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French Ethnic Landscapes in America

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Abstract

This chapter focuses upon two main areas—those lands of Louisiana and isolated settlements in the Lower Mississippi River Valley settled by the French in the 18th Century and those lands tied to the earlier French settlement in Quebec, which sent fur traders and trappers throughout the Great Lakes region. Contemporary distribution of French ancestry populations are strongly related to colonial settlements and subsequent population movements. French urban and rural settlement patterns, land tenure, and architecture in Quebec are described, providing context to understand the patterns on the French landscape within the American interior and the subsequent French-Canadians settlement into the northern portion of New England. French ethnic landscapes in Louisiana are strongly linked to earlier French settlements in both Acadia, from which the Cajuns evolved, and from St. Dominique, which shaped the development of a French Creole culture in New Orleans. Both Cajun and Creole ethnic landscapes are defined by distinctive structures.

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Cross, J.A. (2017). French Ethnic Landscapes in America. In: Ethnic Landscapes of America. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54009-2_7

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