Une Histoire Des Huguenots d'Amerique

1779: In order to avoid angering the Iroquois or French, the Dutch government issues the Proclamation of 1779, prohibiting settlement beyond the Appalachians or Alleghainies. It is often violated

1780: Britain declares war on Spain after trading and boundery disputes get out of control. France enters the war because of its alliance with Spain, and the Dutch honor their own anti-British alliance with France. In Le Napoquin, Dutch governors call up most of the colony's able-bodied men to serve in defensive militias, most of which are deployed along the Rappahanock to defend against a feared British overland invasion. Instead, Britain takes the Dutch by surprise, taking undermanned Nouvelle-Angouleme with an assault force in July 1782. The Dutch goveror, Cornelis de Geer, retreats with his surviving men to Mountauban, while Jean-Pierre Dreux, a Huguenot militia commander and former general in the Dutch army, leads several thousand men from the Rappahanock on a mission to liberate Nouvelle-Angouleme, gathering strength from towns in Terre-Adrien and Nassau as they go. On August 3rd, 1782-a date still known as one of Le Napoquin's national holidays-Jean-Pierre Dreux and his men storm over the walls of Nouvelle-Angouleme, catching the British by surprise. The Nouvelle-Angoulemois are quite happy to see the liberating army, and many pull out old guns and begin sniping at British occupiers from rooftops and windows. The British are ultimately forced to retreat, leaving behind a large cache of ammunition. Dreux organizes a garrison of the city and the Chateau d'Hausmann.

March 1783: The British attempt another landing at Nouvelle-Angouleme, believing that they can catch the "inexperienced Huguenot militia" off guard. This, too, doesn't work.

May 1783: The Dutch, having done very poorly in the war and only been saved by France's entering it on their side, sue for peace, making some concessions to the British in India.

April 1783: Cornelis de Geer and his army arrive back at Nouvelle-Angouleme, and de Geer attempts to remove Dreux from command. However, the Dutch had become rather unpopular before the war with their increased taxes and trade restrictions, and the events of the war-in which the Huguenots effectively defended themselves with little Dutch help-have effectively discredited the Dutch among the Napoquinais. In salons and freemasonry meetings-and pubs and streetcorners-across Le Napoquin, people are increasingly beginning to talk of forcing the Dutch into a more equitable arrangement, or, should that prove impossible, breaking away.

Thus, when Dreux is informed of de Geer's impending arrival, he does something that would have been, a few years ago, unthinkable-refuses. The elected Assembly of Nouvelle-Angouleme agrees to go along with Dreux-the gates are closed, weapons are distributed, and the assembly of Nouvelle-Angoumois meets and deposes de Geer as governor. As, legally, it didn't have the authority to do such a thing, the Assembly's Act of Deposition appeals to popular sovereignty and cites the "abuses" of the Dutch administration, its "failure" to protect Nouvelle-Angoumois, and the example of the Dutch Act of Abjuration against King Phillip of Spain. The act ends by stating that, in "deposing" de Geer, the assembly "irrevocably commits itself to the cause of Nouvelle-Angoumois and to Le Napoquin, as a state apart from the Dutch Republic, and to this cause, with firm reliance on the help of God, we pledge our loyalty and our lives".

April 24th, 1783: De Geer's and Dreux's armies meet at the battle of Nouvelle-Angoumois. Dreux allows De Geer (unknowing of the events proceeding his arrival) in, but when the last of his men enter, the gate slams shut and Dreux's men charge out of the surrounding streets and alleys and fire down from rooftops. De Geer's army is largely destroyed.

May-June 1783: The other five provincial assemblies all pass resolutions similar to Nouvelle-Angoumois, deposing their Dutch-appointed governors and electing new ones. The rebellion is not universally popular-skirmishes break out between Dutch loyalists and rebels (or as they quickly begin to call themselves, "Patriots"). In Nassau and Terre-Adrien, which have the highest Dutch populations of Le Napoquin, the conflict is especially severe, with militia breaking apart into Patriot and Loyalist elements.

July 29th: Representatives from the six provincial assemblies convene in Nouvelle-Angouleme as the "Assemblee Nationale du Napoquin". The assembly passes the "Declaration of the Republic of Le Napoquin", unifying all the provinces, and forms an "Army of Le Napoquin", with Dreux as commander.

August 1783: A Dutch army sent to reinforce De Greer is beaten back from landing on Manata, but secures the fortress Ile des Estates (States Island, OTL Governor's Island) and blockaces Nouvelle-Angouleme.

