New France and New Spain?

Question

What are the differences between the two? What are the similarities? I've only got little things on them now...but I need to write a FIVE PAGE thesis. PLEASE HELP AND THANKS!

Answer 1

Well, to begin with they both were based on the notion that people could come from Europe and claim dominion over land that was already owned by other people. Europeans saw this as fit and proper  by virtue of their white skins and Christian religion.

But there was quite difference in how things worked out as a practical matter. The Spanish were, at the beginning,  treasure hunters whose early efforts were little more than banditry. As time went on they sought to recreate the Aristocratic society of Spain in the New world with great estates granted to well connected landowners who worked them by enslaving the indigenous peoples and importing black slaves.

The French did the same in the Caribbean islands but the greatest part of New France (in area) was the vast hinterlands of North America where trade with indigenous people was seen as the best means of exploiting the new world. the French therefore tended to work cooperatively with the natives and relatively few French actually came to the new world.