AHC:Stadoù-Unanet Amerika

Create a Brittany that colonizes North America and the colony should become free through a war with Brittany.
Bonus points if they become a great colonial power.
 
Why not have Brittany conquered by the French and have it's King re-establish his court in America? The idea of an exile government of celts who were from celts who exiled themselves from Britain amuses me greatly.
 
Why not have Brittany conquered by the French and have it's King re-establish his court in America? The idea of an exile government of celts who were from celts who exiled themselves from Britain amuses me greatly.
Well, that's not going to happen for a number of reasons.
Firstly, Brittany was a County, not a Kingdom. (Picky, I know.)
Secondly, the French take over of Brittany was fairly gradual, with the aristocracy coopted into the French system.

Still. I like the general idea.
PoD. Some Breton fisherman gets blown across the Atlantic, and a few years later manages to fix his boat and return home. This happens, oh, let's say about 1100 or so.
As the French encroach more and more, politically and culturally, more and more younger sons (who aren't going to inherit anyway) decide to flee to Tir newydd (or whatever the Breton version of that would be). A lot don't survive the trip and settlement, but over about a century, gradually a couple of thousand Bretons arrive in the New World. A few will have brought their wives, many will marry the local native girls, but a thriving settlement is established, and grows.

There's very little travel back to Europe, as it's pretty dangerous, but occasional journeys are made - people wanting to study for the priesthood, for instance. There's no economic resources in the New Land worth exporting back to Europe, particularly. Sure, a little dried/salted fish and some furs come back, but the fishing and trapping grounds in Europe aren't depleted yet, and the market's pretty poor so far. About enough to pay for some books, more animals, different seed, that kind of thing.

Relations with the local tribe start out good (otherwise the settlement would have failed), and the acquisition of iron working, draft animals and European grain means that that local tribe gains a significant advantage over its neighbours. Meanwhile, as the population grows, and grows it expands into what's now hostile neighbouring territory beyond the friendly group.

European rates of increase in North America tended to be about 3% a year, doubling every 25 years or so, or 16fold in a century.

By the time the 1500s roll around and ships get good enough for European nations to try to start projecting power across the Atlantic, the locals have been growing for some 300 years, and there's over a million local New Bretons, armed with iron and steel, and Christian. No way can any European nation conquer them.

With luck, and some good planning, they've continued to make alliances with (some) natives, and Breton becomes the lingual franca of the 'civilized nations'. Faced with e.g. France TRYING to invade, they formalize their alliance as "stadoù-unanet-XXX'. (XXX will NOT be 'amerika' as Amerigo Vespucci will never be born, let alone give his name to two continents.) Whether XXX is Breton for 'New Land' or 'New Britanny' or 'Turtle Island' or 'Joe's land' (Joe having been the guy to first made it back, and is listed in the history books as the discoverer) is up to the author of any hypothetical author of a TL fleshing this out.


How's that?
 
Brittany was a duchy (and a kingdom at times). However, the ruling class was really quickly Gallo (ie not breton) speaking. The biggest breton speaking city was Vannes, the third largest cty of the kingdom after Rennes and Nantes.
Bretons fichermen, like British and Basques were fishing around the great banks since at least the 16 century if not before.
So it really depend on what you want, but to have a bigger Breton-speaking population you need a POD in the high middle ages like more immigration from Britain or a big devastation in northern Gaul. Alternatively, you can think about a way of preserving their language via religion, perhaps with a translation of the bible and being "encouraged" to move to the big frozen land on the other side of the atlantic. It is the only way I see a breton speaking country in america after 1000.
To keep a coherent breton policy you can have them do better and conquer Tours and high Normandy during the middle ages but it will never speak breton. This contry will however be one of the better positionned to colonize north america and the colony may be a great power.
 
Hmm, have Henry II's son Geoffrey live and he or Arthur succeeds Richard as King, John's heirs end up with Aquitaine.
Brittany then remains part of the English possessions eventually transferring from the French to English Crown.
Bretons then form part of the English colonisation creating New Brittany.
Something similar to the ARW happens and New Brittany becomes independent.
 
PoD. Some Breton fisherman gets blown across the Atlantic, and a few years later manages to fix his boat and return home. This happens, oh, let's say about 1100 or so.
As the French encroach more and more, politically and culturally, more and more younger sons (who aren't going to inherit anyway) decide to flee to Tir newydd (or whatever the Breton version of that would be).

I guess we'll have Basque fishermen follow them to the Grand Banks?

Two European minority groups in the Americas!
 
France annexes whatever colony exists when they annex Brittany proper. Since French was both the prestige language of Brittany as well as that of a large amount of its people, the Breton dominance of "New Brittany" is of little more interest in the long run than the Basque language was OTL in Chile (as was said, the Republic of Chile is one of the finest Basque achievements).

Best/most realistic result is you can get a Maritimes area which is majority Breton speaking, and even the non-Breton speaking people have a Gallo influence in their dialect. Breton Newfoundland is always cool too.
 
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