) in 1541 with 400 settlers but the settlement was abandoned the next year after bad weather and attacks from Native Americans in the area. A small group of French troops were left on Parris Island, South Carolina in 1562 to build Charlesfort, but left after a year when they were not resupplied by France. Fort Caroline established in present-day Jacksonville, Florida, in 1564, lasted only a year before being destroyed by the Spanish from St. Augustine. An attempt to settle convicts on Sable Island off Nova Scotia in 1598 failed after a short time. In 1599, a sixteen-person trading post was established in Tadoussac (in present-day Quebec), of which only five men survived the first winter. In 1604 Pierre Du Gua de Monts and Samuel de Champlain founded a short-lived French colony, the first in Acadia, on Saint Croix Island, presently part of the state of Maine, which was much plagued by illness, perhaps scurvy. The following year the settlement was moved to Port Royal, located in present-day Nova Scotia.

Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec (1608) and explored the Great Lakes. In 1634, Jean Nicolet founded La Baye des Puants (present-day Green Bay), which is one of the oldest permanent European settlements in America. In 1634, Sieur de Laviolette founded Trois-Rivières. In 1642, Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, founded Fort Ville-Marie which is now known as Montreal. Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette founded Sault Sainte Marie (1668) and Saint Ignace (1671) and explored the Mississippi River. At the end of the 17th century, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle established a network of forts going from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River. Fort Saint Louis was established in Texas in 1685, but was gone by 1688. Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit (modern-day Detroit) in 1701 and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville founded La Nouvelle Orléans (New Orleans) in 1718. Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville founded Baton Rouge in 1719.

The European settlement of Mobile, Alabama began with French colonists, who in 1702 constructed Fort Louis de la Louisiane, at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff on the Mobile River, as the first capital of the French colony of La Louisiane. It was founded by French Canadian brothers Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, to establish control over France's claims to La Louisiane. Bienville was appointed as royal governor of French Louisiana in 1701. Mobile's Roman Catholic parish was established on July 20, 1703, by Jean-Baptiste de la Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier, Bishop of Quebec. The parish was the first French Catholic parish established on the Gulf Coast of the United States.

In 1704 the ship Pélican delivered 23 French women to the colony; passengers had contracted yellow fever at a stop in Havana. Though most of the "Pélican girls" recovered, numerous colonists and neighboring Native Americans contracted the disease in turn and many died. This early period was also the occasion of the importation of the first African slaves, transported aboard a French supply ship from the French colony of Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean, where they had first been held. The population of the colony fluctuated over the next few years, growing to 279 persons by 1708, yet shrinking to 178 persons two years later due to disease.

These additional outbreaks of disease and a series of floods resulted in Bienville ordering that the settlement be relocated in 1711 several miles downriver to its present location at the confluence of the Mobile River and Mobile Bay. A new earth-and-palisade Fort Louis was constructed at the new site during this time. By 1712, when Antoine Crozat was appointed to take over administration of the colony, its population had reached 400 persons.

The capital of La Louisiane was moved in 1720 to Biloxi, leaving Mobile to serve as a regional military and trading center. In 1723 the construction of a new brick fort with a stone foundation began and it was renamed Fort Condé in honor of Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon.

In 1763, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Seven Years' War, which Britain won, defeating France. By this treaty, France ceded its territories east of the Mississippi River to Britain. This area was made a part of the expanded British West Florida colony. The British changed the name of Fort Condé to Fort Charlotte, after Queen Charlotte.

The French were eager to explore North America but New France remained largely unpopulated. Due to the lack of women, intermarriages between French and Indians were frequent, giving rise to the Métis people. Relations between the French and Indians were usually peaceful. As the 19th-century historian Francis Parkman stated:

"Spanish civilization crushed the Indian; English civilization scorned and neglected him; French civilization embraced and cherished him."
— Francis Parkman.

