Mexican Cession as an American Quebec?

What if the Californios and other Hispanic landowner class in the territories the U.S. won in the Mexican-American War were not expelled or otherwise disenfranchised, but continued to live in those lands and maintain influence there, if less power? Would those states have become like Quebec, dual-identity lands with a bilingual nature?
 
They'd probably need to have had a higher immigration of Spanish speakers ,so they could become an American Quebec.
 
New Mexico is the only state that could've happened. California was already too multiethnic with an Anglo class (about half the non-Indian population IIRC) already well embedded there. The rest of the future states there might as well have been empty.
 
New Mexico is the only state that could've happened. California was already too multiethnic with an Anglo class (about half the non-Indian population IIRC) already well embedded there. The rest of the future states there might as well have been empty.

Quebec contains a healthy dose of Anglos, too.
 
What if the Californios and other Hispanic landowner class in the territories the U.S. won in the Mexican-American War were not expelled or otherwise disenfranchised, but continued to live in those lands and maintain influence there, if less power?

Is this a DBWI? The Californios and Tejanos were not expelled nor even disfranchised - they were swamped, politically, by the sheer number of Anglo immigrants.

They retained some influence, even with small numbers. E.g. Romualdo Pacheco (1831-1899), who was State Treasurer of California (1863-1866), Lieutenant Governor (1871-1875), Governor by succession (1875-1877), and U.S. Representative (1877-1883). Or José Francisco Chaves, José Manuel Gallegos, Antonio Joseph, Tranquilino Luna, Francisco Antonio Manzanares, Mariano Sabino Otero, Miguel Antonio Otero, Francisco Perea, Pedro Perea, and Trinidad Romero, who were Territorial Delegates from New Mexico.
 
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My best guess is that it might be easier to do without the Napoleonic wars. A more powerful Spain that has increased immigration to Texas Texas California seems more likely than a stronger Mexico populating the region.
 
Keep in mind that most of the land that was "annexed" was essentially uninhabited by Mexicans or Anglos; large chunks of it would remain under de facto Native American control until after the Civil War. For the rest, outside of some spots on the coast and places like Santa Fe, it was only very lightly inhabited (and still vulnerable to attacks from Comanche and others).

Which made it very easy to swamp with Anglo settlers.
 
What if the Californios and other Hispanic landowner class in the territories the U.S. won in the Mexican-American War were not expelled or otherwise disenfranchised, but continued to live in those lands and maintain influence there, if less power? Would those states have become like Quebec, dual-identity lands with a bilingual nature?

In California, at any rate, any situation remotely resembling Quebec was out of the question for demographic reasons: "When the United States and Mexico went to war in 1846, California was under the loose control of the Mexican government. California's population consisted of about 6,500 Californios (people of Spanish or Mexican decent), 700 foreigners (primarily Americans), and 150,000 Native Americans, whose numbers had been cut in half since the arrival of the Spanish in 1769" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldrush/peopleevents/e_goldrush.html Just by 1854, over 300,000 settlers had arrived. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California The Californios were bound to lose their influence--they were simply swamped (and discriminated against but *not* expelled, not even totally disenfranchised: the California constitution of 1849 provided that "Every white male citizen of the United States, and every white male citizen of Mexico, who shall have elected to become a citizen of the United States, under the treaty of peace exchanged and ratified at Queretaro, on the 30th day of May, 1848 of the age of twenty–one years, who shall have been a resident of the State six months next preceding the election, and the county or district in which he claims his vote thirty days, shall be entitled to vote at all elections which are now or hereafter may authorized by law: Provided, nothing herein contained, shall be construed to prevent the Legislature, by a two–thirds concurrent vote, from admitting to the right of suffrage, Indians or the descendants of Indians, in such special cases as such proportion of the legislative body may deem just and proper." http://www.sos.ca.gov/archives/collections/constitutions/1849/full-text/ That last clause was inserted at the insistence of Californio delegates worried that the "white" requirement would be used to disenfranchise mestizos. https://books.google.com/books?id=Cip2kdlUdFoC&pg=PA45)

And they didn't even lose *all* their influence--at least not at once. "Many ranch owners with their thousands of acres and large herds of cattle, sheep and horses went on to live prosperous lives under U.S. rule. Former commander of the California Lancers Andrés Pico became a U.S. citizen after his return to California and acquired the Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando ranch which makes up large part of what is present day Los Angeles. He went on to become a California State Assemblyman and later a California State Senator. His brother former governor of Alta California (under Mexican rule) Pío Pico also became a U.S. citizen and a prominent ranch owner/businessman in California after the war. Many others were not so fortunate as droughts decimated their herds in the early 1860s and they could not pay back the high cost mortgages (poorly understood by the mostly illiterate ranchers) they had taken out to improve their lifestyle and subsequently lost much or all of their property when they could not be repaid." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californio#Californios_after_U.S._annexation OTOH, by 1857 even a well-to-do landowner (and signer of the 1849 California Constitution and Los Angeles County Supervisor) was barred from testifying in a San Francisco court because of his "Indian blood"! https://books.google.com/books?id=ZRnjfZeIt7UC&pg=PA202

In New Mexico Territory, OTOH, Hispanos remained influential:

"The Civil War created new opportunities for Anglo lawyers and businessmen who had moved into the territory to seek their fortunes. A political scene with so much active ferment provided tantalizing opportunities for enterprising Hispanos who were willing to work with U.S. officials and Anglo outsiders to acquire greater political and economic dominance in the territory.

