FILLES du ROI

 

 

Between 1663 and 1673, 768 Filles du Roi or "King's Daughters" emigrated to New France under the sponsorship of the French government as part of the overall strategy of strengthening the colony until it could stand on its own without economic and military dependence on France.

In 1663, about 2,500 colonists lived in New France, for the most part on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence between Québec and Montréal. With a constant threat from the Iroquois and the more populous English colonies on the Atlantic coast, the need to populate New France became a growing concern for Louis XIV and his colonial advisors. Through the early 1670s however, men of marriageable age far outnumbered the women of marriageable age. Unable to find a wife in Québec, a great number of male immigrants returned to France after their three-year term of service expired.

Between 1634 and August 1663, while the colony was governed by the Compagnie des Cent Associés, about 262 filles à marier (marriageable girls) were recruited by individuals or by private religious groups who paid their travel expenses and provided for their lodging until they were married. But individual recruiters and private organizations had little success in enticing single women to emigrate to New France, and fewer than ten filles arrived in the colony in most years. In 1663, the King took over direct control of the government of New France and initiated an organized system of recruiting and transporting marriageable women to the colony. On September 22, 1663, thirty-six girls --the first group of Filles du Roi-- arrived in Québec.