AHC: A European country turns another European country into a settler colony (before 1900)

[Overlord]

I think we are on more or less the same page, but disagree about definitions. I would say that you need the settlers to be the dominant element in the population, and the culture of the dominated element to be minoritised completely. That didn't quite happen in Ireland, there were settlers but they never outnumbered the natives or succeeded in forcing them to adopt their culture. They came very close in Antrim and Down, where religious conversion of the natives was very high, and around Fermanagh where there were points when deadness of the natives was very high. But the Irish Protestant and Catholic cultures hybridised, so you had weird effects like native Irish-speaking prods and the mass retention of a Catholicism that was the main instrument of oppression of Irish popular culture and one of the drivers of anglicisation.

Today Ireland's identity is principally nativist and its population principally Catholic, so I don't think we can call it a successful settler colony.

I think we tend to agree. However, I would point out that whilst culture was not adopted outright (particularly thinking of religion here, where the settler culture 'failed' for lack of a better word,) in terms of linguistics the settler culture very much won out in Ireland. Then there is the fact that a large percentage of the population have English or "British" ancestry (a close friend of mine from Ireland remembers her family hiding IRA members during the troubles, but simultaneously being told by her parents not to mention she had an English grandfather.) I think it would be relatively hard to give percentages on which percentage of the Irish population today are directly descended from the settler population, but I think estimates are generally fairly high (if not the majority, but I am not well read/don't remember enough of the exact figures on the subject.)

The POD was before 1900 and the settler population were definitely the dominant group in 1900... I suppose the OP never stated how long the settler colony has to last, which brings us back to definition. With a modern Ireland that is decidedly part of the Anglosphere with good relations with the English speaking world etc, I would say that it is a pretty successful settler colony (and if not the Republic, than certainly the North.) Certainly more successful than the Baltic German example given above.

I suppose the OP needs to clarify his definition.

 

[marcinL]

Brandenburg, Upper Saxony, East Prussia were all settler colonies

 

[Clandango]

I know Ireland has been said a few times, but some visualizes might be needed for if we need one certain time period. Though I doubt anything would have come of it, this did offer a strictly English colonization effort.

 

[Lampiao]

The Reconquista, Ireland, the Baltics, the Balkans (the Banat was depopulated and resettled countless times by pretty much everyone), the Russian Empire in general...

 

[Deleted member 97083]

I know Ireland has been said a few times, but some visualizes might be needed for if we need one certain time period. Though I doubt anything would have come of it, this did offer a strictly English colonization effort.

Were the English territories in Ireland really given such long-winded and bureaucratic names?

 

[Clandango]

Were the English territories in Ireland really given such long-winded and bureaucratic names?

I think it was more just liens drawn on a map, which the army, widows, adventures, and people the government owed money never got to collect on. And I do love how the widows get put on the border by all the angry Irish people.

 

[CaliGuy]

I think Napoleon would push for assimilation of the people already there, as opposed to mass settler colonialism. The assimilation efforts would be gradual and targeted at the bourgeois and noble classes rather than the entire population.

Actually, I think that targeting the entire population here makes much more sense.

Also, bringing in French settlers could help accelerate this process.

 

[Deleted member 97083]

Actually, I think that targeting the entire population here makes much more sense.

Also, bringing in French settlers could help accelerate this process.

Napoleon just doesn't strike me as an ethnic resettlement type of guy.

And the French in general were always the strongest believers in cultural assimilation in their empire, early on leading to the low European population of New France and relatively significant Métis. Later on, French Africa became more Francophone than British Africa was Anglophone. Not to mention the spread of Catholicism in French Indochina.

 

[CaliGuy]

Napoleon just doesn't strike me as an ethnic resettlement type of guy.

And the French in general were always the strongest believers in cultural assimilation in their empire, early on leading to the low European population of New France and relatively significant Métis. Later on, French Africa became more Francophone than British Africa was Anglophone. Not to mention the spread of Catholicism in French Indochina.

Then you could have Napoleon's successor(s) be more in favor of settler colonialism then Napoleon himself was.

 

[Deleted member 97083]

Then you could have Napoleon's successor(s) be more in favor of settler colonialism then Napoleon himself was.

While the First French Empire assimilating Europe into a new French version of the Roman Empire would be a really interesting scenario, it just seems difficult to create the circumstances and desire for it.

 

[CaliGuy]

While the First French Empire assimilating Europe into a new French version of the Roman Empire would be a really interesting scenario, it just seems difficult to create the circumstances and desire for it.

Some areas can still be partially assimilated if the fate of the Alsatians in our TL is anything to go by, though.

 

[DracoLazarus]

The U.S. already appears to have begun moving westward by this point in time. Thus, Napoleon could claim that France has a Manifest Destiny to expand and to Francify/Gallify the areas surrounding France.

Francification was not made as much via settlers as via education IOTL.

 

[CaliGuy]

Francification was not made as much via settlers as via education IOTL.

Yes, I know.

 

[Deleted member 97083]

Some areas can still be partially assimilated if the fate of the Alsatians in our TL is anything to go by, though.

Francification was not made as much via settlers as via education IOTL.