"Built on a partnership between these two groups, the Santa Fe Ring was the first and perhaps the most notable political machine in New Mexico’s history.71 This Republican-oriented group dominated territorial politics in the latter 19th century, counting among its ranks nearly every governor of the territory and most federal officials from 1865 through the late 1880s. From the mid-1860s to the early 1880s, a string of Hispanos were elected Delegate on the Republican ticket..." http://history.house.gov/Exhibition...s/Continental-Expansion/New-Mexican-Politics/
 
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The only place this could be true for is the current state of New Mexico, where there is a significant contingent pure or near-pure Spanish people in some areas. But there again, the population is too small and too concentrated for even this to represent a Quebec analogue because the dynamics are entirely different.
 
This has been a very educational thread because I had assumed that the Californios had lost their power because of white settlers discriminating them. Sounds like it was merely demographics taking over.
 
This has been a very educational thread because I had assumed that the Californios had lost their power because of white settlers discriminating them. Sounds like it was merely demographics taking over.

But some did, IIRC. In Texas and New Mexico, at least, the white settlers were masters at playing the legal system to their advantage in disputes over land and being able to con the locals into selling. Since the judicial system was in English, and hiring translators costed money, the white settlers were easily able to gain lands they normally wouldn't have been able to acquire either by rather unfair land disputes or bankrupt locals (often because of those court cases) selling lands to them.

Granted, in California the Californios are still going to have to deal with demographic pressure far more than Nuevomexicanos ever did.
 
Okay well it'd be interesting if the Nuevomexicanos and Tejanos were able to hold on to their power and presence.

There were too few Tejanos--they existed of course, but Mexico never invested much effort in the place thanks to Indian raids that utterly decimated the population throughout the 18th century and were demographically far outnumbered by Anglos during the time of the Texas Revolution. New Mexico is the best chance, but even there, Anglos did have some influence. Frontiersman Kit Carson, for instance, was a notable citizen of Taos Pueblo thanks to marriage. I believe a prominent theory is that the Mexican Cession lands fell so easily thanks to the fact the lands were already well connected to the US and far less connected to Mexico due to trade links and economic factors. If much more people lived there, they might've gotten independence thanks to their strong dislike of Mexico City (many Tejanos fought for Texas and not Mexico, after all), but they were too empty to be independent on their own and thus they'd be dependent on the US and thus, why not make things easy and just join the US?

Taking the lands of the locals through unfair applications of the legal system was only a bonus. The Nuevomexicanos are really the only chance to make an American Quebec, unless you get the worst nightmare of the anti-immigration lobby in the US and enough Hispanics arrive in the Southwest and in one state, probably New Mexico if I take this obviously stupid scenario seriously, the Hispanics are able to pass anti-English and pro-Spanish laws in the same way Quebec has done.
 
Encourage free blacks and of color people to settle. Pio Pico was part black himself, L.A. was founded by predominately black and partially black people, In November 1813 Savary offered to send five hundred Haitian soldiers to fight with Mexican revolutionaries, Black Seminole leader John Horse and about 180 Black Seminoles staged a mass escape in 1849 to northern Mexico, Texas refused the legal recognition/citizenship of black freed people after independence, etc... After the Haitian Revolution/Louisiana Purchase a mass shift to Mexico could occur and prominent people could push for a shift to Alta California. Encouragement of other semi-disenfranchised yet skilled blacks and coloreds to California could also be encouraged to increase the Californio population.
 
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Encourage free blacks and of color people to settle. Pio Pico was part black himself, L.A. was founded by predominately black and partially black people, In November 1813 Savary offered to send five hundred Haitian soldiers to fight with Mexican revolutionaries, Black Seminole leader John Horse and about 180 Black Seminoles staged a mass escape in 1849 to northern Mexico, Texas refused the legal recognition/citizenship of black freed people after independence, etc... After the Haitian Revolution/Louisiana Purchase a mass shift to Mexico could occur and prominent people could push for a shift to Alta California. Encouragement of other semi-disenfranchised yet skilled blacks and coloreds to California could also be encouraged to increase the Californio population.

Sadly, still wouldn't be enough. IIRC, Pio Pico succeeded, based on like so many others in the Mexican Far North, forging claims to whiteness. After all, many other important figures would not count as criollo/white, but New Mexico and the far north in general was an area where it seems to have been relatively easy to forge claims to being criollo and thus gain easy access to power.

And if African Americans are encouraged to settle, that's just making conflict between the US and Mexico. Many slaves actually did settle in Mexico, which was a secondary destination of the Underground Railroad. Encouraging even more to go to Mexico definitely isn't gonna go over well. However, I'm not sure to what degree the Underground Railroad was active pre-Mexican American War in regards to bringing slaves to Mexican-ruled territories.
 
Sadly, still wouldn't be enough. IIRC, Pio Pico succeeded, based on like so many others in the Mexican Far North, forging claims to whiteness. After all, many other important figures would not count as criollo/white, but New Mexico and the far north in general was an area where it seems to have been relatively easy to forge claims to being criollo and thus gain easy access to power.

And if African Americans are encouraged to settle, that's just making conflict between the US and Mexico. Many slaves actually did settle in Mexico, which was a secondary destination of the Underground Railroad. Encouraging even more to go to Mexico definitely isn't gonna go over well. However, I'm not sure to what degree the Underground Railroad was active pre-Mexican American War in regards to bringing slaves to Mexican-ruled territories.
It doesn't have to be black americans. Populations were all around the Americas and could have assimilated like the San Domingue populations that moved to Cuba about 30,000 by 1804, the Afro-Mexican population was for all intents and purposes useful for the expansion of the Spanish land claims with the settlement of L.A..

Also I am going to have to partially disagree on the importance of Racial Purity or atleast racial passing in the Far north when we have Vincente Guerrerro and others known as being mixed race part africans yet attaining a level of recognition like any other mixed race leader at the time in Mexico. I also never said Underground railroad and explicitly stated Free people, blacks and part black people are not synonymous with enslaved people.
 
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