To boost the French population, Cardinal Richelieu issued an act declaring that Indians converted to Catholicism were considered "natural Frenchmen" by the Ordonnance of 1627:

"The descendants of the French who have accustomed to this country [New France], together with all the Indians who will be brought to the knowledge of the faith and will profess it, shall be deemed and renowned natural Frenchmen, and as such may come to live in France when they want, and acquire, donate, and succeed and accept donations and legacies, just as true French subjects, without being required to take no letters of declaration of naturalization."

Louis XIV also tried to increase the population by sending approximately 800 young women nicknamed the "King's Daughters". However, the low density of the population in New France remained a very persistent problem. At the beginning of the French and Indian War (1754–1763), the British population in North America outnumbered the French 20 to 1. France fought a total of six colonial wars in North America (see the four French and Indian Wars as well as Father Rale's War and Father Le Loutre's War).

French Florida

In 1562, Charles IX, under the leadership of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny sent Jean Ribault and a group of Huguenot settlers in an attempt to colonize the Atlantic coast and found a colony on a territory which would take the name of the French Florida. They discovered the sound and Port Royal Island, which would be called Parris Island in South Carolina, on which he built a fort named Charlesfort. The group, led by René Goulaine de Laudonnière, moved to the south where they founded the Fort Caroline on the Saint John's river in Florida on June 22, 1564.

This irritated the Spanish who claimed Florida and opposed the Protestant settlers for religious reasons. In 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés led a group of Spaniards and founded Saint Augustine, 60 kilometers south of Fort Caroline. Fearing a Spanish attack, Ribault planned to move the colony but a storm suddenly destroyed his fleet. On 20 September 1565 the Spaniards, commanded by Menéndez de Avilés, attacked and massacred all the Fort Caroline occupants including Jean Ribault.

Canada and Acadia

Political map of the Northeastern part of North America in 1664.

The French interest in Canada focused first on fishing off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. However, at the beginning of the 17th century, France was more interested in fur from North America. The fur trading post of Tadoussac was founded in 1600. Four years later, Champlain made his first trip to Canada on a trade mission for fur. Although he had no formal mandate on this trip, he sketched a map of the St. Lawrence River and in writing, on his return to France, a report entitled Savages (relation of his stay in a tribe of Montagnais near Tadoussac).

Champlain needed to report his findings to Henry IV. He participated in another expedition to New France in the spring of 1604, conducted by Pierre Du Gua de Monts. It helped the foundation of a settlement on Saint Croix Island, the first French settlement in the New World, which would be given up the following winter. The expedition then founded the colony of Port-Royal.

In 1608, Champlain founded a fur post that would become the city of Quebec, which would become the capital of New France. In Quebec, Champlain forged alliances between France and the Huron and Ottawa against their traditional enemies, the Iroquois. Champlain and other French travelers then continued to explore North America, with canoes made from birch bark, to move quickly through the Great Lakes and their tributaries. In 1634, the Normand explorer Jean Nicolet pushed his exploration to the West up to Wisconsin.

Following the capitulation of Quebec by the Kirke brothers, the British occupied the city of Quebec and Canada from 1629 to 1632. Samuel de Champlain was taken prisoner and there followed the bankruptcy of the Company of One Hundred Associates. Following the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France took possession of the colony in 1632. The city of Trois-Rivières was founded in 1634. In 1642, the Angevin Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière founded Ville-Marie (later Montreal) which was at that time, a fort as protection against Iroquois attacks (the first great Iroquois war lasted from 1642 to 1667).

Despite this rapid expansion, the colony developed very slowly. The Iroquois wars and diseases were the leading causes of death in the French colony. In 1663 when Louis XIV provided the Royal Government, the population of New France was only 2,500 European inhabitants. That year, to increase the population, Louis XIV sent between 800 and 900 'King's Daughters' to become the wives of French settlers. The population of New France reached subsequently 7,000 in 1674 and 15,000 in 1689.

