The New France Question
Many artists would flouish from the City and Port of New Orleans, many of them would travel north to draw and paint the natural world, including those settlers along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
Although France had won the Five Years War with the Invasion of England, British military policy during the conflict had strangled New France, France's main colony in North America, of key supplies and reinforcements. This had allowed the British, who could easily reinforce their own colonies, to completely dominate New France - starting with Acadia in 1755, the contested Ohio Valley in 1756, the Fortress of Louisbourg in 1758 and Montreal and Quebec in 1759. However, complication would arise during the Peace of Paris, that threaten to turn the entire region back into a war zone. In the Treaty of Paris of 1760, France demanded the return of New France, as well as the entire of Acadia (including the Nova Scotian peninsular), the Ohio Valley and territory around the Great Lakes. It also requested that the British limit their colonies growth so that the numerically inferior New France could try to catch up the North American Provinces' population of almost 1.5 million persons.
While the Treaty had been signed by the British King William IV, George III the grandson of the late King of the same name, believed that since he was the true successor to George II, the Treaty and any agreements made by his uncle were null and void in law. However, George III and his Kingdom still had almost 75,000
habitants still living on their conquered territory. Both the public and government had mixed views on what to do with the French Canadiens. Some wanted revenge for the invasion of the mother country and seeing how close these
Frenchmen were compared to the idea of attack France herself, it was a perfect opportunity. Others wanted to kick the Canadiens off their land, take it for themselves and sell it for a profit. Few wanted to allow the French to remain there but many knew that under British law, the French will stifle and eventually revolt, something not need or wanted by Parliament-in-America. However, for the North American Provinces the situation would sort itself out.
Throughout the War in North America, the most numerous group that had participated on the French side was the colonial militia. The Canadien militia was considered a major asset to Montcalm and the other French officers and provided a flexible backbone for defence of the colony during peacetime. The war however caused a bigger problem that just conflict. During peacetime, the level of cultivation was satisfactory, however due to the small portion that had been cultivated properly, during wartime, the demand increased. The crop yield, which had been sufficient for the habitants, Troupes de la Marines and allied Indians, could not stretch to also cover the 6,000 regular soldier brought across at the beginning of the conflict. Although the plan was that the soldiers would be shipped over with their own provision and subsequently receive annual supply convoy to support the war effort, the British blockade had been so effective that the number of ships that would arrive dwindled each year. Despite the welcome presence of the resupply ships, the amount of grain and other foodstuff's was typically inadequate to help feed the colonists and the soldiers.
The situation had reached a crisis point in 1757, when all grain was centrally stored and made into bread by the colonial government of New France, the Sovereign Council. Daily allowances were allocated to all the people within the colony. It wasn't just war that forced the hand of the French Canadiens, nature also played a role in the colony's plight. The harvests for 1756 and 1757 were poor, followed by a unusually severe winter of 1757-58. The population was forced to consume the seed crop of the wheat the following year. France had not abandoned its colony and responded with three ships filled with seed.
The result of the harvest had an additional effect on the effect on the army: the composition of the colonial militia. The militia was drawn from all sectors of the French Canadien community, especially the farming class. If the threat to New France (the British) did not subside for a significant period of time and the men could not be released, the yield of the harvest might be adversely affected. Commonly, militiamen took matters into their own hands and returned to their farms without having been discharged by their commanders. With widespread desertion from their militia, the French leadership was put into a precarious position, however, the War in North America would strike at the heartlands of New France.
In the final year of New France, the French Canadiens made on final effort to defend their settled lands from the British. However, their effort was in vain as the British took both Quebec and Montreal within the year. Now the French Canadiens were not only feeding themselves and the surviving regular soldiers (who were soon deported back to France) but also the British soldiers now guarding the captured French towns and cities. This crippled the farmlands of New France as they were unable to provide grain, as demanded, for all in the province. Although Parliament-in-America would rectify the situation will foodstuff's from the southern Provinces (they had been barely touched by the War in North America), the majority of this would been received by the British soldiers not the starving French Canadiens.
However, it was not the extreme food shortage that would cause the Great French Migration. The simple fact of living under British rule frightened many of the French Canadiens, many of which had been under the influence of the Catholic priests who at first called them to defend their land but now spread lies and rumours that the North American Provinces was marshalling a force of over 100,000 men to march upon Canada and slaughter the righteous Catholics living there in revenge of the mother country invade England. Those British troops, who had been sent to safeguard the conquered French settlements, were labelled as an scouting force to advise the main force on the dangers and hazards ahead.
In the first of the spring of 1760, the French Canadiens rose up against the British garrisons. Known as the Canadien Uprising, the failed rebellion caused the death of over 500 habitants while the British suffered little more than 50 deaths. This caused even more tension and anxiety with the French Canadiens, who heard of the additional reinforcements heading to support the beleaguered garrison and believed they were the main force coming to slaughter them. The tension grew when British forces began raiding settlements and homes looking for firearms and some of the most incendiary of the Catholic priests, hoping to nip the bud of another rebellion. However, the crisis point was reached when a small group of Acadians arrived in Quebec, detailing how their village and farms had been burnt to the ground by the British. While the fact remains that under British occupation, Acadia was subject to deportation and a scorch-earth plan to prevent the Acadians from returning to their homes, the rumours and lies created by the remaining Catholic priests broke the French Canadien resolve and they fled.
It was commonly believed that French ships would arrive at the ports of what was New France, now the Province of Canada and transport the French Canadiens home or to another colony to start again, however, France believed by doing so it, acknowledged that their demands in the Treaty of Paris were worthless. Thus without support from the mother country, the citizens of New France looked inwards and to the south: Louisiana.
