Quebec In An Expanded BNA.

Let's assume the American Revolution is peaceably resolved or averted in TTL. The colonists' grievances are addressed and as popularly assumed, a sort of dominion status takes form. It will naturally have Atlantic Canada and one assumes the OTL western lands of the USA and Canada fill up like OTL.

What will happen to the province of Quebec? Will it be assilimated into the greater Anglo-American culture? In 1860 Quebec City's English-speaking population reached a high of 40%. If the most Francophone place of the province had a population that high, then one can only assume the traditionally more-Anglophone-friendly areas of the Outenais, the Eastern Townships, the Gaspe Peninsula, and Montreal city had even higher English-speaking peoples in them than today.

And the key is that is in OTL Canada, and it was obviously even less populated than it is today.

So what will happen if you suddenly have the much more populated English-speaking subdivisions of the country to the south-New York and New England and the like-suddenly open up for migration from the get-go? We're talking potentially hundreds of thousands of new Anglos in the province, not to mention thousands of OTL American immigrants heading into Quebec province and taking up English themselves.

Will Quebec become a northern Louisiana here or will it maintain a seperate identity? Will it even be part of a British North America? As I said in a post a long time ago, I can see Montreal becoming a French New York of sorts (completely Americanized save for a few historical traces to the past), so I'm wondering on the northern section of the province. Could Quebec still be primarily French in language and culture or will it become a northern New Orleans of a sort-recognizably American and English-speaking, with French a significant but still minor subculture (if a proud, celebrated one)?

EDIT: While similar to a 'Quebec in the USA', let me stress: this is instead Quebec's fate in a LOYAL North America still tied to Britain, not an independent nation. ;)
 
Weren't the Thirteen Colonies too different to be effectively - and willingly - fused into a dominion government? I'm basing this off the response to King James' attempt in the 1680s.
 
Weren't the Thirteen Colonies too different to be effectively - and willingly - fused into a dominion government? I'm basing this off the response to King James' attempt in the 1680s.

Yes, but so were many of OTL Canadian colonies until 1867. This still will not change the overall expansion of the Anglo-American people through the continent.

One could even point to the First Continental Congress as a successful predecent of the colonies banding together, however weakly. I would assume that some central minister to London or general secretary over the colonies would form, if sooner than OTL, due to a much larger and richer population still under overall British control.

EDIT: Indeed, that English-speaking high in Quebec City is still in 1860, seven years before Confederation, so my point can still stand.
 
The ARW being averted altogether would mean a POD likely before 1774, when the CC1 was formed. The last such big attempt was the Albany Plan of 1754, in a more dangerous time, and look how that turned out.
 
The ARW being averted altogether would mean a POD likely before 1774, when the CC1 was formed. The last such big attempt was the Albany Plan of 1754, in a more dangerous time, and look how that turned out.

Don't forget the Olive Branch petition in 1776 and Lord North readying to give in to demands before Saratoga to keep the colonies. ;) There were still large swaths of the population, including rebel leaders themselves, that still felt loyalty to king and country and more loathed parliament's supposed lack of representation for them.
 
Don't forget the Olive Branch petition in 1776 and Lord North readying to give in to demands before Saratoga to keep the colonies. ;) There were still large swaths of the population, including rebel leaders themselves, that still felt loyalty to king and country and more loathed parliament's supposed lack of representation for them.

Yes, but we're presuming it doesn't come to drift and war in the 1770s - remember your own OP? :rolleyes: What happens as a result of wartime stress and necessity is irrelevant. ;)
 
Yes, but we're presuming it doesn't come to drift and war in the 1770s - remember your own OP? :rolleyes: What happens as a result of wartime stress and necessity is irrelevant. ;)

....and the aformentioned Olive Branch Petition, which was entirely meant to 'peaceably resolve' the ARW by its very nature can't count? Uh, sure.
 
