Development of an American Canada

I'd spar again with Eurofed, since I disagree with nearly everything he posted up there but no one wants to read a rant by me and I doubt it'd fix much. Suffice it to say, I'm still going to throw a jab. While I respect your opinion, and I do not think Quebec fitting into the United States is ASB (on the contrary it's quite doable), it is Eurofed- not as easy and intuitive as you make it out to be.

1) How would Quebec fit into the union? Would there be a large amount of cultural tensions between it and the rest of the US? Would Quebec seccessionism in the 19th century be a possibility, and is there any chance of Quebec and Southern seccessionists forming some kind of tactical alliance? (ie, they both want to leave the US, but for different reasons)

Short anwer: Yes, I believe there would be a possibility for that. I'm not on-board with the idea that Canada (which I will hereon refer to instead of Quebec, as it would likely be called that ittl) would slide nice and easy into the union. For instance, in most TLs involving this Canada is shown to unequivocally support the North. However, at this time Canada was actually slave-state, it had claims on the Ohio Valley dating back to 1608 and was majority Catholic. The Constitutional Convention is going to go way different than OTL. I actually imagine that Canada is often going to throw its hat in with the South and vice-versa. Many things that Canada wanted the South wanted: neither wanted popular representation in a bicameral legislature (both being smaller than the North).

That's a whole extra layer of tensions on the conference, and Canada is just as likely as the South to threaten to walk out if they don't get their way. I'm not going to detail it more or I'm going to end up going for pages, but short answer: it's going to be a very different United States, a United States with potentially more problems that could end up going either way. However, I doubt it's all going to go smoothly and Canada simply integrates, no questions asked.

2) Assuming Quebec doesn't leave, would America's sense of itself be affected by the fact that part of it is very different, culturally and religiously, from the rest of it?

Yes. America would become much more like Canada. It would likely be more decentralized, and Anglo-French relations are going to be as big of as a deal as North-South relations. It'll add a whole other layer of complexity to inter-state relations, which definitely makes for an interesting and intriguing TL. However, if Canada ends up successfully integrating with the union it could be a good thing: and I can see Canada as a big benefit to more Mexican-majority states joining the Union in the future.

Where would the loyalists go? And who settles *Ontario in their absence-Quebec or the Anglophone US?

Most would stay and deal with it. They might form a larger political polity that could be long-term "British-appeasers". Others would migrate elsewhere: the Bahamas, Caribbean or back to Britain seem the most likely destinations.

4) Would the various parts of *Canada be tied economically to each other as much as OTL? In particular, would be see anything like the Canadian Pacific railway?

Nope. OTL Quebec would be its own state, though its borders are a complete throw up. Southern Ontario would likely form its own state (Niagara or Ontario perhaps), as would Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (which might include P.E.I.). The Maritime provinces of Canada would end up just being an extension of New England, New Brunswick perhaps being a bit of an exception (might be lumped in with Quebec). The Western provinces will fall into the Midwest and West-coast regions of American. They wouldn't form a collective identity based on being north of the 49th in this TL.

5) How would having Canada's resources and population affect the economic and political development of the US?

It would make early American demographic expansion north-ward looking. This is big butterflies, I really don't know what could happen here. But in general, it is a good thing economically for both the U.S. and Canada.
 
OK - ?Something like this?
Due to some POD pre 1770 Quebec/Canada/GWN* Is subject to the same Intolerable Acts as the lower 13 Colonies.
Quebec sends delegates to Philly and signs the Dec of Independence.

First change -- 1776 Arnold and friends attack Nova Scotia/Arcadia instead of Quebec/Montreal.
Whether or not the Brits hold Halifax is immaterial, what is important - is no attacks from Canada, No Battle of Saratoga, etc. which brought France into the War.

Now I expect France to send Guns, Ammo, and other supplies, but probably no Troops or Ships.

Second change - 1778 with the north [outside several cites still occupied --NY Boston Philly] solidly under Colonial control the Army moves south.

