Anglos = barbarians

[jimmy olsen]

Alt-Hist: The French wins the French-Indian War, the whole of North America becomes French speaking.
What would have been different in that timeline?
The Revolutionary War? Would the French colonists side with the monarchy during the French revolution? Napoleon?
WW1 and 2?
War on Terror?
Would Hollywood speak French? Would French be the new Lingua Franca? ????

The British colonists outnumbered the French ten to one or more. A French win in that war simply means that Quebec stays controlled by France and on paper the Ohio valley still belongs to the French.

The British colonists will stay loyal due to the French threat and eventually roll over the Appalachians in a demographic tidal wave. All those things you mentioned are butterflied away, with the exception of an eventual French Revolution, whose particulars in this case will be much different.

[Agelastus]

So, colonial population expansion is the answer why French, Spanish, and Portuguese ex-colonies are so poor today as compare to the British's?

Is there a source comparing colonial population expansion?
I can't find one in google.

Well, no, since Portuguese and Spanish demographic expansion in the colonies far outstripped France's as well. Part of the issue is that in absolute numbers far less French people went to the Colonies than from Britain or Spain (and possibly even Portugal.) Part of the issue may be the early and general slowdown in the expansion of the French population that became pronounced in the nineteenth century but that may have begun long before that period.

For example, France started colonising the Americas at roughly the same time as England (1607/1608); it took 30 years for Quebec city's population to rise to more than 300 people. That's about the same number as the third of Jamestown's colonists killed about 15 years after settlement. Now you could argue that Quebec's climate is not as benign as Jamestown's but since Jamestown still managed to kill over 40% of the colonists who arrived in the first 15 years of settlement the argument doesn't hold a huge amount of weight.

Fundamentally, the average Frenchman was much less likely than the average Englishman to emigrate to the colonies; when you consider that the likelihood for the average Frenchwoman to emigrate was even worse combined with the fact that the French Caribbean possessions attracted a disproportionate amount of the colonists available then there's little question as to why by the time of the French and Indian War the British colonies outweighed the French by at least 10:1 as Tim has said.

That's the problem with your alt hist. suggestion. Yes, given colonies were traded in peace treaties it is possible for a realistic scenario to exist where the French win and gain all of North America (probably due to a successful cross channel invasion leaving them holding London.) But there's no way they could extinguish the English language in the former English colonies. And almost no way that they could hold their possessions long term. I'd give them 10 years or so before they piss the Colonists off enough to revolt myself at the most.

[Valmy]

Do the French finally manage to get their act together and export enough people to the area to balance the Anglos.?

It would require them to adopt similar policies of toleration the English government did.  That would by ideological impossible for the Royal government.

Remember a huge percentage of those 'Anglos' weren't Anglos at all but Germans and other scum.  The British just let anybody settle in their colonies.

[Ed Anger]

Yay for Germans. And Scots-Irish.

[crazy canuck]

No war of 1812 

[Razgovory]

Why would the English Colonists stop speaking English?  They still speak French in Quebec, dude.

The French aren't as tolerant as the English.

But the French have a terrible record of colonial population expansion compared to the English and English as a language (well, its' predecessor Old English anyway) has a history of not being absorbed by the language of a conqueror even when a complete elite replacement occurs. What's more the suppression of dialects in France itself didn't occur until the late nineteenth century and the era of universal conscription so I find it hard to believe that the French could launch a successful campaign against the English language in North America in the late eighteenth century.

I think Siege's "Alt-Hist" is going to see the French kicked out of the east coast by a general Anglo revolt, and that within only a few years.

What happens after that, since the French should be able to hold on to the Mississippi river and surrounding regions is the interesting question.

Do the French finally manage to get their act together and export enough people to the area to balance the Anglos.?

Or does the area become the French equivalent of "Mexican" Texas and California due to immigration from the Engish speaking part of North America? With similar results?

The French weren't even that interested in North America anyway.  Louis the XV would probably just give it all back.  He was dumb like that.

[derspiess]

No war of 1812 

[viper37]

Well, no, since Portuguese and Spanish demographic expansion in the colonies far outstripped France's as well. Part of the issue is that in absolute numbers far less French people went to the Colonies than from Britain or Spain (and possibly even Portugal.) Part of the issue may be the early and general slowdown in the expansion of the French population that became pronounced in the nineteenth century but that may have begun long before that period.

For example, France started colonising the Americas at roughly the same time as England (1607/1608); it took 30 years for Quebec city's population to rise to more than 300 people. That's about the same number as the third of Jamestown's colonists killed about 15 years after settlement. Now you could argue that Quebec's climate is not as benign as Jamestown's but since Jamestown still managed to kill over 40% of the colonists who arrived in the first 15 years of settlement the argument doesn't hold a huge amount of weight.

