Acadians not expelled

From what I've read in this forum, it was definitely plausible for the Acadians not to have been expelled. What would the Canada of this timeline look like if they hadn't been expelled?
 
Also consider the impact on Louisiana. It keeps the French Creole population there down to a small minority. It seriously changes the bayou settlements west of the Mississippi.
 
Also consider the impact on Louisiana. It keeps the French Creole population there down to a small minority. It seriously changes the bayou settlements west of the Mississippi.

For the most part Acadians never made up more that a third of the francophone community down there.

Most "Cajuns" are just white Creoles that took on the insulting name post WWII.
 

SwampTiger

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Most "Cajuns" are just white Creoles that took on the insulting name post WWII.

Hey!!! I resemble that remark!

Most Cajuns of the past two or three generations are mixed with other groups. We have been mixing since the 1700's. My parents have French, from the metropole through Montreal and Mobile, Acadian, Canary Islander, Spanish and possibly others. My nieces and nephews now include Scottish, Dutch, German, English and who knows what. There aren't many pure blooded anything in the USA after 10 generations.

To the original post, you would have a language and cultural problem for British rule through the 19th century. I doubt this would be insurmountable. The various rebellions of the early 19th century would be more worrisome. Perhaps you would see earlier efforts by the British to bring the French speakers into the greater political milieu as equals.
 
Hey!!! I resemble that remark!

Most Cajuns of the past two or three generations are mixed with other groups. We have been mixing since the 1700's. My parents have French, from the metropole through Montreal and Mobile, Acadian, Canary Islander, Spanish and possibly others.
My father was a Cajun and most of his ancestors did migrate through Acadia. However, when Ancestry dot com issues DNA results, France, Germany and the Low Countries are grouped into the single category "Western European." So my profile shows 24% Western European, 10% Spanish, 10% Italian, 6% Irish and 1% Native American. It is a good reflection of French as an admixture of Visigothic, Italic, Iberian, and Celtic. When my family tree gets back to France, it lands all over the country: north, south, east, west. Acadia and Louisiana were in fact melting pots for French immigrants from all parts of the country. In my case, I am the first generation to "mix" out of all French ancestry back to the 1700's. Some branches go back before 1500. [My mother was from Eastern Europe.]
 
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The example of the Canadiens is noteworthy, but it is noteworthy that the Acadians had a much longer history of conflict with the British Empire, and a deeper history of integration, too. I'm not saying that a modus vivendi akin to that in Québec might not be possible, but the level of violence and distrust in this multiethnic region cannot be easily ended.
 
The example of the Canadiens is noteworthy, but it is noteworthy that the Acadians had a much longer history of conflict with the British Empire, and a deeper history of integration, too. I'm not saying that a modus vivendi akin to that in Québec might not be possible, but the level of violence and distrust in this multiethnic region cannot be easily ended.

Didn't the Acadians try to be neutral in several wars due to their geographic position? Also, a question, are you the same as https://www.quora.com/profile/Randy-McDonald?
 
Didn't the Acadians try to be neutral in several wars due to their geographic position? Also, a question, are you the same as https://www.quora.com/profile/Randy-McDonald?

That is me.

The Acadians did try to be neutral, yes, but there were frequent wars and conflicts in the area. The War of the Austrian Succession even saw a French bid to reconquer the Acadian heartland, while many Acadians in the decade before the deportation had fled to new settlements in French Acadia

I do think that the deportation of the Acadians was avoidable. I just think that a situation of strained loyalties and low level violence was at high risk of producing a scenario in which genocide was possible, in which one player would decide it would he a good idea indeed to make opponents go away.
 
That is me.

The Acadians did try to be neutral, yes, but there were frequent wars and conflicts in the area. The War of the Austrian Succession even saw a French bid to reconquer the Acadian heartland, while many Acadians in the decade before the deportation had fled to new settlements in French Acadia

I do think that the deportation of the Acadians was avoidable. I just think that a situation of strained loyalties and low level violence was at high risk of producing a scenario in which genocide was possible, in which one player would decide it would he a good idea indeed to make opponents go away.

According to https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/no-acadian-deportation.58572/ https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...dians-werent-expelled-from-nova-scotia.92831/, Charles Lawrence who ordered the deportation was overstepping his instructions. His superiors had told him not to do anything drastic.
 