By 1779 all Britain holds is Coastal Cities, and while it can send troops into the hinterland, and take, as soon as they leave the Colonials return to control.
Towards Fall, Britain [Parliament] Asks Congress to send delegates to a peace conference.
In 1780 Congress will accept the Treaty, getting all land north of Florida, east of the Mississipi, and south of Rupertland [HBC]

Third Change -- Spain never enters the War, so Britain still holds Florida.
This will be the main designation for Loyalists fleeing Colonial reprisals.


With a Peace Treaty accepted, Congress turns to domestic problems.
On June 12, 1776, a day after appointing a committee to prepare a draft the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress resolved to appoint a committee of thirteen [ITTL 14] to prepare a draft of a constitution for a confederate type of union. The last draft of the Articles was written in the summer of 1777 and the Second Continental Congress approved them for ratification by the States on November 15, 1777, after a year of debate.

The most contentious Article is the one requiring the states draw a western border, and turn all land claims west of the '63 line over to Congress.
This is supported By Marysland, with the help of Delaware and Rhodes Island. It is opposed by Quebec & Virginia, with the Help of Pennsylvania, and Georgia.
There are also questions about Quebec's claims on the north half of the Republic of Vermont.

In 1781 Virginia & New York finally bowed to pressure from the other States and ceded their claims.
1n 1782 Quebec Ceded it's claims to the Ohio Valley, and to North Vermont. However this was under pressure and against the wishes of many Movers & Shakers in Quebec.
2 weeks later when word of this reached Annapolis, Marysland adopted the Articles, and the Continental Congress became the Congress of the Confederation.

In 1795 Congress adopted the Land Ordinance which divided the Ohio territory into 12 states **and the Maritime into 3. [Maine, Nova Scotia, Arcadia.]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Ordinance_of_1785 ]
This was followed by the North-West Ordinance in 1797 [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance ]
And the Southwest Ordinance [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Ordinance ] Due to Quebec ATL this included a ban on Slavery, and lead to some angry words from the south.

However 1n 1787, Delegates from all the States meet to write a new Constitution.
Quebec voted with Virginia on the large State Plan, only to turn around and support New York's proposal to count slaves as zero persons, in opposition to SCarolina's - slaves as whole persons.

in the End only 2 of Quebec's 5 Delegates signed the Constitution***

As the Federalist & Anti Federalist Papers are published in New York, they re rushed to Quebec and Translated into French.
With the Three Delegates who didn't sign leading the Anti Federalists, the Papers are Published with Comments from the three.
In 1788 the Quebec Parliament votes against Ratification,
A year later after 10 of the other states have Ratified, the Federalist force another Vote which again goes against. The First US Government will meet without Quebec.

In 1790 The First Congress Voted to Reaffirm the NW Ordinance, However the Southwest Ordinance failed to be Reaffirmed due to southern opposition to it's ban on Slavery.
In 1792 Kentucky and Vermont are admitted as states followed by Nova Scotia and Tennessee in 1795.This starts a balancing that will continue for the next 60 Years.
Ontario will be balanced by Alabama, Huron by Mississippi, Michigan by Sonora, Wisconsin by Coahillia. Manitoba by Neuvo Leon.

While the Border along the St Lawerence between Quebec and the US had been well established neither the Ontario/Huron -Quebec, or the Newfoundland- Quebec had ever been defined.
So when the request for Annexation in 1811 by American Settlers in West Florida, lead to war with Great Britain, The US moved to defuse any Problems in the North.
The Border between Ontario/Huron and Quebec was set, and the US agree to turn the Quebec settled**** Newfoundland over to the Republic of Quebec. While PEI and St Johns were folded into Nova Scotia.