From 1689 to 1713, the French settlers were faced with almost incessant war during the French and Indian Wars. From 1689 to 1697, they fought the British in the Nine Years' War. The war against the Iroquois continued even after the Treaty of Rijswijk until 1701, when the two parties agreed on peace. Then, the war against the English took over in the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1690 and 1711, Quebec City had successfully resisted the attacks of the English navy and then British army. Nevertheless, the British took advantage of the second war. With the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, France ceded to Britain Acadia (with a population of 1,700 people), Newfoundland and Hudson Bay. Under the Sovereign Council, the population of the colony grew faster. However, the population growth was far inferior to that of the British Thirteen Colonies to the south. In the middle of the 18th century, New France accounted for 60,000 people while the British colonies had more than one million people. This placed the colony at a great military disadvantage against the British. The war between the colonies resumed in 1744, lasting until 1748. A final and decisive war began in 1754. The Canadiens and the French were helped by numerous alliances with Native Americans, but they were usually outnumbered on the battlefield.

Louisiana

On May 17, 1673, explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette began exploring the Mississippi River, known to the Sioux as does Tongo, or to the Miami-Illinois as missisipioui (the great river). They reached the mouth of the Arkansas and then up the river, after learning that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico and not to the California Sea (Pacific Ocean).

In 1682, the Normand Cavelier de la Salle and the Italian Henri de Tonti came down the Mississippi to its Delta. They left from Fort Crevecoeur on the Illinois River, along with 23 French and 18 Native Americans. In April 1682, they arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi; they planted a cross and a column bearing the arms of the king of France. In 1686 de Tonti left 6 men near the Quapaw village of Osotouy, creating the settlement of Arkansas Post. De Tonti's Arkansas Post would be the first European settlement in the Lower Mississippi River valley. La Salle returned to France and won over the Secretary of State of the Navy to give him the command of Louisiana. He believed that it was close to New Spain by drawing a map on which the Mississippi seemed much further west than its actual rate. He set up a maritime expedition with four ships and 320 emigrants, but it ended in disaster when he failed to find the Mississippi Delta and was killed in 1687.

In 1698, Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville left La Rochelle and explored the area around the mouth of the Mississippi. He stopped between Isle-aux-Chats (now Cat Island) and Isle Surgeres (renamed Isle-aux-Vascular or Ship Island) on February 13, 1699, and continued his explorations to the mainland, with his brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville to Biloxi. He built a precarious fort, called 'Maurepas' (later 'Old Biloxi'), before returning to France. He returned twice in the Gulf of Mexico and established a fort at Mobile in 1702.

From 1699 to 1702, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville was governor of Louisiana. His brother succeeded him in that post from 1702 to 1713. He was again governor from 1716 to 1724 and again 1733 to 1743. In 1718, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville commanded a French expedition in Louisiana. He founded the city of New Orleans, in homage to Regent Duke of Orleans. The architect Adrian de Pauger drew the orthogonal plane of the Old Square.

Louisiana immigration

In 1718, there were only 700 Europeans in Louisiana. The Mississippi Company arranged for ships to bring 800 more, who landed in Louisiana in 1718, doubling the European population. John Law encouraged Germans, particularly Germans of the Alsatian region who had recently fallen under French rule, and the Swiss to emigrate.

Prisoners were set free in Paris in September 1719 onwards, under the condition that they marry prostitutes and go with them to Louisiana. The newly married couples were chained together and taken to the port of embarkation. In May 1720, after complaints from the Mississippi Company and the concessioners about this class of French immigrants, the French government prohibited such deportations. However, there was a third shipment of prisoners in 1721.

The Mississippi Company arranged for hundreds of German immigrants to move to Louisiana by ships in 1721. Charles Frederick d'Arensbourg was a leader of the settlement called the German Coast. By the end of 1720, the Mississippi Company failed. Later, more Germans immigrated to Louisiana during the 1750s and 1770s.

Dissolution

The last French and Indian War resulted in the dissolution of New France, with Canada going to Great Britain and Louisiana going to Spain, although mainly absent. French colonists descendants or "Canadiens" that had settled in the Valley of Ohio, migrated into the Spanish territory West of the Mississippi and were instrumental in pushing further West toward the Pacific through their longer experience of the new continent and its native inhabitants. Only the islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon are still in French hands.

