all right this is openstax u.s history chapter 3 section 2 colonial rivalries dutch and french colonial ambitions so in chapter 2 we talked a little bit about both the french and the dutch and how they explored the new world of course their colonies in the new world are appropriately named new france and new netherland both the dutch are sorry both the dutch and the french are interested in making money via the fur trade in the new world so we might say of the fur trade this is a way for france and netherlands to make money and when it comes to the title of this section rivalries that is probably the biggest rivalry between both the french and the dutch as they're both trying to make money off of it off of this fur trade another similarity between both of them is that both the dutch and the french colonies don't really track a lot of migrants or colonists so the numbers of french people and the numbers of dutch people remain relatively low in the new world especially compared to england and in terms of where they're located again this is review the dutch are located along the hudson river in new york so this is where the dutch are modern day new york is where the dutch are and the french are located along the saint lawrence river in eastern canada right french one other thing that we ought to take note of in terms of the french is that they really went the extra mile to explore the interior of the americas they probably went further than any other colonial power in penetrating into the interior of the americas so even places like the mississippi river were explored by the french right explored by the french where the dutch remain relatively close to the coast and the english remain relatively close to the coast the french are really busy exploring many of the rivers in the americas so let's go ahead and take a look at new netherland first one important thing to take note of about the netherlands is that by the 1600s the dutch or you know amsterdam the city in more particular was really the commercial center of the world and what we mean by that is commercial think of commerce think of trade right the dutch were very very wealthy in fact most money that the dutch made was not in the new world but from eastern trade so we might say of eastern trade the dutch made more money in the east and in fact one of the reasons why the dutch colonies new netherland and new amsterdam why they remain really low in number is because when there's somebody in the netherlands looking to make money there's like 10 better alternatives eastern trade or the dutch east india company is much more wealthy than the dutch west india company but the dutch west india company this is the company that does trade remember it's a joint stock company that does trade in say the new world new world new amsterdam right this was the capital of the dutch colony so we might say capital city capital city and the dutch occupied the island of manhattan right so this was a dutch possession interestingly enough when the dutch arrived they needed to build a protective wall we can actually see that on this image here here's a bird's eye view of the dutch colony and here's a protective wall to guard them from native americans interestingly enough that is where uh today where wall street is so that's just kind of a uh a fun fact about the dutch settlement now one thing that we talked about previously in terms of the dutch motives now this should be review but if we don't remember um then it's not a problem we'll remind ourselves that when it came to the motivations for the dutch they were all about the money right the dutch were really just looking to make money they didn't really have very strong religious motivations they didn't have motivations to resettle it was really all about the bottom line and so that meant that for the dutch wherever there was potential to make money the dutch would be there essentially now fur trading was one way of doing it but another way of doing it was through the slave trade and that is to say that the dutch west india company and other dutch crate trading companies use the slave trade to make a lot of money in fact like we mentioned before the dutch colony itself remained at relatively low population that meant that there was a lack of labor and some of that labor was filled in with african slaves and interestingly enough we don't typically think of a northern city like new york as being a center of african slavery but when the dutch controlled new york new york city was the second most populated city in north america in terms of african slaves and that is some you know remnant of the uh of the dutch presence there and the way that the dutch took over the slave trade in fact of the slave trade initially it was portuguese factories that brought the first african slaves over to the new world the dutch took over much of portugal's um much of portugal's economy and even their factories or their trading posts in what app west africa so we might say dutch took over slave trade from portugal in fact this wall was built by slaves by african slaves so new york had a dense and high slave population relative to the other parts of the americas because of the way that the dutch had taken over the slave trade now one thing that was also true about the colony of new netherland was that again because it was essentially all about the money there was a degree of religious toleration that you couldn't find really anywhere else in the new world at the time so we might say of religious tolerance we might say new netherland welcomed religious minorities you know for example for countries like spain and france and to a certain degree england it was all about whether one was a catholic or a protestant but for example if you were a european jew and wanted to go to the new world well really the place that you would probably make your uh destination would be new netherland because even minorities like european jews were more welcome in new netherland than let's say any of the english colonies spanish colonies or the french colonies and because of that because the dutch only really cared about the money they got a lot of non-dutch immigrants in fact a lot of english people moved there swedish german we might say of the early dutch society it's sometimes referred to as like the first experiment in a plural society or a diverse society we might say of new netherland we'll go and just put this most diverse colony in we'll say north america and by that we mean more languages are spoken there more cultures are there more different religions are there than any other colony there but again the colony still struggled it really struggled to attract a large number of dutch people uh the dutch did grant what were called patron ships a patron is a large tract of land given to a wealthy dutch merchant right so the dutch west india company was willing to give away land really really really big pieces of land to dutch merchants if and this was the if they agreed to move uh people to the colonies we might say large track of land given to a wealthy dutch merchant in exchange or i will say moving people to the colony colony and despite the effort by the dutch west india company um the population in new netherlands still remained relatively low and most the people that actually moved there ended up not even really being dutch themselves and therefore had no really loyalty or allegiance to the colony of new netherland uh meanwhile in new france in terms of where we are geographically we're talking about eastern canada quebec is the capital city of new france samuel de champlain we talked about him earlier he is the early french explorer really responsible for establishing some of the new or some of the first french settlements sometimes called the father of new france and uh for france the you know the population of new france remained relatively low like that of the netherlands whereas for the dutch it was more about better economic opportunities elsewhere for the french it was the fact that you know canada was mostly a frozen wasteland as they described it so we might say here frozen wasteland people did not want to live in new france right the climate wasn't quite right in that area uh fur trading provided a huge source of revenue for the french there and again when it came to fur trading it was really necessary for the french to maintain friendly relations recall really the one sort of thing that we want to know about the french and their interactions in the new world is they had the best relations with the native population as compared to spain england and the netherlands the algonquian were allies the french however the algonquian were at war with the iroquois and in fact when it came to the algonquian not only were they allies but they were trading partners for the french the iroquois they were an enemy an enemy to the algonquian and therefore an enemy to the french and they were trading partners with guess who not the french but with the dutch right with the dutch so now we come full circle to this point about colonial rivalries so not only does it involve the dutch and the french but it also involves the indigenous people who are responsible for going out and getting those furs remember it's the native americans who hunt the furs bring them to europeans and europeans then trade typically goods like you know metal tools guns alcohol etc etc and so this sort of arms race between algonquian and iroquois ultimately led to the beaver wars and these were wars between native peoples to trade with europe or europeans right so now the algonquian and iroquois not only fought one another um for you know reasons dating before the arrival of the french and the dutch but with the arrival of the french and the dutch now each side are fighting each other over the prize possessions of beaver pelts which are traded for superior weapons like guns and guns obviously give weaker tribes the upper hand where they didn't have that previously so you know sort of this interconnectedness of the economy and politics and warfare really unfolds in you know in the new world to involve both the dutch and the french in addition to fur trading the french more so than the dutch were also interested in conversion a jesuit or the society of jesus the society of jesus is an organization of jesuits [Music] and a jesuit is kind of like a model catholic citizen so we might say of a jesuit is a model catholic citizen and their goal is to convert this is happening in the aftermath of the protestant reformation the catholic church has lost a lot of their members and so as a result of the protestant reformation the catholic church establishes the society of jesus to train model citizens who are dedicated to discipline education everything you know holy and they really go out all over the world to find converts so uh the french send jesuits these very sort of hardcore disciplined priests who are willing to live in this frozen wasteland in order to find converts so in terms of the french presence there it pretty much breaks down into two categories and that is there are either people there trading for furs or there are french jesuits looking for converts