Also consider the impact on Louisiana. It keeps the French Creole population there down to a small minority. It seriously changes the bayou settlements west of the Mississippi.

For the most part Acadians never made up more that a third of the francophone community down there.

Most "Cajuns" are just white Creoles that took on the insulting name post WWII.

To be fair - most Gallic-descended people in the region are concentrated in the southern half of Louisiana, and no Cajun migration means "just" Creoles would be around, concentrated in the NOLA metro area's parishes? And the southwestern Louisiana that got settled by Cajuns just looks and acts like east Texas and northern Louisiana populated primarily by Dixiemen, and New Orleans retains its OTL unique culture from the Creole-Dixie mixturing. Ultimately the regional history doesn't feel like it'll change much if at all barring southwestern Louisiana's ethnic makeup.

A majority Gallic-descended Acadia/*Maritimes is what fascinates me. Most of Canada's eastern shore, heck east-in-general is undeniably Gallic now barring Newfoundland, and assuming the American Revolution plays out as on schedule.... how will it be for the Loyalists and Britain for an Anglo-Canada of Ontario west having to deal with a Gallic east? Especially once any form of Quebec's Quiet Revolution happens?
 
The Spanish are still going to want some source of settlers for Louisiana where they invited in the Acadians OTL. Maybe more Catholic Germans? There was a lot of emigration from Germany in the mid-18th Century.
 
To be fair - most Gallic-descended people in the region are concentrated in the southern half of Louisiana, and no Cajun migration means "just" Creoles would be around, concentrated in the NOLA metro area's parishes? And the southwestern Louisiana that got settled by Cajuns just looks and acts like east Texas and northern Louisiana populated primarily by Dixiemen, and New Orleans retains its OTL unique culture from the Creole-Dixie mixturing. Ultimately the regional history doesn't feel like it'll change much if at all barring southwestern Louisiana's ethnic makeup.

A majority Gallic-descended Acadia/*Maritimes is what fascinates me. Most of Canada's eastern shore, heck east-in-general is undeniably Gallic now barring Newfoundland, and assuming the American Revolution plays out as on schedule.... how will it be for the Loyalists and Britain for an Anglo-Canada of Ontario west having to deal with a Gallic east? Especially once any form of Quebec's Quiet Revolution happens?

Creoles even white Creoles were spread throughout Louisiana. The wealthiest families were in NOLA and other cities but overall there were many rural white Creoles.

Even Beyonce who's the world's most famous Louisiana Creole of any color descends from Joseph Broussard whose children quickly mixed with Creoles of all colors legally.
 
Creoles even white Creoles were spread throughout Louisiana. The wealthiest families were in NOLA and other cities but overall there were many rural white Creoles.

Even Beyonce who's the world's most famous Louisiana Creole of any color descends from Joseph Broussard whose children quickly mixed with Creoles of all colors legally.

I humbly concede, I just always took it the Cajuns gave the Francophone areas a boost that confirmed they'd at best be assimilated to English peacefully and willingly, not overswamped by Anglo-Americans like the rest of Louisiana, Texas, and Upper California.
 
The Spanish are still going to want some source of settlers for Louisiana where they invited in the Acadians OTL. Maybe more Catholic Germans? There was a lot of emigration from Germany in the mid-18th Century.

Not a bad suggestion, there was plenty of German surplus population, which the Spanish could tap into. At the time the main German emigration groups was Catholic Swabians (to Hungary), Hessians (to Russia), Protestant Rhinelanders and Swabians (to British America). The Catholic Rhinelanders was a largely untapped source of migrants, and the German Coast settlers was Rhinelanders in OTL. There’s in general a domino effect where a increase in emigration from one place result in increased likelihood more emigrate to the same place, so we may see a continuous flow of Rhineland setters I’d recruit a larger initial group of settlers, it was was what we saw with the Hessians in Russia.
 
Not a bad suggestion, there was plenty of German surplus population, which the Spanish could tap into. At the time the main German emigration groups was Catholic Swabians (to Hungary), Hessians (to Russia), Protestant Rhinelanders and Swabians (to British America). The Catholic Rhinelanders was a largely untapped source of migrants, and the German Coast settlers was Rhinelanders in OTL. There’s in general a domino effect where a increase in emigration from one place result in increased likelihood more emigrate to the same place, so we may see a continuous flow of Rhineland setters I’d recruit a larger initial group of settlers, it was was what we saw with the Hessians in Russia.

