2. In 1625, The Jesuits made Quebec their headquarters of North America. Around this
time the French occupied only a narrow territory in the St. Lawrence Valley centering on
the Forts and Towns of Quebec, three Rivers, and Montreal.
France had an easier time peacefully establishing a place in the Northern Americas
because they did not act in a militaristic way as Spain had done in South and Central
America. New France was not built on the subjugation of Native Americans through
military conquest. They established peaceful and diplomatic relations that offered them a
way to trade and influence the Native Americans. This allowed for the Jesuits to reach the
Natives in a way that did not make them appear to the Indians as a evil foreign force.
