AH Challenge: American/French Quebec

Shackel

Banned
With a PoD no earlier than 1770, but no later than 1800, how could France or America gain the province Quebec/Canada? Bonus points for a split.

Also, what major effects would this have?
 
Arnold does better in the north, but the French want Quebec back in return for assistance?

(They couldn't make this demand OTL because the Colonial army didn't capture it.)

Butterflies flapping throughout the war mean the French get it back at the peace table. However, the revolution happens anyway due to the financial losses and the reclamation of Quebec isn't enough to save Louis XVI.

When Napoleon (or his analogue) is defeated, the French colonists in Quebec refuse to submit to the authority of the restored French King and become independent allies of the United States?
 

Shackel

Banned
French problems could even be compounded by Napoleon fleeing to Quebec. Is such a thing possible?
 
With a PoD no earlier than 1770, but no later than 1800, how could France or America gain the province Quebec/Canada? Bonus points for a split.

Also, what major effects would this have?

The most difficult part is getting Quebec to join in the Revolution. The British extended relative religious tolerance to Quebec, which led to some idiots in the 13 Colonies preaching that the Church of England was preparing to reunite with the Catholic Church. While this got the colonies hot and bothered (more so than they were already), it kept Quebec quiet, and I don't see that changing without some sort of protestant fundamentalist British Governor of Quebec.

Alternatively, Napoleon launches a successful Napoleonic Sealion and forces Britain to hand over Quebec, in the same timeline where Haiti is a prosperous, democratic ally of France and the cornerstone of Napoleon's Empire in North America. This prompts a war with the US (the US wants to conquer Canada, and Napoleon rules it) which pits Napoleon against Andrew Jackson.

The universe then disintegrates from the concentrated awesome.
 

Eurofed

Banned
The PoD can be >1769, so the Quebec Act COULD not exist.

One of the main PoDs I used for USAO 2.0 includes distorted reports of minor civil disturbances and an accidental fire misinterpreted as terrorist arson in Quebec that are inflated by British press to an anti-Popish panic. This drives the UK parliament to make the Quebec Act as repressive to Catholic Canadiens as the other Intolerable Acts were to the 13 colonies, an extension to Quebec of the manifold legal penalties that Irish Catholics were burdened with, while the Ohio valley is awarded to the HBC. This pisses off Quebec and Nova Scotia to join the American Revolution since the First Continental Congress.
 
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Shackel

Banned
If the Quebec Act doesn't happen at all, could it be likely for the Americans to lose Georgia or even the entire South due to Loyalists fervor?
 
Arnold does better in the north, but the French want Quebec back in return for assistance?

(They couldn't make this demand OTL because the Colonial army didn't capture it.)

Butterflies flapping throughout the war mean the French get it back at the peace table. However, the revolution happens anyway due to the financial losses and the reclamation of Quebec isn't enough to save Louis XVI.

When Napoleon (or his analogue) is defeated, the French colonists in Quebec refuse to submit to the authority of the restored French King and become independent allies of the United States?

Quebec would have been a royalist bastion in this scenario...they simply abhorred the excesses of the revolution one of the brothers will no doubt hold up here for a while, instead of heading to Russia.
 

Shackel

Banned
Quebec would have been a royalist bastion in this scenario...they simply abhorred the excesses of the revolution one of the brothers will no doubt hold up here for a while, instead of heading to Russia.

I find the idea of a land conquered by revolutionaries becoming a royalist bastion hilarious.
 
France didn't want Quebec back as that would lead to antagonism between America and France. France wanted Britain to keep Canada as a way of keeping America and France close. Turns out Britain leveraged its position in Canada and on America's occupied frontier posts into breaking the Franco-American alliance. I think the easiest (not the best) way for America to end up with Canada is the Battle of Quebec.
 

Shackel

Banned
Idea: Guy Carleton is captured in the taking of Montreal, leading to Quebec being unprepared. Throw in a missed cannonball and now you have Montgomory's forces attacking as well instead of turning back.

Would that work?
 

Eurofed

Banned
If the Quebec Act doesn't happen at all, could it be likely for the Americans to lose Georgia or even the entire South due to Loyalists fervor?

Theoretically yes, but as I wrote, if the Ohio Valley is not awarded to Quebec (which is what really pissed off the 13 colonies about the Quebec Act), in all likelihood it is going to be given to the HBC instead.

To make Canada Patriot and Georgia or even the Carolinas too (but not Virginia) Loyalist is quite feasible (this is the main scenario idea of Glen's fine TL after all) and a very interesting PoD, but it would require purposeful actions by the British government and/or Southern Governors as insightful and talented as Guy Carleton to keep the South Loyalist.
 
The most difficult part is getting Quebec to join in the Revolution. The British extended relative religious tolerance to Quebec, which led to some idiots in the 13 Colonies preaching that the Church of England was preparing to reunite with the Catholic Church. While this got the colonies hot and bothered (more so than they were already), it kept Quebec quiet, and I don't see that changing without some sort of protestant fundamentalist British Governor of Quebec.
IIRC (half-remembered from my old job shelving books at a genealogical library , reading a book I was supposed to be replacing :D), the Quebec Act eventually or even immediately had an adverse effect on some parts of Quebecoise society. By imposing English law in place of native ones, many Canadiens thought that the British were simply replacing the despotic rule of the Bourbon monarchy with the (almost equally) despotic rule of the Hanoverians. The Act mostly served to placate the local gentry and clergy, and while it did this, the rest of the population remained apathetic to the British and were not motivated to fight for the British government. Some sections of the population (I can't recall specifics from this source, unfortunately) were even sympathetic to the rebels despite their Protestantism. So my point is that the Quebec Act was not the panacea that the British had hoped it would be.


Alternatively, Napoleon launches a successful Napoleonic Sealion and forces Britain to hand over Quebec, in the same timeline where Haiti is a prosperous, democratic ally of France and the cornerstone of Napoleon's Empire in North America. This prompts a war with the US (the US wants to conquer Canada, and Napoleon rules it) which pits Napoleon against Andrew Jackson.

The universe then disintegrates from the concentrated awesome.
First of all, Napoleon would win. Jackson may have been good at fighting the Indians, but in a pitched battle against the French Imperial army, I'm not so sure how well he would have fared.
Incidentally, the French regaining Canada could be accomplished in 1779-80. In this thread I postulate that if successful, the Franco-Spanish "Armada of '79" could have taken several cities in southeastern Britain, forcing the government to the negotiating table. There "the original plan then called for negotations in which London would be traded for India, and Portsmouth for Canada". Just food for thought.
 
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