​Champlain’s founded Quebec City in 1608 and it became the capital of New France. While the coastal communities were based upon the cod fishery, the economy of the interior revolved around beaver fur. Britain had a great interest in fur trade as there was a demand for it in  Europe. French “voyageurs” would travel into the hinterlands and trade with the natives. The voyageurs ranged throughout what is now Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba traded guns, gunpowder, textiles and other European manufacturing goods with the indigenous for furs.

           ​It was always difficult to encourage regulation as in 1760 New France had only 70,000 inhabitants, few who were involved with the fur trade.

          ​New France had other problems. Besides the low immigration rate, the French government had little interest or ability to support the colony and they mostly left it to its own devices. A large part of the population was involved in little more than farming, and the economy was primitive. The settlers also engaged in a long series of wars with the Iroquois, causing them greater difficulties.

          ​Initial attempts at settlement between 1627 and 1634 were unsuccessful, as it wiped out several expeditions during wars and skirmishes with England. A large group of settlers arrived in 1634. This created settlements west along the river at Trois-Rivières and further west to as far as Montreal. However, despite these attempts, by 1641, the population of New France was well below the 4000 promised in the lower city.

          ​In 1663, Louis XIV took control of New France and made it a royal province governed by the Crown. They appointed Jean Talon as the director. He realized the benefits of diversifying the sole focus of furs to heavy fishing, mining, manufacturing and trade with the West Indies and was determined to make the colony self-sufficient. However, before the settlement could begin on a large scale, measures had to be taken to control the native population. In 1665, 1000 soldiers of the Carignan-Salières regiment (Boissonneau dit Saintonge) arrived at the colony.

          ​It encouraged the original settlers and soldiers who fought in the wars to stay in the unfamiliar country and take up farming. Jean Talon arranged for more people to come to New France to settle. Among the original settlers, and sent over 800 young women supplied with dowries from the king to marry the soldiers already in Québec. These “filles du Roi” are present in the ancestry of most of the French Canadian population.

          ​Talon had a further plan to encourage growth in New France. He encouraged population growth through monetary supplements for marriage bonuses for large families, which was financial compensation given to a couple when they married, and again when they had children. It gave young women who married the equivalent of fifty pounds in household supplies and provisions. The Crown also gave youth who married under the age of twenty another twenty pounds. Families who produced ten children in their household also received  pensions of three hundred livres annually. Those with twelve children received four hundred livres. His plan worked.

          ​Talon tried to diversify the economy of New France by introducing new crops such as flax and hops for making beer. He also implemented the building of a shipyard and the lumber industry. Mining was also encouraged.

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NOTE: with our French ancestry, they all came from the same region in France. Both Boissonneau and Auger are from Saintonge and the Côté de Mortagne, Perche, also a possession of Henry II Plantagenet.