Fundamentally, the average Frenchman was much less likely than the average Englishman to emigrate to the colonies; when you consider that the likelihood for the average Frenchwoman to emigrate was even worse combined with the fact that the French Caribbean possessions attracted a disproportionate amount of the colonists available then there's little question as to why by the time of the French and Indian War the British colonies outweighed the French by at least 10:1 as Tim has said.

That's the problem with your alt hist. suggestion. Yes, given colonies were traded in peace treaties it is possible for a realistic scenario to exist where the French win and gain all of North America (probably due to a successful cross channel invasion leaving them holding London.) But there's no way they could extinguish the English language in the former English colonies. And almost no way that they could hold their possessions long term. I'd give them 10 years or so before they piss the Colonists off enough to revolt myself at the most.

Just to add on this:
- lots of "anglo" immigration in the Colonies were non english protestants, like Dutch and French protestants booted out of France or persecuted through various conflicts.  To become a colonist in New France, you needed to be of good reputation and be a good Catholic.
- Until Louis XIV, the Colony was managed by private interests, whose interests were fur trade, not active colonization and certainly not the immigration of women.  Only when the State took matters in hand did it change (early steps in socialism ).
- Les Filles du Roi.  Lots of orphaned women, fit for bearing children and working the land were imported from France, mostly under intendant Jean Talon.  Again, people of good repute only.
- Once Jean Talon was sent back to France and Louis XIV started pissing off half of Europe, New France was once again left mostly alone.
- Louis XV was a bad king, simply put.  He won the Austrian war of succession but gave back all his conquests in the hopes of avoiding another war.  The British weren't as generous, obviously.

[Admiral Yi]

Explains why modern Quebecois are all of such good character. 

[derspiess]

[Jacob]

Explains why modern Quebecois are all of such good character. 

They certainly have a lot of it.

[jimmy olsen]

That's the problem with your alt hist. suggestion. Yes, given colonies were traded in peace treaties it is possible for a realistic scenario to exist where the French win and gain all of North America (probably due to a successful cross channel invasion leaving them holding London.) But there's no way they could extinguish the English language in the former English colonies. And almost no way that they could hold their possessions long term. I'd give them 10 years or so before they piss the Colonists off enough to revolt myself at the most.

Why wouldn't the Crown just flee to America and carry on the fight like the Portuguese did later on?

[dps]

Some more interesting reading on Jamestown. I find it odd that according to the article the first settlers weren't very agriculturally inclined. I guess at first they expected to survive with resupply from England, but given the long travel times and hazards of sea travel from England that seems less than ideal to be counting on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Virginia

They expected to find gold.  Probably figured if they had gold, sending ships out to them would be a priority.

Now you could argue that Quebec's climate is not as benign as Jamestown's but since Jamestown still managed to kill over 40% of the colonists who arrived in the first 15 years of settlement the argument doesn't hold a huge amount of weight.

The opposite was basically true anyway.  Sure, Quebec had harsher winters, but Jamestown was built on what was essentially an island in a malarial swamp.

[Agelastus]

That's the problem with your alt hist. suggestion. Yes, given colonies were traded in peace treaties it is possible for a realistic scenario to exist where the French win and gain all of North America (probably due to a successful cross channel invasion leaving them holding London.) But there's no way they could extinguish the English language in the former English colonies. And almost no way that they could hold their possessions long term. I'd give them 10 years or so before they piss the Colonists off enough to revolt myself at the most.

Why wouldn't the Crown just flee to America and carry on the fight like the Portuguese did later on?

Three reasons, mainly.

Firstly, the Portuguese crown had strong allies at its side that propped it up financially and militarily (in particular Britain) when it continued the fight; assuming as Siege suggested the POD is during the conflicts of 1754-63, who is on Britain's side that could perform the same role? Britain was propping up Prussia already, for example.

Secondly, the Colonial militias of the time, from which new armies to continue the fight would have to be improvised, had a truly terrible military reputation (at least, when called to serve outside the colony they were raised in.) There's quite a lot of historical precedent in the Eighteenth century for the poor showing of American militias in 1812.

Thirdly, the Royal Navy could not be maintained without a good supply of timber, particularly that suitable for masts. The American sources the RN developed post 1763 are held by the French at this time, and the loss of Britain and its bases leaves the French a free run at blocking the Baltic timber trade (already affected by the Russian involvement against Prussia.

---------------------------

I suppose it could make an interesting Alt. Hist. though. A Hannoverian Kingdom in British North America and a restored Stuart Kingdom in the British Isles. It would be especially interesting to see which way the East India Company went.

Two explicitly British Empires in 1900!!! Rather than one British Empire and one British descended Empire-scale state of otl...

[Ed Anger]

*takes a drink*