I suppose if we consider Oliver Cromwell's actions in Ireland, or the German Empire's later plans during WW1, or states like the Roman Empire, then military rule seems more likely to result in settler colonialism. So perhaps if a victorious, long-lived Bonaparte empowers the military greatly, dies in an untimely fashion where the French Empire still has plenty of strategic depth, and his successor is weak, then a (non-liberal, non-revolutionary) military coup could result in settlement first of veterans in conquered territories, and then later forced resettlement of rebellious non-French into France.

 

[Mr_Fanboy]

The Reconquista, Ireland, the Baltics, the Balkans (the Banat was depopulated and resettled countless times by pretty much everyone), the Russian Empire in general...

How much of this was true settler colonialism as opposed to merely assimilating the preexisitng population? I know the conventional wisdom for a long time was that the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain involved massive levels of human migration and ethnic cleansing, but archeological research and DNA testing has shown that it was actually more that an Anglo-Saxon elite installed themselves as rulers in parts of Britain and their culture was largely adopted by the people under their rule.

 

[Lampiao]

How much of this was true settler colonialism as opposed to merely assimilating the preexisitng population? I know the conventional wisdom for a long time was that the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain involved massive levels of human migration and ethnic cleansing, but archeological research and DNA testing has shown that it was actually more that an Anglo-Saxon elite installed themselves as rulers in parts of Britain and their culture was largely adopted by the people under their rule.

Assimilation? In Iberia, Muslims and Jews were given the simple choice: Convert or leave, and even if they did chose the first, they'd live as 2nd class citizens (I mean, literally 2nd class citizens, as New Christians weren't legally allowed to occupy some jobs until the 1750's) and, of course, risk the fire of the Inquisition - it almost makes Apartheid sounds fun. Also, land distribution in Southern Iberia (Andalusia and Algarve) looked a lot like Latin America's. As for, let's say, the Banat it was completely devastated by the Ottoman Invasions and actively resettled by each nation that holded it for while, that's why it was a weird melting pot of Turks, Germans, Serbs, Hungarians, Romanians...

And still, there'll always be some assimilation also in colonies.

 

[Mr_Fanboy]

Assimilation? In Iberia, Muslims and Jews were given the simple choice: Convert or leave, and even if they did chose the first, they'd live as 2nd class citizens (I mean, literally 2nd class citizens, as New Christians weren't legally allowed to occupy some jobs until the 1750's) and, of course, risk the fire of the Inquisition - it almost makes Apartheid sounds fun. Also, land distribution in Southern Iberia (Andalusia and Algarve) looked a lot like Latin America's. As for, let's say, the Banat it was completely devastated by the Ottoman Invasions and actively resettled by each nation that holded it for while, that's why it was a weird melting pot of Turks, Germans, Serbs, Hungarians, Romanians...

And still, there'll always be some assimilation also in colonies.

Right, obviously the Reconquista/Inquisition was brutal, I was just unsure if it was the exception or the rule there, in the broader scope of European history. Large parts of Eadtern European history are a blank for me, so I'll defer to you.

 

[Lampiao]

I suppose if we consider Oliver Cromwell's actions in Ireland, or the German Empire's later plans during WW1, or states like the Roman Empire, then military rule seems more likely to result in settler colonialism. So perhaps if a victorious, long-lived Bonaparte empowers the military greatly, dies in an untimely fashion where the French Empire still has plenty of strategic depth, and his successor is weak, then a (non-liberal, non-revolutionary) military coup could result in settlement first of veterans in conquered territories, and then later forced resettlement of rebellious non-French into France.

Dunno. Being French after the Revolution isn't about ethnicity, but the recognition of French values (French language, the Code Civil, etc.) - somehow like the US - it was their policy internally with the local languages and in the colonies with the assimilé/indigène divide. IIRC Senegal has sended députés to the French Assembly since the early days of the republic.

EDIT: If you're thinking of a France that would work a lot like the Roman Empire, but to make it work more on settlement than assimilation, then you're probably thinking of some kind of ATL USSR.

 

[Gloss]

Dunno. Being French after the Revolution isn't about ethnicity, but the recognition of French values (French language, the Code Civil, etc.) - somehow like the US - it was their policy internally with the local languages and in the colonies with the assimilé/indigène divide. IIRC Senegal has sended députés to the French Assembly since the early days of the republic.

EDIT: If you're thinking of a France that would work a lot like the Roman Empire, but to make it work more on settlement than assimilation, then you're probably thinking of some kind of ATL USSR.

Yeah and being Protestant or Catholic in Ireland is not about ethnicity either in theory, the idea that France can assimilate vast amounts of population just for what they did OTL is a bit overstretching it. At a certain point you need settlement to change the demographics.

 

[DracoLazarus]

Yeah and being Protestant or Catholic in Ireland is not about ethnicity either in theory, the idea that France can assimilate vast amounts of population just for what they did OTL is a bit overstretching it. At a certain point you need settlement to change the demographics.

Well, considering that most Oc and Oil languages, and the accompanying cultures, are now dead to French, with Breton and Basque in real poor situations and German and Alsatian are not spoken in Alsace, France could have assimilated more in Europe.