Map of territorial claims in the mid 1700s
French influence can be seen in the current city names and the size of France's claimed territory shows how well traveled and influential they were. We wouldn't be the USA and Canada wouldn't Canada be without them. The American Revolutionary War, the Industrial Age and a couple of world wars changed a lot of things since this map.
I don’t disparage them a thing. I LOVE where I live and if it took the French to make Wisconsin what she is today, so be it. :)
Also, every Wisconsin Kid of my generation LEARNED this in school.
Sadly, they have no TIME for teaching this kind of ‘foolishness’ these days. It’s all about ANYTHING but actually educating you or teaching you where you came from and blaming Whitey for all of your current self-induced problems. :(
*Steps Off Soapbox* :)
And then France gave it all away for about $1.50 in ‘The Louisiana Purchase!’
I ‘learnt’ THAT in school, too! :)
My wife and I have researched her Acadian ancestry enough to understand an aspect that those outside of that area don’t. The French farming immigrants to the Bay of Fundy area, the Acadians, were separated by many decades and many cultural differences from the French colonists that came late to other areas of Canada.
We were able to stand on the ground where her colonial ancestors settled for two generations and then were expelled from by the British.