alternatehistory.com

I'm going to try creating a full out timeline this time. I'll try to fill it out as best I can, but it's 16th century onwards, focusing mostly on North America, with Europe, Africa, South America, and the Pacific feeling more of the effects.

If anyone' s good with maps, I'd appreciate the help, as my abilities don't extend much past MS Paint.

Here's entry 1.

The Acadian Union
(or, Huguenots Endure)

Time: 16th century France
Location: Paris

"In 1534, Jacques Cartier planted a cross in the Gaspé Peninsula and claimed the land in the name of King Francis I. It was the first province of New France. However, initial French attempts at settling the region met with failure.

As the Huguenots gained influence and displayed their faith more openly, Roman Catholic hostility to them grew, even though the French crown offered increasingly liberal political concessions and edicts of toleration.

Following the accidental death of Henry II in 1559, his son succeeded as King Francis II along with his wife, the Queen Consort, also known as Mary Queen of Scots. During the eighteen months of the reign of Francis II, Mary encouraged a policy of rounding up French Huguenots on charges of heresy, in front of Catholic judges, and employing torture and burning as punishments for dissenters. Mary returned to Scotland a widow, in the summer of 1561.

In 1561, the Edict of Orléans declared an end to the persecution, and the Edict of Saint-Germain of January 1562 formally recognised the Huguenots for the first time. However, these measures disguised the growing tensions between Protestants and Catholics.

In what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 24 August – 3 October 1572, Catholics killed thousands of Huguenots in Paris. Similar massacres took place in other towns in the weeks following. The main provincial towns and cities experiencing the Massacre were Aix, Bordeaux, Bourges, Lyons, Meaux, Orleans, Rouen, Toulouse, and Troyes. Nearly 3,000 Protestants were slaughtered in Toulouse alone. The exact number of fatalities throughout the country is not known. On 23–24 August, between about 2,000 and 3,000 Protestants were killed in Paris and between 3,000 and 7,000 more in the French provinces. By 17 September, almost 25,000 Protestants had been massacred in Paris alone. Beyond Paris, the killings continued until 3 October. An amnesty granted in 1573 pardoned the perpetrators."

The situation improved, however, with Henri IV, who was baptized Catholic, but raised protestant by his mother. He issued the Edict of Nantes, which reaffirmed Catholicism as the state religion of France, but granted the Protestants equality with Catholics under the throne and a degree of religious and political freedom within their domains. He issued a separate decree wherein any Protestant who settled New France would have free passage so long as they grew the colony and developed it. He figured deporting the Protestants would relieve the tensions in France, and help grow the colonies.

Subsequent enforcement of the Edict of Nantes varied, so the situation became increasingly intolerable in France, leading to the Huguenot population dropping to around 850,000 in France, with many fleeing to German, Polish, Scandinavian, and North American lands, and some even as far as South Africa and Brazil, to the Dutch colonies, to escape persecution.

This led to the situation during the French and Indian War wherein some Acadians were deported from the region, and some participated with the British against their own fellow settlers.

The British Siege of Port Royal in 1710, was soon followed by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, allowing the Acadians to keep their lands if they pledged allegiance to the British Crown. The reason the Siege was successful was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the Louis XIV of France, with his Edict of Fontainebleau in 1643, increasing the pressure on Huguenots to convert in France. They left in even larger numbers; most into Europe but a larger number to New Holland, in Mauritsstad, Frederikstadt, and Fort Schoonenborch, South Africa, and Acadia, such that by 1755, there were around 58,000 in Acadia, 94,000 in Quebec, both majority Protestant.

The issue lay with the Catholic missions sent by the French, which converted the Mi'kmaq and tried to start converting the Protestant settlers to Catholicism, which began inciting what is known as Father LeLoutre's War, just before the French and Indian War.

Halifax was founded in 1749 by the British to increase the Protestant population of the area, with several hundred Scots Gaelic speakers, loyal to the crown, leading to the beginning of the war. The war ended after the capture of Port Royal and Louisbourg by the British, through their practice of total war. French power in the region was destroyed, and the Catholic Acadians (about 8500) were expelled to either Louisiana, or to France; the remainder, by the end of 1763, had pledged loyalty to the British Crown, and Nova Scotia, with its capital at Halifax, became a colony, and was granted a colonial legislature and a royal governor.

The majority Protestant colonies in what became the Province of Quebec and the Province of Nova Scotia by and large welcomed the English Crown, viewing it as more tolerant of them than the French Crown. Nova Scotia and Quebec each gained a royal governor, legislature, and were forced to move to English common law, but were allowed to keep their language, ways of life, and local customs in exchange for their loyalties. The first meetings in Quebec and Nova Scotia of their legislatures were in 1764.


British Empire after the French and Indian War; note Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland

In 1769, St John's Island became a separate colony, for the majority English-speaking colonists of the island; in 1774, the Quebec Act would separate the Province of Quebec into two: Province of Ottawa left of the Ottawa River, and the Province of Quebec to the right, with the border being the St Lawrence watershed between the Ottawa and the Saguenay River north of the St Lawrence, and the south of the St Lawrence; Quebeckers were forbidden to settle outside those borders, and south of the St Lawrence, which was to be reserved for a new English-speaking colony. This was an Intolerable Act to the Quebeckers, since it limited their lands for expansion, as they believed they should've gotten the Illinois Country, as they called it, and damaged their industry, since they had to rely on moving their goods into British ports. Nova Scotians, now perhaps 60/40 French/Scottish Gaelic speakers, were still mostly protesting against the Intolerable Acts, notably the Halifax Port Act, closing Halifax port, which also dumped several hundred crates of tea into the harbor within days of Boston having done the same first. The 1774 law prevented settlers from Quebec across the Ottawa, marking it as 'Indian territory' along with the Ohio Valley, took away the charter for Nova Scotia, which had a big protest along with Boston, and forced the small Catholic contingent leave or convert, violating their belief to a free exercise of religion.

First Flag of Acadia


First Flag of Quebec


By 1776:

Quebec had 94,000 people, Nova Scotia 59,000, and St John's Island 14,000

St John's Island was the only majority English-speaking of the three (a roughly 70/30 split).
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