English Canada/French Carolina: A Timeline

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JonasResende

JonasResende

Gabingston said:
I mean the Cape Flats (where all the apartheid-era Black and Coloured suburbs are), which I read is basically sand. The areas further east are more fertile and perfect for vineyards and other Mediterranean crops. In fact, I could very easily have seen the French colonizing South Africa, and it'd fit as the coast around Cape Town looks like the French Riviera (and I have a bit of a soft spot for a French Cape). I think that the French would have done quite well in The Cape, and hopefully whoever runs the French colony wouldn't be as strict as the VOC (who actively discouraged white settlement and wanted to keep the Afrikaners dependent on them if I'm right).
BTW, have you checked out this timeline? https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/lantarctique-a-french-protestant-south-africa.438212/
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The VOC weren't interested in expanding the colony beyond a certain point (although there was a point in the 18th century when they asked the Governor (van Plettenberg?) if he wanted retired soldiers from Europe or slaves from the Indies (guess which one he chose). The VOC was big on wanting to make money but bad at being willing to spend it to maintain/secure their investment. Which is why it took more than a decade to get them interested enough to build more than a stockade fort, two-three before they actually started allowing "settlers" (and even then, they were almost as strict about who as the Castilians were about the New World). To their mind, more settlers were bad, since that would mean the Cape settlement would expand. If it expanded, it would need protection from natives. Protection meant soldiers that the Compagnie would have to pay...etc etc ad nauseam.

And I also have an interest in a French South Africa (Lord knows, we got enough of their Huguenots OTL. Hence place names like "Franschoek" and surnames like "Du Plessis" and "Fouche" etc. Hell, when I had to get my passport to go abroad, what do you know, it was issued in French) , though while it may have expanded sooner than the OTL version, I suspect it would be regarded similarly to Quebec or Louisiane (look at their settlement of such a large area over 200 years, and I have my doubts that an Afrique de Sud would fare somehow better. Cape Town would probably wind up as New Orléans/Montreal-type - major port but a relatively unsettled hinterland).
 
Gabingston

Gabingston

JonasResende said:
The VOC weren't interested in expanding the colony beyond a certain point (although there was a point in the 18th century when they asked the Governor (van Plettenberg?) if he wanted retired soldiers from Europe or slaves from the Indies (guess which one he chose). The VOC was big on wanting to make money but bad at being willing to spend it to maintain/secure their investment. Which is why it took more than a decade to get them interested enough to build more than a stockade fort, two-three before they actually started allowing "settlers" (and even then, they were almost as strict about who as the Castilians were about the New World). To their mind, more settlers were bad, since that would mean the Cape settlement would expand. If it expanded, it would need protection from natives. Protection meant soldiers that the Compagnie would have to pay...etc etc ad nauseam.

And I also have an interest in a French South Africa (Lord knows, we got enough of their Huguenots OTL. Hence place names like "Franschoek" and surnames like "Du Plessis" and "Fouche" etc. Hell, when I had to get my passport to go abroad, what do you know, it was issued in French) , though while it may have expanded sooner than the OTL version, I suspect it would be regarded similarly to Quebec or Louisiane (look at their settlement of such a large area over 200 years, and I have my doubts that an Afrique de Sud would fare somehow better. Cape Town would probably wind up as New Orléans/Montreal-type - major port but a relatively unsettled hinterland).
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Lemme guess, he chose slaves from the indies.
 
Gabingston

Gabingston

Also, update from 2018 Floride.
Some Floridien newspaper, 12 Septembre 2018
Walking through the streets of Rochelle today, it almost seems like a ghost town. Windows are boarded up, the streets are near empty and while the weather is nice today, come friday it will be the strongest hurricane to hit this region in decades...
 
