Reggie Bartlett
Banned
How are they treated by the CS government and Louisiana government in the CSA compared to OTL's Louisana and US?
Cajuns in an independent CSA.
- Thread starter Reggie Bartlett
- Start date
About the same. Though a certain number of rural cajuns simply wanted to sit the war out, and this number increased after Vicksburg / Gettysburg, few Cajuns were dedicated unionists per se. Also, French speaking Lousianians were represented in proportion to their numbers in the CSA (General Bueregard).
Reggie Bartlett
Banned
Just to straighten something out, the idea of "State's Rights" also included the idea of secession and state sovereignty (much of the stuff that Thomas Jefferson and John Calhoun talked about). The CSA in terms of race is no more racist than it's Northern counterpart. You can't apply modern views to the people of 150 years ago.
Also, Cajuns are decended from the French, they speak their own variant of French, what is keeping them from being seen as white? The only difference they have from the rest of the CSA is the cultural legacy (French Canadian), and not to mention Cajuns served in CS armies during it's war of independence.
Wolfpaw
Banned
They'd mostly be left alone once the war ended. Yeah, a lot of them were Unionists, but that won't matter as much in peacetime. Louisiana is already the most cosmopolitan state in the South and is from a markedly different tradition.
The upper classes of Louisiana were Creoles with a strong sense of their French heritage, you had Cajuns in the countryside whose Francophony granted them a favorable status in the ethno-economic hierarchies; in New Orleans you had race-mixing, immigrants(!) freemen, slaves, planters, pirates and panhandlers, there were even Hispanics just to the West.
The upper classes of Louisiana were Creoles with a strong sense of their French heritage, you had Cajuns in the countryside whose Francophony granted them a favorable status in the ethno-economic hierarchies; in New Orleans you had race-mixing, immigrants(!) freemen, slaves, planters, pirates and panhandlers, there were even Hispanics just to the West.
...
...
...
Yeah. Yeah. I figure it'll be a few minutes before this incredibly foolish statement sees you intellectually bludgeoned. So allow me to sum up my feelings in a single image.
Hate to break this to you, but stupid memes don't prove your point.
...
...
...
Yeah. Yeah. I figure it'll be a few minutes before this incredibly foolish statement sees you intellectually bludgeoned. So allow me to sum up my feelings in a single image.
It's surprising how many people here seem to think the Confederates are Nazis. I mean, isn't that going a bit far? They were in the wrong, sure, and they were quite racist, but it's not like they were out to oppress/enslave anyone who wasn't an upper-class male WASP or something.
Reggie Bartlett
Banned
...
...
...
Yeah. Yeah. I figure it'll be a few minutes before this incredibly foolish statement sees you intellectually bludgeoned. So allow me to sum up my feelings in a single image.
I see you haven't shown anything of substance to refute my claim, and you use a stupid meme to do it.
How am I the intellectually bludgeoned one?
As I was not trying to "prove" anything your comment is irrelevant. Now, clearly a statement like that deserves a detailed discussion, wherein people will explain why it is wrong, and other individuals shall leap to the defense of the Stars and Bars, as has happened on countless other threads, including the umpteen other ones Mr. Bartlett has posted asking for assistance on his timeline. And I am certain such a discussion will occur here. This is not it. It is merely my exasperation at Bartlett's continued propensity to put his foot in his mouth.
Japhy
Banned
The fate of the Cajuns is tied in with the fate of the Creoles and the rest of Cosmopolitan Louisiana and the Southern Unionists. Frankly I don't see the Confederacy as being a nation willing to tolerate the laters presence at all (Though its not like they could in any event.) and the former you can make a case for their survival.
Frankly I'd say their odds are slim as hell of having some kind of happy life, but then, I'm one of those who uses the massive pile of History that you would consider to be "Anti-Southern" while you use the pile I would consider "Revisionist Apologetics".
Being Reggie as this has gone on for how many rounds, why not just write a CSA timeline rather then constantly pumping out threads on minor aspects of the Confederacy for arguments?
