California is settled by the French

LeopoldPhilippe · Apr 21, 2015

Spain had maintained a number of missions and presidos in New Spain since 1519.
The Crown laid claim to the north coastal provinces of California in 1542.
Suppose California was not settled by Spain. Suppose California is settled by the French.

jkay · Apr 22, 2015

But how do they get there first? And why?

Remember to think about hows and whys.

Zek Sora · Apr 22, 2015

What is the motivation of France to settle something that is so far away from their furthest-flung colony as to be utterly inaccessible?

Lateknight · Apr 22, 2015

Zek Sora said:
What is the motivation of France to settle something that is so far away from their furthest-flung colony as to be utterly inaccessible?

Gold? Seriously though the only way this happens is if the bourbons succeed at absorbing Spain.

HunterX · Apr 22, 2015

The geography and incredibly long traveling times makes this more difficult than you'd first think. Even Spain's colonization of California wasn't particularly thorough and they had Mexico to operate out of.

Matteo · Apr 22, 2015

The Bourbons have been reigning in Spain since 1700 ...

If you want California to be settled by the french, you need them to keep at least Louisiana. And I would even say to keep the american colonies they had before the seven years war. So they need to send many more migrants than they actually did.

Lateknight · Apr 22, 2015

Matteo said:
The Bourbons have been reigning in Spain since 1700 ...

If you want California to be settled by the french, you need them to keep at least Louisiana. And I would even say to keep the american colonies they had before the seven years war. So they need to send many more migrants than they actually did.

I main if the french branch of the bourbon lineage ruled over both france and spain.

dissentcontinues · Apr 22, 2015

There is one way...

Sutter of Sutter's Mill and Fort and helping rescue the Donner Party and buying Fort Ross fame was a Francophile and wanted to give his land to France as a colony at one point.

dissentcontinues · Apr 22, 2015

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

"A Francophile, Sutter threatened to raise the French flag over California and place New Helvetia under French protection,[9] but in 1846 California was occupied by the United States in the Mexican-American War."

There's your answer, Fishbulb.

Matteo · Apr 22, 2015

This is impossible.

Even if France had won total victory in the war of spanish succession (which it could not given the coalition's size), it would not have made such a choice.

Why ? Because France and Spain were something like hereditary enemies that had been at war for the pas 2 centuries.

Everybody knew it and nobody considered ignoring the strong identities of the spanish kingdoms. Things FO not work like in Total war games where you change one kingdom's nationalist after holding it for a few years.

The spanish kingdoms were too big to swallow at that time. It was 300 or 250 years too late.

funnyhat · Apr 22, 2015

It's not completely impossible; Spain didn't actually settle California until 1769 when they founded San Diego. So another nation could have gotten there first. It's just trickier coming up with a reason for them to do it.

The best I can come up with would be Louisiana being founded/developed much sooner, giving it a substantial population. Then, maybe have some coureurs de bois look for adventure and decide to explore all the way to the Pacific instead of stopping at the Rockies. But even that would probably just amount to a trickle of settlers.