Collection
Jean-Talon conducted the census largely by himself, travelling door-to-door among the settlements of New France. He did not include Native American inhabitants of the colony, or the religious orders such as the Jesuits or Recollets.
| First Census of New France | ||
|---|---|---|
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| General information | ||
| Country | New France, Kingdom of France | |
| Website | statcan.gc.ca | |
| Results | ||
| Total population | 3,215 | |
| Most populous | Montreal (625) | |
| Least populous | Lauzon (13) | |
The 1666 census of New France was the first census conducted in Canada (and also North America) for the Kingdom of France. It was organized by Jean Talon, the first Intendant of New France, between 1665 and 1666.
Talon and the French Minister of the Marine Jean-Baptiste Colbert had brought the colony of New France under direct royal control in 1663, and Colbert wished to make it the centre of the French colonial empire. To do this he needed to know the state of the population so that the economic and industrial basis of the colony could be expanded. The next New France census was in 1667. [1]
Jean-Talon conducted the census largely by himself, travelling door-to-door among the settlements of New France. He did not include Native American inhabitants of the colony, or the religious orders such as the Jesuits or Recollets.
According to Talon's census there were 3,215 people in New France, and 538 separate families. [2] The census showed a difference in the number of men at 2,034 versus 1,181 women. [2] Children and unwedded adults were grouped together; there were 2,154 of these, while only 1,019 people were married (42 were widowed). [3] A total of 625 people lived in Montreal, the largest settlement; 547 people lived in Quebec; and 455 lived in Trois-Rivières. [3] The largest single age group, 21- to 30-year-olds, numbered 842. [3] 763 people were professionals of some kind, and 401 of these were servants, while 16 were listed as "gentlemen of means". [3]
After the 1665-1666 census the next census was conducted in 1667, a total of 36 full censuses and 9 partial censuses taken during the French regime until 1763. [4]
List of censuses. [5]
The Acadians are an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Most Acadians live in the Northern American region of Acadia, as it is the region where the descendants of a few Acadians who escaped the Expulsion of the Acadians re-settled. Most Acadians in Canada continue to live in majority French-speaking communities, notably those in New Brunswick where Acadians and Francophones are granted autonomy in areas such as education and health.
Acadia was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. During much of the 17th and early 18th centuries, Norridgewock on the Kennebec River and Castine at the end of the Penobscot River were the southernmost settlements of Acadia. The French government defined the borders of Acadia as roughly between the 40th and 46th parallels on the Atlantic coast. It was eventually divided into British colonies. The population of Acadia included the various indigenous First Nations that comprised the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Acadian people and other French settlers.
New France was the territory colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spain in 1763 under the Treaty of Paris.
Dorval is an on-island suburban city on the island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. In 2016, the Canadian Census indicated that the population increased by 4.2% to 18,980. Although the city has the largest surface area in Montréal’s west side, it is among the least densely populated. Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport constitutes about 60% of the city's land, forcing all of Dorval's population to be concentrated in the southern part of the city.
Jean Talon, Count d'Orsainville was a French colonial administrator who served as the first Intendant of New France. Talon was appointed by King Louis XIV and his minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to serve as the Intendant of Justice, Public Order and Finances in Canada, Acadia and Newfoundland for two terms: 1665 to 1668 and 1670 to 1672.
This section of the Timeline of Quebec history concerns the events relating to the Quebec portion of New France between the establishment of the Sovereign Council and the fall of Quebec.
Events from the 1660s in Canada.
Canada ranks 37th by population among countries of the world, comprising about 0.5% of the world's total, with 40 million Canadians as of 2023. Being, however, the second-largest country by area, the vast majority of the country is sparsely inhabited, with most of its population south of the 55th parallel north and just over 60 per cent of Canadians live in just two provinces: Ontario and Quebec. Though Canada's overall population density is low, many regions in the south, such as the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, have population densities higher than several European countries. Canada has six population centres with more than one million people: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa.
Port-Royal National Historic Site is a National Historic Site located on the north bank of the Annapolis Basin in Granville Ferry, Nova Scotia, Canada. The site is the location of the Habitation at Port-Royal, which was the centre of activity for the French colony of Port Royal in Acadia from 1605 to 1613 when it was destroyed by English forces from the colony of Virgina.
Annapolis Royal is a town in and the county seat of Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, Canada. The community was called Port Royal before 1710 and is known for having one of the longest histories in North America, pre-dating settlements at Plymouth, Jamestown and Quebec. It was the capital of Acadia and later Nova Scotia for almost 150 years, until the founding of Halifax in 1749.
Barrington, officially named the Municipality of the District of Barrington, is a district municipality in western Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, Canada. Statistics Canada classifies the district municipality as a municipal district.
The Carignan-Salières Regiment was a Piedmont French military unit formed by merging two other regiments in 1659. They were led by the new Governor, Daniel de Rémy de Courcelles, and Lieutenant-General Alexandre de Prouville, Sieur de Tracy. Approximately 1,200 men arrived in New France in the middle of 1665.
The Acadians are the descendants of 17th and 18th century French settlers in parts of Acadia in the northeastern region of North America comprising what is now the Canadian Maritime Provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the Gaspé peninsula in eastern Québec, and the Kennebec River in southern Maine. The settlers whose descendants became Acadians primarily came from the southwestern and southern regions of France, historically known as Occitania, while some Acadians are claimed to be descended from the Indigenous peoples of the region. Today, due to assimilation, some Acadians may share other ethnic ancestries as well.
Statistics Canada conducts a national census of population and census of agriculture every five years and releases the data with a two-year lag.
The French West India Company was a French trading company founded on 28 May 1664, some three months before the foundation of the corresponding eastern company, by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and dissolved on 2 January 1674. The company received the French possessions of the Atlantic coasts of Africa and America, and was granted a monopoly on trade with America, which was to last for forty years. It was supposed to populate Canada, using the profits of the sugar economy that began in Guadeloupe. Its capital was six million pounds and its headquarters was in Le Havre.
Louiseville is a town in the Mauricie region of the province of Quebec in Canada. It is located near the mouth of the 'Rivière-du-Loup', on the north shore of Lac Saint-Pierre.
Hector d'Andigné de Grandfontaine was a French naval officer who served as the governor of Acadia from 1670–1673.
Before contact with Europeans, the natives of North America were divided into many different polities, from small bands of a few families to large empires. Modern anthropology assigns some larger divisions into various "culture areas", regions within which a particular set of cultural, political, subsistence and/or linguistic traits predominated. These pre-Columbian American culture areas may also roughly correspond to particular geographic and biological zones of the continent. During the thousands of years of native inhabitation on the continent, cultures changed and shifted. One of the oldest cultures yet found is that of the Clovis peoples. Upon the arrival of the Europeans in the "New World", Native American population declined substantially, primarily due to the introduction of European diseases to which the Native Americans lacked immunity.
Port Royal (1605–1713) was a historic settlement based around the upper Annapolis Basin in Nova Scotia, Canada, and the predecessor of the modern town of Annapolis Royal. It was the first successful attempt by Europeans to establish a permanent settlement in what is today known as Canada. Port Royal was a key step in the development of New France and was the first permanent base of operations of the explorer Samuel de Champlain, who would later found Quebec in 1608, and the farmer Louis Hébert, who would resettle at Quebec in 1617. For most of its existence, it was the capital of the New France colony of Acadia.
The Hospitaller colonization of the Americas occurred during a 14-year period in the 17th century in which the Knights Hospitaller of Malta, at the time a vassal state of the Kingdom of Sicily, led by the Italian Grand Master Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, possessed four Caribbean islands: Saint Christopher, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy, and Saint Croix.
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