Frankly I'd say their odds are slim as hell of having some kind of happy life, but then, I'm one of those who uses the massive pile of History that you would consider to be "Anti-Southern" while you use the pile I would consider "Revisionist Apologetics".
Being Reggie as this has gone on for how many rounds, why not just write a CSA timeline rather then constantly pumping out threads on minor aspects of the Confederacy for arguments?
...
...
...
Yeah. Yeah. I figure it'll be a few minutes before this incredibly foolish statement sees you intellectually bludgeoned. So allow me to sum up my feelings in a single image.
Um...what?
What he said is pretty much exactly what the majority of Confederates believed they were fighting for. Sure the plantation owners who ran the place were mostly paying lip service to that belief but the average Confederate was concerned about his rights, and the fear of a slave revolt.
Most average Confederates opposed emancipation because they saw it as the infringement of their personal rights, not because of any inherent love of owning slaves. Sure they were racist (so was the Union) but that barely factored in to any average Confederate's belief, that was just a natural relfex at the time.
Like he said, you can't impose today's morals on an event from 150 years ago.
How exactly is that not a pro-slavery attitude? It's also much more racist than the belief of the average Unionist, seeing as they did not see non-slavery for blacks as some kind of violation of the white man's freedom. If you were trying to argue against the theory that the South was more racist and pro-slavery, then you failed.
Being a reluctant confederate did not make one dogmatically pro union. Only a few Cajuns were actively pro union in a political sense. Also, in OTL the reluctance of the Cajuns increased as the odds of a CSA victory became more remote. In a CSA victory scenario, fewer cajuns would have drifted back to the bayous to sit the war out. Cajuns did contribute to the CSA in numbers some what proportional to their population. A victorious CSA would quickly forgive the fact that a certain number of Cajuns remained nueteral.
East Tennessee, in contrast, had large numbers of people who were pro union politically, as well as those who wished to sit the war out. East TN would face far harsher treatment in a CSA victory than south Louisiana.
Last edited:
frlmerrin
Banned
I would suggest that the lot of the Francophones would be slightly better in the CSA than it would be in OTL USA. First, in fractional terms they would be a larger minority in a much smaller population in the CSA than they would be in OTL USA. Second in many independent CSA scenarios immigration to the CSA would still remain small compared compared with that of the USA. In this case the CSA is most unlikely to see the late 19th Century, early 20th Century efforts to force assimilation on to immigrant, non-English speaking minorities found in OTL USA.
NothingNow
Banned
They'd probably just be kinda left to their own devices if anything in a vaguely benign neglect . Not really ignored (you don't ignore a voting population in a place as influential and important as Louisiana,) but not treated noticeably different than their social equivalents elsewhere, or pretty much, just the status quo, same as Southern Jews really.
Now that's not to say the CSA wouldn't be hideously repressive at times, but well, they aren't as big a target as the German Settlers in Texas, or the ancestors of Today's hillbillies.
Not very in the scheme of things, but they did have tight links to the Creoles in New Orleans, which was pretty much the single most important place in the CSA in several categories.
There were plenty of Cajuns supported the Confederacy. There were also others who wanted nothing to do with just another Anglo war. They would have been treated just fine after the war and left alone for the most part.
Here's a bit of personal historical information. My great-great-great grandfather and others in his family served in the Confederate States Army. He served from 1862 until the end of the war. He took part in battles such as Mansfield and Yellow Bayou. I had a chuckle when I read my ancestor's pension application. His reason for leaving the service was because, "The war was over." He was very pro-Confederate from what I could determine.
Here's a bit of personal historical information. My great-great-great grandfather and others in his family served in the Confederate States Army. He served from 1862 until the end of the war. He took part in battles such as Mansfield and Yellow Bayou. I had a chuckle when I read my ancestor's pension application. His reason for leaving the service was because, "The war was over." He was very pro-Confederate from what I could determine.
I don't get the question. Unless Cajuns in mass were union sympathizers (which I'm not sure about), why would Louisiana treat them any different than any other poor rural whites? If anything Lousiana in a CSA-wins world might remain more heavily francophone at a state level because many leading slave-holding families were creoles.