*Great White North

** OTL 10 States, but here whe have Ontario in the Ordinance.

***OTL only 39 of the 55 signed, ATL it is 41 out of the 60.

**** OTL in the early 1800's there were large [relatively] French [Quebec] settlements in Newfoundland
 
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archaeogeek

Banned
You don't need a pre-1770s POD; there were already comparable "intolerable acts" in the colony, what you need is for the leaders of the montreal provisional government not to be arrested at the worst moment, first, and second a more convincing showing at Trois Rivières: the reason Montreal quickly capitulated to Montgomery is because the upper class of the city was pro-congress. I'm not quite as sure about Nova Scotia at the time. One problem was that IOTL the british government pretty much forced the Bishop of Quebec to write a counter-address supporting the tory position, a strongly worded counter-address which meant there was little to no way to get more conservative non-politically involved catholic quebecois on their side; however, the test act did mean that the entire french canadian political class would be behind, including the huguenot minority (along with canadian jews). Waiting for France's entry in the war to launch a campaign of Quebec may well change things in terms of local opinion; after all, Le Roi Très Chrétien is on the side of the rebels ;) - and if anything, with a delayed entry into Canada, after the kings of France and Spain are in, convincing the people that somehow catholics siding with the rebellion will burn in hell is going to be pretty damn hard.

No French into the war also dooms the war, period, as they will not steal the seas from the British around the colonies, or keep them busy in India, but they also won't bring along the spanish force, which means no battle of Pensacola to relieve the continental army in the south; my problem with Arnold was not the attack, it was his failure; Montgomery commanding at Quebec would have better chances IMO, he was welcomed pretty much as a liberator in Montreal already, and worked well with the local provisional civilian authorities, while Arnold is an insufferable prima donna (treason for not being the center of attention? come again?).

(just noting, two french canadian regiments fought with the continental army IOTL, although they were only very shortly at full strength)

(Also I have the same nitpick as usual about demographics, there's more french in Ontario than there are in Acadia by that point: I did make a mistake, the number is about 20.000, not 80.000, vs 2.000 in Newfoundland where they're 10% of the population at this point in time. I doubt Newfoundland would become a part of Quebec; they would probably rather keep the small part that is actually settled on the south shore, centred on the barony of Longueil at the time; as for the rest, there are no french settlements left past lake Ontario at the time, and I somewhat doubt they would leave in a huff over that, especially the land that was only a hunting ground for a bunch of trappers and which nobody involved had ever seen :p - at that point in time even Sault-Sainte-Marie is pretty much abandoned, thanks in part to Hudson's Bay company monopolies)

(last note, besides the test act, the HBC and BEIC had pretty much consistently taken over a few of the major commercial activities, meaning the local upper class could neither depend on trade or political life, and a lot of craftsmen were basically jobless because they weren't allowed to effectively sell their stuff - for some reason I can't quite fathom (yes, I know, mercantilism, but I always find the very idea of mercantilism as an economic system absolutely ridiculous: if I could go back in time, my Good Action would be finding a way to get Colbert sacked :p ), there was a corporate monopoly granted for ceramics for example - so you have annoyed craftsmen, annoyed traders and annoyed ex-politicians; for the funny anecdote, the head of a statue of George III in Montreal was found at the bottom of a well in spring of 1775 ;) )
 
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Slavery was neither as secure nor as vital in the late 18th Century, prior to the development of the cotton gin whic made cotton a viable large-scale agricultural product.

Further, the United States is in no position nor will it be to attack the Spanish Empire for decades to come but the south is hardly in any position to deny equal rights and statehood to an enormous area whose inhabitants do not have to become part of the United States if they choose not to.

I'm sure that if the southerners somehow, and I don't see how, managed to deny statehood to several of the colonies now active participants in the ARW that the British would be willing to offer alternatives.


If Spain never enters the ARW then Florida remains Spanish.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Slavery was neither as secure nor as vital in the late 18th Century, prior to the development of the cotton gin whic made cotton a viable large-scale agricultural product.

Further, the United States is in no position nor will it be to attack the Spanish Empire for decades to come but the south is hardly in any position to deny equal rights and statehood to an enormous area whose inhabitants do not have to become part of the United States if they choose not to.

I'm sure that if the southerners somehow, and I don't see how, managed to deny statehood to several of the colonies now active participants in the ARW that the British would be willing to offer alternatives.


