What if France won the global 7 Years War, when would BNA colonists "Texas" Across the Appalachians?

If France won 7 Years War, when would Anglo-Americans "pull a Texas" over Trans-Appalachia

  • Never

    Votes: 46 39.0%
  • 1775

    Votes: 21 17.8%
  • 1785

    Votes: 6 5.1%
  • 1795

    Votes: 18 15.3%
  • 1805

    Votes: 13 11.0%
  • 1815

    Votes: 7 5.9%
  • 1825

    Votes: 7 5.9%

  • Total voters
    118
Because if that doesn't happen, the original inhabitants population and culture still dominates and therefore it's still basically the same society.

What I'm basically saying is why was India not actually settled like North America and Australia were? Was India too advanced?
 
Because if that doesn't happen, the original inhabitants population and culture still dominates and therefore it's still basically the same society.

What I'm basically saying is why was India not actually settled like North America and Australia were? Was India too advanced?
Look at the Indian population vs the Aboriginal populations of Australia and the Americas...........
 
This is a fascinating and very rich discussion. I see also that "never" has moved into first place in the poll.

An Anglo-America restricted to the coast seems like an interesting concept to play with.

I would imagine that as the population grows urbanization, industrialization and to some degree a "New England-ization" might creep steadily southward down the eastern seaboard without a western frontier outlet.

I think the slave trade would be banned on the OTL schedule. The Atlantic colonies might limit or discourage immigration a generation or more before the OTL US.

Especially if still politically part of the British Empire, the Atlantic colonies might become a source of many colonial adventurers and settlers in places like Australia, New Zealnd and South Africa.
 
Because if that doesn't happen, the original inhabitants population and culture still dominates and therefore it's still basically the same society.

What I'm basically saying is why was India not actually settled like North America and Australia were? Was India too advanced?

It is silliness to say India hasn't changed due to British rule. Nearly everything about India was molded during the British Empire. Further, look at its law system and then see what the official language is in India; then tell me, that nothing of significance changed.
 
Quebec was made the center of New France because the main industry was resource extraction, in this case fur. It's extreme hindsight to look at the Mississippi valley and see that it was the most important. France, at the time, made settlers a distant secondary priority, and it made sense. Sugar colonies and Fur colonies made money. Settlers cost money.

England went the other way with the American colonies. low extraction, more settlers. Neither really saw much value in the colonies until they were lost. Luckily for Britain, the US getting freedom turned out better than keeping them, but that was happenstance, not any plan. For France, it turned out that maybe they did need an outlet for overpopulation and a place to grow foods. Both realities are hindsight. Of course, IF France had gone the settler route, there probably would have been two American revolutions - one English, one French.
 
Quebec was made the center of New France because the main industry was resource extraction, in this case fur. It's extreme hindsight to look at the Mississippi valley and see that it was the most important. France, at the time, made settlers a distant secondary priority, and it made sense. Sugar colonies and Fur colonies made money. Settlers cost money.

England went the other way with the American colonies. low extraction, more settlers. Neither really saw much value in the colonies until they were lost. Luckily for Britain, the US getting freedom turned out better than keeping them, but that was happenstance, not any plan. For France, it turned out that maybe they did need an outlet for overpopulation and a place to grow foods. Both realities are hindsight. Of course, IF France had gone the settler route, there probably would have been two American revolutions - one English, one French.

It is hindsight, but we must always use that for historical analysis or then we are trapped forever in the mindset of then.
 
Quebec was made the center of New France because the main industry was resource extraction, in this case fur. It's extreme hindsight to look at the Mississippi valley and see that it was the most important. France, at the time, made settlers a distant secondary priority, and it made sense. Sugar colonies and Fur colonies made money. Settlers cost money.

Which is odd even though planting sugar is quite possible in Louisiana, and the fur trade was beyond rich in Louisiana. Into the 20th century, Louisiana state alone had the biggest fur trade, now take into account the entire Mississippi basin, where the only real enemy is Spain, and the French were already making profit on selling stuff to the Comanche and other native enemies of Spain who were doing quite a number on Spanish colonies north of the Rio Grande.
 
I'd have to see the numbers on the fur trade in LA. my understanding is that Canada was where the fur action was. Canada made money. LA lost money, until relatively late, which is why little attention was given to LA. In the trade department, Britain was a major competitor in the Mississippi valley (east). The map is colored blue, but the trade went to both France and Britain. The Chickasaw (Miss/Tennessee) and Cherokee (Tennessee/KY/Alabama) and Creek (Georgia/Alabama) were major English allies or leaning.

on the sugar front, I've read that it took a couple of decades to adapt standard sugar growing to the climate/conditions of LA. I don't think it was a simple matter of someone smacking himself on the forehead and exclaiming 'mon dieu. we could be growing sugar here'.
 
