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I recently finished reading the book "A Voyage Long and Strange" by Tony Horwitz on the early colonization attempts by Europeans in North America. One section of the book covers the earliest Protestant colony north of the Rio Grande, which was the French settlement Fort Caroline established in 1562-64. IOTL, this fort was destroyed by the Spanish.

This incident got me thinking, though. What if the French successfully created a Calvinist Protestant colony in the Americas, either Fort Caroline or the earlier France Antarctique set up in South America? Even if they did survive, they'd have a lot of barriers to overcome. Superior Spanish and later English navies could blockade the colonies, so in order to survive they would have to develop a pretty strong and independent land army to protect themselves.

But if they did survive, that could have some pretty far reaching consequences, and I was wondering what some of these largest consequences would be over the next century. Could the colonies absorb enough Protestant immigration from France to decrease religious tensions? What would be Fort Caroline's relationship with the English, Dutch, and Swedish colonies to the north? And could the Protestant example lead to the creation of French Catholic settler colonies in the New World, or would non-persecuted French prefer to stay in Europe?

I'd be definitely interested in what others have to think about this.
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