If Spain never enters the ARW then Florida remains Spanish.

Indeed, thinking of it: especially not the tory-friendly states to the south, their members in congress would be pretty hard-pressed to justify kicking out a large populous state that actually raised proper regiments and fought when two of their states barely cobbled one together. I suspect Franklin, who had commercial and political interests in Montreal, would be at least one figure not to see it this way, probably putting together an argument exactly why this is a horrible idea.

And in 1763, Florida and the Philippines are british, getting them back was France's bargaining chip, basically sacrificing the Orissa coast for it; this is not unlike the Austrian succession war where France did a lot of the heavy lifting outside of the Bohemian theatre and a lot of the french nobility were hoping to finally see the southern Netherlands be completely annexed, only for Louis XV to decide to use it as a bargaining chip to get Austria to give up Silesia.

[Edit: I put up a putative map in the map thread; of the lot I feel Megantic territory would end up its own state or divided between Quebec and Maine, while Gaspe territory I'm more iffy on but its population would be rather low; Stikine, Mackenzie and Yukon would have a combined population of less than half a million today and are unlikely to ever become states; probably getting annexed as: Stikine to Cariboo/New Caledonia, Mackenzie to Athabasca and Yukon to whomever (probably Alaska), I'm not sure about northeastern demographics but I suspect Keewatin and Timiskaming would just be brushing half a million people each today, of course there might be more settlement due to being part of the US but more than twice OTL, I'm not sure); I cheated with the Saint-Lawrence border for land that fell under Montreal's administration already - https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=3630915&postcount=9400 ]
 
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elder.wyrm

Banned
In 1784, Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill to the Continental Congress that would have banned slavery - it failed by one vote. If Quebec were to be in the U.S., and everything went nearly the same as in OTL, it's possible that the bill could pass, possibly resulting in a breakup of the Union.

The bill in question was the Territorial Governance Act of 1784. It wasn't itself meant to ban slavery, it was meant to organize the National Domain, the western territories various states had ceded to Congress prior to the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The anti-slavery aspect of the bill wasn't actually included in the bill itself, but rather defeated by a single vote in committee. If included in the bill, the entire Act would likely have had some difficulty passing Congress. Providing it did, however:

1. It did not 'ban slavery'. It made it so that, in the western territories of the National Domain in question, slavery would be prohibited amongst the generation born after the year 1800.

2. It's unlikely to have completely succeeded. The Ohio river valley area might have been able to avoid slavery, so free states in the area that would today be Kentucky and Tennessee is a possibility, but the Sun Belt region was just begging for some plantation agriculture, so the areas that would become Mississippi and Alabama are going to be slave in most ATLs.

3. The combination of these factors means there's going to be an interesting political crisis in the late 1790's and in 1800 as people realize that too many slave-owners live in the Gulf littoral to just abolish slavery come the time to do so. How it plays out has huge effects on the future of the Union and on America in general.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Except they're relatively small, not yet settled states; creative abolitionists could very well dig up colonial charters of Georgia and argue that slavery should never have been legal in the state in the first place, and that the territories having been split from Georgia, the same law should apply; they'll have to figure out something other than cotton or sugar; it's possible to grow tobacco and IIRC indigo without slave labour even in a 18th century economy, and Jefferson was proposing setting up vineyards. By the time cotton becomes important enough, it will either have mostly moved to Brazil, or they'll have adopted a different system anyway. It does, however, leave Virginia (another failed rendez-vous with history in the 1830s; again, one vote away from abolition) and the Carolinas, which are, unlike Georgia, relatively significant in size.
 