Part 4: Colony of Canada
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    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Part 4: Colony of Canada​

    The English and Scottish colonies of Canada and Nova Scotia were thriving by the 1650’s, with thousands of settlers living there and due to unrest back home (cough cough Cromwell) thousands more were arriving. The shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence was rapidly being settled with new settlements like Brellington, Wolf River, Mactan and Gaspay, settled by everyone from Anglicans to Puritans to Scotsmen to Germans. Canada’s population by 1675 had grown to 25,000, while Nova Scotia had grown to 11,500. Meanwhile, the British went out building forts around the Great Lakes region, including Fort Catarockway, Fort Odawa, Fort Toronto, Fort Niagara and Fort Stuart in order to solidify British control and make bases for the thriving fur trade. Speaking of the fur trade, most fur traders were of Scottish or Irish origin and would take canoe trips up into the Great Lakes, going as far as Lake’s End (which would evolve to Lakesend over time) to trade furs, before returning to one of the forts or the burgeoning settlement of Mount Royal. They would often marry or otherwise… umm… engage in relations with native women, forming a new racial group of mixed white-native people known as the Measca (coming from the Gaelic word for Mixed, as previously mentioned most fur traders were Irish or Scottish). Back in the settled region, the climate of Canada and Nova Scotia was ideal for growing wheat and barley, and the St. Lawrence valley quickly became one of the breadbaskets of the English Colonies (along with the Middle Colonies). On the Middle Colonies, the English still took New Amsterdam from the Dutch and still named it New York, so not much changes there. By 1675, Kirkeston had grown to 2,500 residents, being the largest city in the former French territories.
     
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    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    I'm thinking of restarting and repurposing this thread. It'd be on OTL's New France if it had a large amount of settlement.
     

    telynk

    Gabingston said:
    I'm thinking of restarting and repurposing this thread. It'd be on OTL's New France if it had a large amount of settlement.
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    If you're going to restart, I should suggest creating a new thread, but posting a link to it here. Otherwise it will be very confusing to new readers.

    However, I like this idea enough that I would encourage you not to restart....
     

    Torbald

    Well, just looking at OTL South Carolina, the white settler population grew from 1,000 in 1680 to 196,000 in 1800, so at a growth rate of 4.4% a year. Since the Carolinas are the center of French colonization (as opposed to being more on the periphery in the case of England), there will probably be more interest in populating them than IOTL, although France often struggled with convincing its citizens to migrate to its American colonies (though this might also be mitigated by the fact that New France ITTL isn't bitterly cold like its OTL counterpart). The French ITTL also colonized the region much earlier than the English colonized it IOTL.

    Since the OTL Carolinas were plantation colonies, the number of blacks - both enslaved and free - was always comparable to the number of whites, from a 55%-60% majority until the early 1800s, to a 40%-45% minority until the mid 1800s when they became the majority again. I doubt the French will pursue a radically different path, so the black population of French Carolina will probably be at least 35%-45% until the mid 19th century.

    For more perspective, the OTL populations in 1790 were as follows:

    South Carolina - 249,000
    North Carolina - 478,000
    Georgia - 82,000
    Total Population - 809,000

    So with these factors in mind I can see the population of a French Southeastern North America being probably anywhere from 1,600,000 to 2,500,000 by 1800.
     
    Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Torbald said:
    Well, just looking at OTL South Carolina, the white settler population grew from 1,000 in 1680 to 196,000 in 1800, so at a growth rate of 4.4% a year. Since the Carolinas are the center of French colonization (as opposed to being more on the periphery in the case of England), there will probably be more interest in populating them than IOTL, although France often struggled with convincing its citizens to migrate to its American colonies (though this might also be mitigated by the fact that New France ITTL isn't bitterly cold like its OTL counterpart). The French ITTL also colonized the region much earlier than the English colonized it IOTL.

    Since the OTL Carolinas were plantation colonies, the number of blacks - both enslaved and free - was always comparable to the number of whites, from a 55%-60% majority until the early 1800s, to a 40%-45% minority until the mid 1800s when they became the majority again. I doubt the French will pursue a radically different path, so the black population of French Carolina will probably be at least 35%-45% until the mid 19th century.

    For more perspective, the OTL populations in 1790 were as follows:

    South Carolina - 249,000
    North Carolina - 478,000
    Georgia - 82,000
    Total Population - 809,000

    So with these factors in mind I can see the population of a French Southeastern North America being probably anywhere from 1,600,000 to 2,500,000 by 1800.
    Click to expand...
    What was the growth rate based on natural growth alone? BTW the 35-45% Black number until 1850 seems right, since after 1850 is when the great wave of European immigration would begin (if butterflies remove it, which is unlikely). BTW, New France in this timeline would be swelteringly hot instead of bitterly cold, they're still missing out on the goldilocks zone of North America (the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern U.S.).
     