There were Catholic settlements on the Volga as well as Hessian Protestants, but I believe their origins were pretty mixed.
 
According to https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/no-acadian-deportation.58572/ https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...dians-werent-expelled-from-nova-scotia.92831/, Charles Lawrence who ordered the deportation was overstepping his instructions. His superiors had told him not to do anything drastic.

That is true. It is also true that the deportation was not a single event--the British government did not intervene once the ethnic cleansing of the Acadians from the Annapolis valley had occurred. Rather, the persecution was a policy that was sustained over multiple years, with deportations of Acadians from not just Nova Scotia but other parts of Acadia (including French Acadia) occurring years after 1755. If Britain was opposed to the Acadian deportation it certainly did nothing to stop it from expanding and continuing.

Given the pre-existing hostility between the English and French nations and their colonists in North America, the British state's tradition of repressing and mistreating its domestic Catholic populations, and the long history of tension up to and including armed clashes between the rival North American empires, my sense is that some act of ethnic cleansing might have been difficult to avoid. It reminds me of situations elsewhere in the world, where ethnic minorities in a time of war and living in a background of complicated tensions--especially ethnic minorities on the wrong side of a frontier--are open to terrible risks.

I think it can be avoided with a different personality at the top. It's just a very risky time.

To be fair - most Gallic-descended people in the region are concentrated in the southern half of Louisiana, and no Cajun migration means "just" Creoles would be around, concentrated in the NOLA metro area's parishes? And the southwestern Louisiana that got settled by Cajuns just looks and acts like east Texas and northern Louisiana populated primarily by Dixiemen, and New Orleans retains its OTL unique culture from the Creole-Dixie mixturing. Ultimately the regional history doesn't feel like it'll change much if at all barring southwestern Louisiana's ethnic makeup.

I do agree with the consensus that German Catholics are one possible population. Mind, assuming that France decides to give up Louisiana as OTL, colonists from the Hispanic world are also imaginable.

A majority Gallic-descended Acadia/*Maritimes is what fascinates me. Most of Canada's eastern shore, heck east-in-general is undeniably Gallic now barring Newfoundland, and assuming the American Revolution plays out as on schedule.... how will it be for the Loyalists and Britain for an Anglo-Canada of Ontario west having to deal with a Gallic east? Especially once any form of Quebec's Quiet Revolution happens?

The Quiet Revolution was highly contingent on any number of factors, notably the conservative inward turning of Francophone Catholics in Canada following the repression of the radical rebellion of 1837. Especially with another large Francophone population in British North America with its own distinctive history, it will be anyone's guess. (That the Acadians absorbed into the Canadiens will not have been in this TL, creating a somewhat smaller population with wholly different individuals, is another factor.)

Much depends on how things are organized institutionally. Is there a single province of Acadia or Nova Scotia, with its focus on the Acadian heartlands on the shores of the Bay of Fundy? Or will the area be divided into multiple provinces?

A Francophone-majority Maritimes would influence the demographics of British North America, allowing a Francophone majority to survive longer, but I'm not sure things will change that much. Unless the Maritimes get plugged into the settlement of Canada west of the Ottawa at an early date, for instance, I would imagine that just as OTL New England would be a preeminent destination of migrants.
 
That is true. It is also true that the deportation was not a single event--the British government did not intervene once the ethnic cleansing of the Acadians from the Annapolis valley had occurred. Rather, the persecution was a policy that was sustained over multiple years, with deportations of Acadians from not just Nova Scotia but other parts of Acadia (including French Acadia) occurring years after 1755. If Britain was opposed to the Acadian deportation it certainly did nothing to stop it from expanding and continuing.

Given the pre-existing hostility between the English and French nations and their colonists in North America, the British state's tradition of repressing and mistreating its domestic Catholic populations, and the long history of tension up to and including armed clashes between the rival North American empires, my sense is that some act of ethnic cleansing might have been difficult to avoid. It reminds me of situations elsewhere in the world, where ethnic minorities in a time of war and living in a background of complicated tensions--especially ethnic minorities on the wrong side of a frontier--are open to terrible risks.

I think it can be avoided with a different personality at the top. It's just a very risky time.

I think, that, a good anology is how the Spanish crown wasn't exactly gleeful at the methods, that, Cortes and the other conquistadors used to subjugate the natives but also didn't do too much to stop them.
 
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