The entire population did not flee at once as believed by many of the British Americans but in large groups, fleeing French Canadiens moved south along the bank of the St Lawrence River gathering in numbers as they did until they reached the Great Lakes. They sailed along the shores of the Great Lakes on bateaux, many of them often stolen from abandoned French forts until they reached Lake Huron. The French Canadiens often crossed at Sault Sainte Marie, the crossroads of a 3,000-mile fur trade. Many Troupes de la Marines, often with but unreportedly coureur des bois, still served their country with pride and acted as guides for many of the fleeing French Canadiens, leading them to French outposts, especially in the Illinois Country. With the help of Marines, the French Canadiens would be led to the Mississippi River, an great river than carved its way down the centre of North America.
The French Canadiens would sail down the Mississippi River. Many would stop upon the route and settle along the Mississippi, forming a similar seigneural system like they had along the St Lawrence. The most famous settlement would become Sainte Louisiana (OTL our St Louis), after the land that had given them a new start, as Sainte Louisiana was situated where the Missouri River fed into the Mississippi. There with Sainte Louisiana as the epicentre, the French Canadien settled along the western side of the Mississippi, ever fearful of a British raid if they strayed onto the eastern bank. The fact a small tribe had attacked the refugees with a Brown Bess, the standard British musket at the time, did not help matters.
However, the French Canadiens did not move en masse or within a single year. The process of the migration of the French-speaking population from the British Province of Canada to the French Province of Louisiana took almost twenty years and almost a third of the French Canadiens died along the route either by disease, attack, accident or starvation. Food along the journey was apparently in abundance going by the reports of some of the refugees, however, it is noted their were cases of cannibalism among some of the travellers who ran out of food, got lost in the wilderness or didn't prepare for the journey properly. Many of the Indian tribes along the upper east bank of the Mississippi tell tales of the French Canadiens coming to their land and trading goods for some of their food. A great source of food often came from the herds of bison that roamed the interior. Coureur des bois and Marines often greeted later travellers with cooked bison meat, which soon became a delicacy amongst the French Canadiens.
The migration also affected the local tribes, many of them had previous contact with Europeans but only in small numbers and only those looking for news areas for the ever growing fur trade. The French Canadiens moved in such numbers that many of the local tribes contracted European diseases, which their bodies had no immunity against, even with limited contact. Diseases such as small pox killed entire villages and the population of the local tribes nosedived. Survivors of the diseases would often form small communities with the French Canadiens and their numbers would slowly grow, though many would intermarry with the sons and daughters of the Europeans creating a new class amongst Louisiana's hierarchy. Others, mainly angry males, would form war bands and raid the generally isolated villages and towns, killing, looting and raping the habitants there. However, the French Canadiens who settled along the Mississippi were a independent people, many of which had grew up in the forests of Canada and many knew how to hunt with locally-made muskets. Such muskets would be turned against the war bands and eventually the raids stop or became so few and far inbetween that they were considered more of a nuisance that a threat.
This migration was welcomed by both France and the North American Provinces. While France still demanded that the Canada be returned to its rightful owners, they quickly took advantage of the French Canadiens migration to help develop their Louisiana colony. The experienced farmers of New France plied their trade to the fertile land of the Mississippi and quickly turned the area from wilderness to wealth as food surplus fueled a massively expanding New Orleans, the hub and biggest port for the Louisiana territory. For the British Americans, every single Frenchman that left meant one less to guard and watch over and also one more space for a loyal, protestant British American. As the number of French Canadiens dropped, the number of British Americans increased, especially from New England. However, the greatest addition to the colony was the sudden influx of Scottish, Irish, English and German settlers from Europe to the region. The Scottish population was the most prevalent, who came from poor soil and wretched hovels back in Scotland to open land and large home in Canada.
The French Canadiens weren't the only to migrate. In a truce to end the conflict which continued in Acadia/Nova Scotia, George III and Parliament-in-America offered the Acadians a choice; swear an oath to the British Crown and become good citizens of the North American Provinces or leave Acadia entirely in peace to lands of their choosing. Only a fifth of the Acadians took the British offer and swore their allegiance to George III, the rest however, took the other option and left Acadia aboard British vessels and sailed to New Orleans. Under a flag of truce, the British docked and allowed the Acadians to depart before returning back to British ports. These Acadians would settle along similar lines to their French Canadien cousins along the Mississippi, however many settled in a region now called Acadiana, named after their original land.
Lower Louisiana became the most populated region of the province, with many of the French Canadians settling around and south of Sainte Louisiana as well as the settlements formed by the Acadians stretching from the south northwards along the Mississippi. The other two regions to appear were Upper Louisiana and the Missouri regions, the borders of which were founded in Sainte Louisiana (in Sainte Louisiana's city centre is a monument that shows the borders, as well as the city's Upper, Lower and Missouri districts). Both the Upper Louisiana and Missouri regions saw light settlement as Lower Louisiana took the spotlight for almost half a century, many of these settlements were founded by metis or half-European half-Native Indian persons. New Orleans obviously became the capital of New France and Louisiana and saw heavy European influence as Louis XV and his successor favoured the city while Sainte Louisiana and the fort nearby of the same name, took on its own local flavour.
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AN: Ah, I didn't think you guys would expect this (If you're still reading this still with all my friggin' changing of the script) and to be honest, I didn't expect myself to churn out such words. This is the survival of New France (for the time being). There is generally no timeline here e.g. specific date unless I describe so and this update occurs over a significant period of time.
Comments and scepticism are always welcome. Ta.