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As to the slavery discussion-when I visited Quebec City in 2007, I distinctly remember reading in a museum that slavery was practiced in Quebec up until the 1830's, and there may have been as many as a few thousand slaves. (I don't know of any online sources on this, just the placard in the museum)

While slavery would most likely have died out in Quebec like in the rest of the north (as the climate is not really suited to plantation agriculture), I don't think it can be taken for granted that 1790's Quebec would automatically be anti-slavery.
 

elder.wyrm

Banned
Except they're relatively small, not yet settled states; creative abolitionists could very well dig up colonial charters of Georgia and argue that slavery should never have been legal in the state in the first place, and that the territories having been split from Georgia, the same law should apply; they'll have to figure out something other than cotton or sugar; it's possible to grow tobacco and IIRC indigo without slave labour even in a 18th century economy, and Jefferson was proposing setting up vineyards. By the time cotton becomes important enough, it will either have mostly moved to Brazil, or they'll have adopted a different system anyway. It does, however, leave Virginia (another failed rendez-vous with history in the 1830s; again, one vote away from abolition) and the Carolinas, which are, unlike Georgia, relatively significant in size.

I'm more saying the facts on the ground might make abolition impossible. If there's already five thousand slave owners and fifty thousand slaves in your new state with a population of one hundred thousand, it's going to be hard to abolish. While the threat of seemingly inevitable on-coming abolition might be enough to keep slave-owners from going to the temperate, cereals producing climate of the Ohio River Basin, and as such make an 1800 abolition date possible, it's going to be exceptionally hard to keep plantation agriculture from taking over in sub-tropical, sunny-as-hell, cash-crop producing Alabama.

Good things could come from it, of course, like the process by which slavery is abolished in majority slave Alabama, if it can be done, might serve as a template for the old-slave states on the East coast to do the same thing someday, but that depends on actually getting it done. You'd need some extremely powerful personalities and just the right method of abolition (some kind of manumission, probably) to make it happen, so any TL that used this method to get rid of slavery in the Deep South would need to do some in-depth research on the politics and the personalities of the era and region.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
As to the slavery discussion-when I visited Quebec City in 2007, I distinctly remember reading in a museum that slavery was practiced in Quebec up until the 1830's, and there may have been as many as a few thousand slaves. (I don't know of any online sources on this, just the placard in the museum)

While slavery would most likely have died out in Quebec like in the rest of the north (as the climate is not really suited to plantation agriculture), I don't think it can be taken for granted that 1790's Quebec would automatically be anti-slavery.

Slavery in Quebec was mostly house slaves and the vast majority of it was introduced by the british loyalists. "Until the 1830s" is when the british themselves abolished slavery. Of the thousands involved, there were only 800 within the province of Canada itself (500 in Upper and 300 in Lower) and less than 100 slaves prior the arrival of the loyalists. Before that, most of the slaves had left when their masters packed up in 1763.

For comparison, northern emancipation ended in 1804 with, IIRC, Connecticut being the last northern state to abolish it; they would have no reason to retain slavery for the basic reason that until loyalists flocked in, the slave population of the colony was less than a thousandth of it.

Also, only about 6-10% of the white population owned slaves. Of course they also have significant power in their respective colonies which is another matter altogether.
 
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The ACW would likely occur somewhat earlier, say 5-10 years earlier, but not radically so. The economic and political weight of the free Canadian states would make the South feel cornered earlier. However, before resorting to secession, the South would push ever more forcefully than OTL for agrarian imperialism in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Canadian natural resources and population and the rest of the Union would humor them. This is another reason why presence of Canada would make America bigger southward. Canada would fill up more quickly ITTL, thanks to US immigration policies and more aggressive settlement and its extra resources and ppopulation would make America achieve superpower status somewhat more quickly, but not radically so.

So, Quebec joining the ARW means the US becomes the Draka? ;) :rolleyes: Surely some power is going to step in as they see this one nation creep across the entire continent.

Reading more on this subject raises a lot of possibilities, but also a lot of questions.

