<P> From 1689 to 1713, the French settlers were faced with almost incessant war during the French and Indian Wars . From 1689 to 1697, they fought the British in the Nine Years' War . The war against the Iroquois continued even after the Treaty of Rijswijk until 1701, when the two parties agreed on peace . Then, the war against the English took over in the War of the Spanish Succession . In 1690 and 1711, Quebec City had successfully resisted the attacks of the English navy and then British army . Nevertheless, the British took advantage of the second war . With the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, France ceded to Britain Acadia (with a population of 1700 people), Newfoundland and Hudson Bay . Under the Sovereign Council, the population of the colony grew faster . However, the population growth was far inferior to that of the British Thirteen Colonies to the south . In the middle of the 18th century, New France accounted for 60,000 people while the British colonies had more than one million people . This placed the colony at a great military disadvantage against the British . The war between the colonies resumed in 1744, lasting until 1748 . A final and decisive war began in 1754 . The Canadiens and the French were helped by numerous alliances with Native Americans, but they were usually outnumbered on the battlefield . </P> <P> On May 17, 1673, explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette began exploring the Mississippi River, known to the Sioux as does Tongo, or to the Miami - Illinois as missisipioui (the great river). They reached the mouth of the Arkansas and then up the river, after learning that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico and not to the California Sea (Pacific Ocean). </P> <P> In 1682, the Normand Cavelier de la Salle and the Italian Henri de Tonti came down the Mississippi to its Delta . They left from Fort Crevecoeur on the Illinois River, along with 23 French and 18 Native Americans . In April 1682, they arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi; they planted a cross and a column bearing the arms of the king of France . La Salle returned to France and won over the Secretary of State of the Navy to give him the command of Louisiana . He believed that it was close to New Spain by drawing a map on which the Mississippi seemed much further west than its actual rate . He set up a maritime expedition with four ships and 320 emigrants, but it ended in disaster when he failed to find the Mississippi Delta and was killed in 1687 . </P> <P> In 1698, Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville left La Rochelle and explored the area around the mouth of the Mississippi . He stopped between Isle - aux - Chats (now Cat Island) and Isle Surgeres (renamed Isle - aux - Vascular or Ship Island) on February 13, 1699 and continued his explorations to the mainland, with his brother Jean - Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville to Biloxi . He built a precarious fort, called' Maurepas' (later' Old Biloxi'), before returning to France . He returned twice in the Gulf of Mexico and established a fort at Mobile in 1702 . </P>

What part of north america did the french control prior to 1763