America's Quebec: A more French Louisiana

Since last time my thread was apparently too high-concept for people to ignore the Tripartite Alliance Earth timeline aspect of the idea to focus on the idea itself, I'll just quote sparingly.

...Under the terms of the purchase, the large Francophone community of Louisiana was to retain the full of the French language in government and education. The conclusion of the Anglo-American War in 1815 brought an end to British attempts at conquest, and Louisiana was confirmed as an American state.

Louisiana's population was quite diverse, but it was still Francophone. The Cadiens -- survivors of the British deportation of the Acadiens from eastern Canada in the Seven Years War -- constituted the single largest group of Louisiana Francophones, rapidly expanding in number throughout the bayous and prairies of western Louisiana. In the east of Louisiana, the Creoles descended from the pre-Seven Years War settlers vied with the tens of thousands of settlers Napoleonophile settlers who fled France after 1814 for control of state politics. There was also a large group of Black Creoles, descended from Caribbean immigrants and slaves. By the eve of the First Civil War, these Francophone groups constituted almost three-quarters of the Louisianan population. In addition to the Francophones, there was a large Anglo-American community took shape in New Orleans to profit from the Mississippi trade, and forty-five thousand immigrants -- nearly all Catholic, mainly French, Irish, Spanish, or Italian, most settlers in the New Orleans area.

Even though Louisiana was a Southern state, the passage of the Graduated Emancipation Law in 1853 also made it a free state. The rapid growth of the Cadien, Creole, and foreign Catholic agricultural settlements led to the formation of a free agricultural peasantry, unique in the South. This, and the ideological opposition to slavery on the part of the Catholic Church, led to Louisiana opting to remain outside the secessionist Confederacy, and to remain loyal to the Union, consequently making Louisiana the first target of the Confederacy...

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Long story short how can we have a more distinctly Francophone and French cultural Louisiana? This is a good "laboratory" of sorts to study the possibility of an American state of Quebec.

Postpone the Louisiana purchase till, like, yesterday?

I wonder how a more French Louisiana would have effected things like slavery in Louisiana and things like The Civil War?

Strategos' Risk said:

Since last time my thread was apparently too high-concept for people to ignore the Tripartite Alliance Earth timeline aspect of the idea to focus on the idea itself, I'll just quote sparingly.

Long story short how can we have a more distinctly Francophone and French cultural Louisiana? This is a good "laboratory" of sorts to study the possibility of an American state of Quebec.

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I'll quote myself, since I think I got lost in the shuffle the last time. I was of course, talking about the longer version of the story that you posted on the original thread, and kind of interpolating what I've run into when I was Canada (I was only Quebec once, and that was about 2 years after the Referendum in '96):

MacCaulay said:

I think Louisiana winding up like that (for any number of reasons) could be very plausible. One think that I don't see happening is any sort of independent country down there, but you don't need one for nationalist tendencies.

Just look at the FLQ in Quebec in the October Crisis. Especially with Louisiana's...shall we say, checkered...political past, it's not hard to believe that a homegrown group or groups could rise up on the precinct level or larger. Or whatever they call their counties. Departments? Cantons? Something like that.

What you would need would be a rallying point. The Quebecois, and to a different and more violent extent the Metis around the Red River area in Manitoba, all shared a common past stemming from the loss of New France and what they felt was a suppression of their cultural heritage by the British, Hudson Bay Trading Co., and Canadian governments, depending on the time and the place.

Could the Acadian population of Louisiana possibly have ever had a similar situation thrust upon them in their past? Of course. For the most part, the Quebecois have managed to make something out of what is virtually nothing for the past fifty years.
It would take a strong leader and a good grassroots movement. I can't see the group being a "hate-movement" so much as an "us-movement," pushing for policies on the local-, state-, interstate-, and national-levels that it deems good for the Acadian culture.

Of course, that's a assuming that's what they'd call it. And we all know what happens when you assume.

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MacCaulay said:

"What you would need would be a rallying point. The Quebecois, and to a different and more violent extent the Metis around the Red River area in Manitoba, all shared a common past stemming from the loss of New France and what they felt was a suppression of their cultural heritage by the British, Hudson Bay Trading Co., and Canadian governments, depending on the time and the place.

Could the Acadian population of Louisiana possibly have ever had a similar situation thrust upon them in their past? Of course. For the most part, the Quebecois have managed to make something out of what is virtually nothing for the past fifty years.
It would take a strong leader and a good grassroots movement. I can't see the group being a "hate-movement" so much as an "us-movement," pushing for policies on the local-, state-, interstate-, and national-levels that it deems good for the Acadian culture."

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The best point in history I could think of to raise Acadian political consciousness earlier would be the end to French-language education in the 1910s and early 20s. The first blow came with the Constitution of 1915, which mandated the end of French-only education, with only bilingual and English-only education being legal. Six years later, the Constitution of 1921 ended all French-language instruction. From that point on, Cajun children in school were mocked, punished, even beaten for daring to speak their maternal language on the schoolgrounds.

If anyone did that to my children, there'd be Hell to pay, let me tell you! Unfortunately, the Cajuns of that era had no political weight, since the Jim Crows laws that introduced English-language literacy tests for voting effectively disenfranchised most rural Cajuns as well.