It's your thread. However I interpreted the OP as saying the American Revolution itself - not just the "War of American Independence," which is often erroneously used interchangeably with "American Revolution" - which means change that occurs well before whatever happens starting on 18 April 1775 ever takes place.
 
Let's assume the American Revolution is peaceably resolved or averted in TTL. The colonists' grievances are addressed and as popularly assumed, a sort of dominion status takes form. It will naturally have Atlantic Canada and one assumes the OTL western lands of the USA and Canada fill up like OTL.

What will happen to the province of Quebec? Will it be assilimated into the greater Anglo-American culture? In 1860 Quebec City's English-speaking population reached a high of 40%. If the most Francophone place of the province had a population that high, then one can only assume the traditionally more-Anglophone-friendly areas of the Outenais, the Eastern Townships, the Gaspe Peninsula, and Montreal city had even higher English-speaking peoples in them than today.

And the key is that is in OTL Canada, and it was obviously even less populated than it is today.

So what will happen if you suddenly have the much more populated English-speaking subdivisions of the country to the south-New York and New England and the like-suddenly open up for migration from the get-go? We're talking potentially hundreds of thousands of new Anglos in the province, not to mention thousands of OTL American immigrants heading into Quebec province and taking up English themselves.

Will Quebec become a northern Louisiana here or will it maintain a seperate identity? Will it even be part of a British North America? As I said in a post a long time ago, I can see Montreal becoming a French New York of sorts (completely Americanized save for a few historical traces to the past), so I'm wondering on the northern section of the province. Could Quebec still be primarily French in language and culture or will it become a northern New Orleans of a sort-recognizably American and English-speaking, with French a significant but still minor subculture (if a proud, celebrated one)?

EDIT: While similar to a 'Quebec in the USA', let me stress: this is instead Quebec's fate in a LOYAL North America still tied to Britain, not an independent nation. ;)

Places like the Eastern Townships had such high levels of Anglos due to the Revolution (the influx of Loyalists) and British policy thereafter in an attempt to dilute the demographic weight of the French. With no Revolution, settlers coming out of the Atlantic colonies will move west, not north. Instead, I see it more likely that Lower Canada would be more French than it is today, with more Québécois moving west in search of land rather than south in search of mill jobs.

I beileve that the French settler base in Québec is large enough, and the incentives for settling there for Anglos (especially if there's no ARW) low enough that you won't see a Louisianification. I think it's telling that, though the Acadians were originally just one group of settlers amongst many in Louisiana, it's their culture which has survived the longest, not that of the urban French from whom I am descended. The Acadians, like the Québécois, were rural farmers, and thus seemingly have a greater attachment to tradition and cultural identity than urbanites whose goal is monetary success.

Also, the success of the Acadians in maintaining their cultural identity as long as they have has in large part to do with the opening up of the prairies in the southwestern parishes and east Texas to rice farming and cattle ranching. They were able to settle this land and create a base for their culture because the American settlers weren't interested in rice and didn't see any value in settling the land that the Acadians took over. For the same reason, I can see settlers from the Atlantic colonies leaving Canada to the French and strking out to the Ohio country and later the Mississippi Valley for lands they see as more fertile and lucrative.
 
I see Quebec retaining its separate identity within an expanded BNA.

In my Course of Human Events TL, Albion (OTL USA, The Bahamas, the Maritimes and Ontario) is independent of GB (evolution though, not revolution), but still closely tied to to her. In the TL Quebec chose not to participate in the pre-independence Continental Congress for religious, language and cultural reasons. It retains this separate identity throughout the TL.
 
It's your thread. However I interpreted the OP as saying the American Revolution itself - not just the "War of American Independence," which is often erroneously used interchangeably with "American Revolution" - which means change that occurs well before whatever happens starting on 18 April 1775 ever takes place.

When you put it THAT way, I do bow to the logic.

I also apologize for the hostility I invariably showed, sir, I do mean it.
 
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