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    Torbald

    Gabingston said:
    What was the growth rate based on natural growth alone?
    Click to expand...

    That's a good question lol, although I do know that white populations living in the coastal plain (specifically Charleston, South Carolina) developed resistance to mosquito-borne diseases such as yellow fever over a few generations, developing a general immunity by 1750. In fact, yellow fever eventually became known as the "stranger's fever" in Charleston, due to the fact that it only killed people who hadn't been born in the city or hadn't lived there long enough.
     
    Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Torbald said:
    That's a good question lol, although I do know that white populations living in the coastal plain (specifically Charleston, South Carolina) developed resistance to mosquito-borne diseases such as yellow fever over a few generations, developing a general immunity by 1750. In fact, yellow fever eventually became known as the "stranger's fever" in Charleston, due to the fact that it only killed people who hadn't been born in the city or hadn't lived there long enough.
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    I'm sure it was better in the Piedmont or Appalachians, but the question is how much better was it?
     

    Torbald

    Gabingston said:
    I'm sure it was better in the Piedmont or Appalachians, but the question is how much better was it?
    Click to expand...

    I imagine perfectly healthy. I've never been to the Carolinas, but given that the Piedmont and Appalachians were outside the malarial zone before any substantial kind of antimalarial medicine was discovered, there's no reason to think there would be any biological or climatological hiccups preventing them from being colonized by Europeans.

    Additionally, just because the coastal plane is generally regarded as a malarial/"unhealthy" zone doesn't mean it isn't dotted with drier/windier areas and high ground where mosquito populations aren't as much of a problem. That's how the Portuguese were able to build up a settler population in Luanda, for example - by settling the higher ground and letting the poorer residents live down by the lower, malarial docks.
     
    Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Torbald said:
    I imagine perfectly healthy. I've never been to the Carolinas, but given that the Piedmont and Appalachians were outside the malarial zone before any substantial kind of antimalarial medicine was discovered, there's no reason to think there would be any biological or climatological hiccups preventing them from being colonized by Europeans.

    Additionally, just because the coastal plane is generally regarded as a malarial/"unhealthy" zone doesn't mean it isn't dotted with drier/windier areas and high ground where mosquito populations aren't as much of a problem. That's how the Portuguese were able to build up a settler population in Luanda, for example - by settling the higher ground and letting the poorer residents live down by the lower, malarial docks.
    Click to expand...
    BTW, weren't the French going to colonize the Southeastern U.S. in your Una differente 'Plus Ultra' TL?
     
    Part 5: Emerging Classes
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    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Part 5: Emerging Classes​

    Despite being a young and lightly settled colony, French Floride was already showing divisions within its society developing, namely between the rich landlords and the yeoman farmers.

    The rich landowners were often of noble or aristocratic background and had lots of money upon arrival. Purchasing land along rivers on the coastal plain, they build lavish plantation houses, usually inspired by Roman Villas and various Châteaux across France, fueled by massive amounts of money from growing ca$h crops like Tobacco, Cotton, Indigo, Rice and Sugarcane. Of course with ca$h crops come slavery, and boy were the rich plantation owners into that. Early on it was figured that Africans were immune to tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever, while Europeans and Amerindians would die (the cause was unknown at the time, but the result was clear, as 1/4th of the colony died of yellow fever in 1638). We all know how awful the conditions and treatment of slaves were, so let’s skip that and get to the yeoman farmers.

    Most of the (white) settlers in La Floride weren’t aristocrats or nobles, but normal farmers, craftsmen, artisans and the like. In the 1660's, hundreds of unmarried women were sent over to be wives to the male settlers, who were overrepresented in the Floridien population up to that point. French farmers often preferred to settle further inland in the Piedmont where diseases weren’t as much of a problem. With the Indigenous populations being decimated by diseases, much open and fertile land was available, and with less disease in the interior and an extremely high birth rate (7-9 children per woman), the white population of La Floride began to soar, growing from 3,629 in 1650 to 11,159 in 1670. These class divides, as well as the slavery issue would become very important in the future, but I am tired and not in a mood to talk about it now.
     
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