In 1802 Spain returned Louisiana to France, but Napoleon sold it to the United States in 1803. The French and their descendants left many toponyms (Illinois, Vermont, Bayous...) and ethnonyms (Sioux, Coeur d'Alene, Nez Percé...) in North America along with a rich and complex History as well as proud descendants far beyond Québec and Acadia original heartlands.

West Indies

A major French settlement lay on the island of Hispaniola, where France established the colony of Saint-Domingue on the western third of the island in 1664. Nicknamed the "Pearl of the Antilles", Saint-Domingue became the richest colony in the Caribbean due to slave plantation production of sugar cane. It had the highest slave mortality rate in the western hemisphere. A 1791 slave revolt, the only ever successful slave revolt, began the Haitian Revolution, led to freedom for the colony's slaves in 1794 and, a decade later, complete independence for the country, which renamed itself Haiti. France briefly also ruled the eastern portion of the island, which is now the Dominican Republic.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, France ruled much of the Lesser Antilles at various times. Islands that came under French rule during part or all of this time include Dominica, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Marie-Galante, Martinique, St. Barthélemy, St. Croix, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Martin, St. Vincent and Tobago. Control of many of these islands was contested between the French, the British and the Dutch; in the case of St. Martin, the island was divided in two, a situation that persists to this day. Great Britain captured some of France's islands during the Seven Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars. Following the latter conflict, France retained control of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Marie-Galante, St. Barthélemy, and its portion of St. Martin; all remain part of France today. Guadeloupe (including Marie-Galante and other nearby islands) and Martinique each is an overseas department of France, while St. Barthélemy and St. Martin each became an overseas collectivity of France in 2007.

South America

1. Brazil

France Antarctique (formerly also spelled France antartique) was a French colony south of the Equator, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which existed between 1555 and 1567, and had control over the coast from Rio de Janeiro to Cabo Frio. The colony quickly became a haven for the Huguenots, and was ultimately destroyed by the Portuguese in 1567.

1555 First settlement

On November 1, 1555, French vice-admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon (1510–1575), a Catholic knight of the Order of Malta, who later would help the Huguenots to find a refuge against persecution, led a small fleet of two ships and 600 soldiers and colonists, and took possession of the small island of Serigipe in the Guanabara Bay, in front of present-day Rio de Janeiro, where they built a fort named Fort Coligny. The fort was named in honor of Gaspard de Coligny (then a Catholic statesman, who about a year later would become a Huguenot), an admiral who supported the expedition and would use the colony in order to protect his fellow believers. To the still largely undeveloped mainland village, Villegaignon gave the name of Henriville, in honour of Henry II, the King of France, who also knew of and approved the expedition, and had provided the fleet for the trip. Villegaignon secured his position by making an alliance with the Tamoio and Tupinambá Indians of the region, who were fighting the Portuguese.

1557 Calvinist arrival

Unchallenged by the Portuguese, who initially took little notice of his landing, Villegaignon endeavoured to expand the colony by calling for more colonists in 1556. He sent one of his ships, the Grande Roberge, to Honfleur, entrusted with letters to King Henry II, Gaspard de Coligny and according to some accounts, the Protestant leader John Calvin.

After one ship was sent to France to ask for additional support, three ships were financed and prepared by the king of France and put under the command of Sieur De Bois le Comte, a nephew of Villegagnon. They were joined by 14 Calvinists from Geneva, led by Philippe de Corguilleray, including theologians Pierre Richier and Guillaume Chartrier. The new colonists, numbering around 300, included 5 young women to be wed, 10 boys to be trained as translators, as well as 14 Calvinists sent by Calvin, and also Jean de Léry, who would later write an account of the colony. They arrived in March 1557. The relief fleet was composed of:

The Petite Roberge, with 80 soldiers and sailors was led by Vice Admiral Sieur De Bois le Comte.
The Grande Roberge, with about 120 on board, captained by Sieur de Sainte-Marie dit l'Espine.
The Rosée, with about 90 people, led by Captain Rosée.