Other than that, you need more Francophone immigration into Louisiana earlier on and continuing into the 19th century. Even with the Francophone population that did settle here OTL, you see a lot of non-Francophone immigrants, even as late as the turn of the 20th century, settling into areas and into families where they ended up French-speaking. Many Cajun and Creole last names have non-French origins, and this "francisation" was common even as late as the Civil War. A more heavily French Louisiana, and especially a New Orleans where the majority of the white* population is Francophone throughout the 19th century, and you're a long way towards a "distinct society."

*I specify "white" in New Orleans because the French language survived as long as it did here in town because the black Creole society held to it a lot longer than did the white Creole community. The whites saw the advantages that melding into "American" society could do for their pocketbooks and generally integrated, while the black Creole community saw their opportunities for advancement contract with the increasing Americanisation and held to their traditions longer. SR's idea for a pre-ACW free Louisiana could also do wonders for the French language by allowing the black middle-class Creoles to more fully participate in society. It could wreck a few Creole fortunes, though, since it was not unusual for free people of color to own slaves, and here in Louisiana FPCs also owned plantations that could employ as much as 50 or more slaves.

Dear SR:

Just clicked on the link to your previous thread on this subject (which I missed because that's about the time I finally got power back after Gustav passed by), and your scenario is pretty interesting. The 2nd Empire comes in on the side of the US against the Confederacy to save their brethren in Louisiana... wow, that's a TL I'd like seen developed further!

Would a more distinctly French Louisiana be more Catholic as well? If so, how does the "Quebec of the South" aspect play out? Would such a LA ban slavery and be pro-Union or even neutral during the Civil War?

These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Strategos' Risk said:

Would a more distinctly French Louisiana be more Catholic as well? If so, how does the "Quebec of the South" aspect play out? Would such a LA ban slavery and be pro-Union or even neutral during the Civil War?

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Unlikely. But there might be some sentiment for an independent Louisiana. This might be its opportunity.

However it seems it was the Jim Crow Laws that really changed things so you have to avoid those existing,

Maybe refugees from the La Vendee revolt could boost Louisiana's francophone population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_in_the_Vendée

danwild6 said:

Maybe refugees from the La Vendee revolt could boost Louisiana's francophone population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_in_the_Vendée

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No, no, no, they've got to go to Canada Otherwise my TL doesn't work.

Why wouldn't a more Catholic Louisiana prevent slavery there?

Strategos' Risk said:

Why wouldn't a more Catholic Louisiana prevent slavery there?

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Why would it? The French slaveholders were quite happy to continue owning slaves in OTL's Louisiana. Mind you, the form of slavery was mildly better for the slaves, but not that much.

Of course, if all slaves in a French empire are freed that would carry over to French owned Louisiana - but NOT to an independent one. Or to a Francophone majority American one,.

Easy.
Make Monarchs exile their convicts to Louisiana like the British did with Australia.

I wonder if a Confederate Louisiana would remain more French? It was Beauregard's first language, after all, and much of the Louisiana elite spoke it.

I thought Louisiana already had two official languages, and French was one of them.

boynamedsue said:

Postpone the Louisiana purchase till, like, yesterday?

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I laughed out loud at this one, but it's true.

You would really need more Francophones in Louisiana for this to be plausible. Maybe they could accept refugees from the French revolution somehow-- enemies of the state during the Terror could escape to the New World and end up in New Orleans? It's a stretch.

Holmes21B said:

Maybe they could accept refugees from the French revolution somehow-- enemies of the state during the Terror could escape to the New World and end up in New Orleans? It's a stretch.

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There were a few-some of my ancestors came to the US that way. Just need a lot more.

Oops, I found more stuff from the original timeline:
http://web.archive.org/web/20041015230915/www.ahtg.net/TpA/18031922.html

1814: The Congress of Vienna ends the Napoleonic Wars. Like France, which has been allowed to keep its pre-Revolutionary frontiers, the United States is forced only to cede most of northern Maine to the British colony of New Brunswick and to pay an indemnity of 20 million pounds to Britain. It is allowed to keep formerly French Louisiana though, and the terms of the Treaty of Brest are honoured. This suits the almost 20 thousand French liberals and their families who flee reactionary Restoration France for liberal Francophone Louisiana.

1815-1850: The Louisiana French community grows as more French liberals continue to immigrate to republican Francophone Louisiana. By 1850, there are almost one hundred thousand Louisiana French. The intermarriage of the élite of the Louisiana French community with the prosperous upper-class Créoles of New Orleans and the Mississippi delta, and of the poor among the Louisiana French with the Cadiens of west Louisiana, creates a united Francophone enclave within the United States, amounting to more than 70% of the Louisiana population. This population is quite radical -- in 1853, Louisiana is the first state in the Union to abolish slavery, by enacting a graduated emancipation law. This anti-slavery radicalism sets Louisiana apart from the rest of the South: Although Francophone Louisiana sees itself as an integral part of the United States, neither it nor the South sees itself as Southern in the sense of being a conservative slaveowning society.

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How plausible is this?

Strategos' Risk said:

How plausible is this?

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I think it is more plausible that Lousiana remain a slave state, yet refuse to secede from the union (similar to Kentucky).

If Louisiana remained in the Union, south Alabama and south Mississippi may break off from their respective states during the civil war and either join Louisiana or create a new West Viginia type state. The gulf coast areas of both states had far more in common culturally with Lousiana than it did with Montgomery and Jackson. Creoles are common in the gulf coast and as a side note, the oldest Mardi Gras festival is the one in Mobile, Alabama.