I'd have to see the numbers on the fur trade in LA. my understanding is that Canada was where the fur action was. Canada made money. LA lost money, until relatively late, which is why little attention was given to LA. In the trade department, Britain was a major competitor in the Mississippi valley (east). The map is colored blue, but the trade went to both France and Britain. The Chickasaw (Miss/Tennessee) and Cherokee (Tennessee/KY/Alabama) and Creek (Georgia/Alabama) were major English allies or leaning.

on the sugar front, I've read that it took a couple of decades to adapt standard sugar growing to the climate/conditions of LA. I don't think it was a simple matter of someone smacking himself on the forehead and exclaiming 'mon dieu. we could be growing sugar here'.

No but sugar was being grown there prior to the American hegemony. The French needed only to get enough people whose life was determined on being able to grow sugar there for it to come about. There were already large plantations on the so called Île d'Orléans (the combination modern Orleans parish and nearby Metairie on the other side of the Mississippi), by the time France regained the colony from Spain.
 
Last edited:
I'd have to see the numbers on the fur trade in LA. my understanding is that Canada was where the fur action was. Canada made money. LA lost money, until relatively late, which is why little attention was given to LA. In the trade department, Britain was a major competitor in the Mississippi valley (east). The map is colored blue, but the trade went to both France and Britain. The Chickasaw (Miss/Tennessee) and Cherokee (Tennessee/KY/Alabama) and Creek (Georgia/Alabama) were major English allies or leaning.

on the sugar front, I've read that it took a couple of decades to adapt standard sugar growing to the climate/conditions of LA. I don't think it was a simple matter of someone smacking himself on the forehead and exclaiming 'mon dieu. we could be growing sugar here'.

In 1926, the year before the 1927 Mississippi flood decimated the fur trade in many Louisiana parishes thanks to enviromental damage (especially those parishes deliberately flooded by certain New Orleans bankers for their own gain), Louisiana produced more fur than anywhere in the US. That's just Louisiana. Imagine a Louisiana which has everything between the Rockies and Appalachians and the Far North (Canadian border, or just look at a map of the Mississippi watershed). That's a lot of fur. You don't even need the Mississippi as anything but a guide (since it was so difficult to navigate until steamboats), they have native trails and the lesser rivers of the Mississippi system.

For all the disadvantages colonising North America from the Gulf and the Great Lakes has, it's just amazing the neglect France had toward Louisiana. Especially in the era when Britain's Southern colonies were producing the majority of value from their North American holdings.
 
Last edited:
1926 is a long way from early 1700's. (and the comparison was in the US, not vs Canada)

I'm not arguing at all that the mississippi valley is not a very valuable region, and that the correct move would have been to spend more resources in developing it earlier, or that France should have done more to ensure they keep it. Even contemporarily, they knew they should have been doing more, and did some half hearted attempts at doing so. Early on, though, Canada was where the money was on the (french) American continent. The sugar islands were where the real money was (it would have been dumb not to develop easy money that lasted multiple generations). Absolutely no disagreement that France dreadfully neglected New France, but given that they didn't put much effort into a settler colony (s), what they did in the direction they went make logical sense. Certainly, they could have, and should have, done things differently.
 
I'd have to see the numbers on the fur trade in LA. my understanding is that Canada was where the fur action was. Canada made money. LA lost money, until relatively late, which is why little attention was given to LA. In the trade department, Britain was a major competitor in the Mississippi valley (east). The map is colored blue, but the trade went to both France and Britain. The Chickasaw (Miss/Tennessee) and Cherokee (Tennessee/KY/Alabama) and Creek (Georgia/Alabama) were major English allies or leaning.

on the sugar front, I've read that it took a couple of decades to adapt standard sugar growing to the climate/conditions of LA. I don't think it was a simple matter of someone smacking himself on the forehead and exclaiming 'mon dieu. we could be growing sugar here'.
As John mentioned,the French government clearly screwed up in the 18th century.Just look at the amount of mistakes they made from foreign to domestic policies.
 
It's debatable if the British really conquered India at all in the truest sense. After all, India is still Indian, not white Anglo.

Conquest and assimilation are two different things. Poland doesn't speak German or Russian, but it was conquered in 1939 all the same.
 
Look at the Indian population vs the Aboriginal populations of Australia and the Americas...........

This is getting off-topic, but what about Africa? The situation with the natives was the same as in NA or Australia, but it wasn't settled either (except South Africa, and even there, Blacks remained a majority), and the eventual countries were decolonized in the 20th Century.
 
This is getting off-topic, but what about Africa? The situation with the natives was the same as in NA or Australia, but it wasn't settled either (except South Africa, and even there, Blacks remained a majority), and the eventual countries were decolonized in the 20th Century.
Not the same....Besides,in Africa,the Europeans were the ones who die in droves due to disease.....I am honestly surprised you didn't know about this seeing you've been here for 11 years.
 
Last edited:
What kind of fur-bearing animals were in Louisiana, and were these farmed or trapped. If they were farmed, were they based of a previously feral native population?
 
Top