Doctrinal disputes arose between Villegagnon and the Calvinists, especially in relation to the Eucharist, and in October 1557 the Calvinists were banished from Coligny island as a result. They settled among the Tupinamba until January 1558, when some of them managed to return to France by ship together with Jean de Léry, and five others chose to return to Coligny island where three of them were drowned by Villegagnon for refusing to recant.

Portuguese intervention

In 1560 Mem de Sá, the new Governor-General of Brazil, received from the Portuguese government the command to expel the French. With a fleet of 26 warships and 2,000 soldiers, on 15 March 1560, he attacked and destroyed Fort Coligny within three days, but was unable to drive off their inhabitants and defenders, because they escaped to the mainland with the help of the Native Brazilians, where they continued to live and to work. Admiral Villegaignon had returned to France in 1558, disgusted with the religious tension that existed between French Protestants and Catholics, who had come also with the second group (see French Wars of Religion).

Urged by two influential Jesuit priests who had come to Brazil with Mem de Sá, named José de Anchieta and Manuel da Nóbrega, and who had played a big role in pacifying the Tamoios, Mem de Sá ordered his nephew, Estácio de Sá to assemble a new attack force. Estácio de Sá founded the city of Rio de Janeiro on March 1, 1565, and fought the Frenchmen for two more years. Helped by a military reinforcement sent by his uncle, on January 20, 1567, he imposed final defeat on the French forces and decisively expelled them from Brazil, but died a month later from wounds inflicted in the battle. Coligny's and Villegaignon's dream had lasted a mere 12 years.

2. Equinoctial France

Equinoctial France was the contemporary name given to the colonization efforts of France in the 17th century in South America, around the line of Equator, before "tropical" had fully gained its modern meaning: Equinoctial means in Latin "of equal nights", i.e., on the Equator, where the duration of days and nights is nearly the same year round.

The French colonial empire in the New World also included New France (Nouvelle France) in North America, particularly in what is today the province of Quebec, Canada, and for a very short period (12 years) also Antarctic France (France Antarctique, in French), in present-day Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. All of these settlements were in violation of the papal bull of 1493, which divided the New World between Spain and Portugal. This division was later defined more exactly by the Treaty of Tordesillas.

History of France équinoxiale

France équinoxiale started in 1612, when a French expedition departed from Cancale, Brittany, France, under the command of Daniel de la Touche, Seigneur de la Ravardière, and François de Razilly, admiral. Carrying 500 colonists, it arrived in the Northern coast of what is today the Brazilian state of Maranhão. De la Ravardière had discovered the region in 1604 but the death of the king postponed his plans to start its colonization.
The colonists soon founded a village, which was named "Saint-Louis", in honor of the French king Louis IX. This later became São Luís in Portuguese,[1] the only Brazilian state capital founded by France. On 8 September, Capuchin friars prayed the first mass, and the soldiers started building a fortress. An important difference in relation to France Antarctique is that this new colony was not motivated by escape from religious persecutions to Protestants (see French Wars of Religion).
The colony did not last long. A Portuguese army assembled in the Captaincy of Pernambuco, under the command of Alexandre de Moura, was able to mount a military expedition, which defeated and expelled the French colonists in 1615, less than four years after their arrival in the land. Thus, it repeated the disaster spelt for the colonists of France Antarctique, in 1567. A few years later, in 1620, Portuguese and Brazilian colonists arrived in number and São Luís started to develop, with an economy based mostly in sugar cane and slavery.

French traders and colonists tried again to settle a France Équinoxiale further North, in what is today French Guiana, in 1626, 1635 (when the capital, Cayenne, was founded) and 1643. Twice a Compagnie de la France équinoxiale was founded, in 1643 and 1645, but both foundered as a result of misfortune and mismanagement. It was only after 1674, when the colony came under the direct control of the French crown and a competent Governor took office, that France Équinoxiale became a reality. To this day, French Guiana is a department of France.

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