ITL in 1774 the British passed the Quebec Act, which among other things the Quebec people obtained their first civil liberties. This paved the way to later official recognition of the French language and French culture. The act also allowed Canadians to maintain French civil law and sanctioned freedom of religion, allowing the Roman Catholic Church to remain, one of the first cases in history of state-sanctioned freedom of practice. Further, it restored the Ohio Valley to Quebec, reserving the territory for the fur trade. So, here's a clear POD that would lead to Quebec and the maritime provinces to join in the AWR. However... The Quebec Act, while designed to placate one North American colony, had the opposite effect among the Americans to the south. The act was among the so called "Intolerable Acts" that infuriated the American colonists, leading them to the armed insurrection of the American Revolution. IIRC the Quebec Act was the last of the Intolerable Acts passed by the British Parliament, and was thus the final straw. So no Quebec Act, very possibility no ARW; or a lesser one than OTL.

A much later POD would be in 1837 during the Lower Canada Rebellion. An armed resistance group to seek an end to the unilateral control of the British governors in Canada. They made a Declaration of Rights with equality for all citizens without discrimination and a Declaration of Independence of Lower-Canada in 1838. Their actions resulted in rebellions in both Lower and Upper Canada. An unprepared British Army had to raise militia force, the rebel forces scored a victory in Saint-Denis but were soon defeated. The British army burned the Church of St-Eustache, killing the rebels who were hiding within it. The bullet and cannonball marks on the walls of the church are still visible to this day. The after-affects of this rebellion is what lead to the British policy of trying to make the French Canadians more British. So a POD could be having the Yanks getting involved somehow, or the LCR being much more successful, either creating an independent Canadian state outside of both American or British influence; or aforementioned 'Yanks getting involved' scenario leads to the area becoming a US state (or two or three..)
 
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The bill in question was the Territorial Governance Act of 1784. It wasn't itself meant to ban slavery, it was meant to organize the National Domain, the western territories various states had ceded to Congress prior to the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The anti-slavery aspect of the bill wasn't actually included in the bill itself, but rather defeated by a single vote in committee. If included in the bill, the entire Act would likely have had some difficulty passing Congress. Providing it did, however:

1. It did not 'ban slavery'. It made it so that, in the western territories of the National Domain in question, slavery would be prohibited amongst the generation born after the year 1800.

2. It's unlikely to have completely succeeded. The Ohio river valley area might have been able to avoid slavery, so free states in the area that would today be Kentucky and Tennessee is a possibility, but the Sun Belt region was just begging for some plantation agriculture, so the areas that would become Mississippi and Alabama are going to be slave in most ATLs.

3. The combination of these factors means there's going to be an interesting political crisis in the late 1790's and in 1800 as people realize that too many slave-owners live in the Gulf littoral to just abolish slavery come the time to do so. How it plays out has huge effects on the future of the Union and on America in general.

I should really not trust things on Wikipedia that use a book as a source. It makes it harder to check and see if the information in the article is accurate.
 
ITL in 1774 the British passed the Quebec Act, which among other things the Quebec people obtained their first civil liberties. This paved the way to later official recognition of the French language and French culture. The act also allowed Canadians to maintain French civil law and sanctioned freedom of religion, allowing the Roman Catholic Church to remain, one of the first cases in history of state-sanctioned freedom of practice. Further, it restored the Ohio Valley to Quebec, reserving the territory for the fur trade. So, here's a clear POD that would lead to Quebec and the maritime provinces to join in the AWR. However... The Quebec Act, while designed to placate one North American colony, had the opposite effect among the Americans to the south. The act was among the so called "Intolerable Acts" that infuriated the American colonists, leading them to the armed insurrection of the American Revolution. IIRC the Quebec Act was the last of the Intolerable Acts passed by the British Parliament, and was thus the final straw. So no Quebec Act, very possibility no ARW; or a lesser one than OTL.

The Quebec Act was intolerable because it gave Ohio to Canada. Not because it let papists openly worship like in Maryland.

I just remembered that royal charters were weird. Massachusetts claimed part of the Northwest Territory that was within it's parallels, as well as claiming part of New York. It's possible that they could make the same claims on Quebec.

Possible? They definitely would. The immediately post-ARW US had border issues that are comparable to the Balkans in complexity if not in bloodshed.
 
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