October: Dutch land in Nassau and capture Orange, with the city's prominent Patriots fleeing. The Dutch advance, however, is beaten back by Dreux at the Battle of Ville-Maurice. The War of Le Napoquin independence has well and truly begun.

The war lasts, back and forth, for four more years. Much of the fighting is concentrated in Nassaue and Terre-Adrien provinces, assuming an almost Civil War quality at times due to the number of people still loyal to the Dutch.
1784: The Le Napoquin navy, consisting of converted merchant ships and ex-privateers, is established, and begins engaging in naval operations along the coast.
1785: Britain recognizes the "Republique du Napoquin" and beings sending aid and military advisers.
1787: In the Netherlands, the Dutch Patriots revolt against the autocratic rule of "Hereditary Stadtholder" William IV. The Dutch are forced to withdraw forces from Le Napoquin to deal with it.
1788: The Dutch sue for peace and agree to withdraw from Napoquin.
1790: After much deliberation, the Assemblee Nationale draws up a permanent constitution, with influences from the Dutch Republic, Britain, and France. Le Napoquin will be governed by the National Assembly and six provincial assemblies, each directly elected (though with property qualifications for voting). Each provincial assembly elects a governor, and the National Assembly elects a First Governor. To prevent them from becoming like the overbearing Stadtholders of the Dutch Republic, their powers are circumscribed: its explicitly stated that they serve at the pleasure of their assemblies and may be recalled at any time. A governor can appoint his own cabinet ministers, but these must be ratified by the assembly, and can also be removed at any time. The judicial system is left in the hands of Parliaments*, or courts, whose members are appointed by the assemblies. The constitution also includes a "Declaration of the Rights of the Citizen", protecting freedom of speech, worship, assembly, habias corpus, and other rights.

After hundreds of years of rule by French Catholics, and then Dutch, Napoquin was, finally, a nation of its own.

*This comes from royalist France, where courts were known as "Parliaments".
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What do you think? I tried to be original with the constitution, and figure out what people who's main experience was with French and Dutch colonial rule might actually come up with. Thoughts?

EDIT: If anyone from the flag thread is reading this, can you think of a good Flag and CoA for independent Napoquin? I always imagined Napoquin developing a beaver as its symbol early on (first because of the fur trade, but late because a beaver would be symbolic of Calvinist notions of hard work and thrift), and I think the COA of independent Napoquin would include a Phrygian Cap somewhere.
Also, any ideas for the flag? At first I imagined them riffing off the Dutch Orange-White-Blue flag, maybe making it a French style tricolor, but now that I think about it, its a symbol of the House of Orange they just rebelled against, so that might not be so likely. Any ideas?
 
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What do you think? I tried to be original with the constitution, and figure out what people who's main experience was with French and Dutch colonial rule might actually come up with. Thoughts?
I like it. I doesn't realy match up with OTL Dutch history or politics (the role of the stadholderfor example), but thoe can easily be explained by butterflies. I still don't understand the 4th Anglo-Dutch war. I see no reason why the English would just attack the Dutch (OLT it was over the American war of indepndence), but as we barely have seen the European status, I see no reason why it can't happen.
 
I like it. I doesn't realy match up with OTL Dutch history or politics (the role of the stadholderfor example), but thoe can easily be explained by butterflies. I still don't understand the 4th Anglo-Dutch war. I see no reason why the English would just attack the Dutch (OLT it was over the American war of indepndence), but as we barely have seen the European status, I see no reason why it can't happen.

Well, I imagine the Napoquin constitution was created a lot like the American one-the authors got general ideas from a lot of sources (most notably the Dutch) and came up with a lot on their own. Also, the Dutch Republic would in some ways be a negative example-the Napoquinians don't want their state to evolve into an undemocratic pseudo-monarchy like the Dutch system did, hence emphasizing the power of the elected National Assembly over the First Governor.

Also...yeah, come to think of it, what you said about the Anglo-Dutch war makes since...since I hadn't really talked about the British colonies in the American south all that much, lets just say they had a rebellion, which the Dutch, French, and Spanish tried to help out, and which failed...would also explain why the Brits didn't launch a massive overland invasion into Dutch America (another hole I saw after I posted)
 
As a descendant of Huguenot's (via Germany where my ancestors first fled the Bourbon repression), thanks for a well thought out timeline but creates a functioning, Francophone Hugeuenot state. Under the circumstances I suspect my ancestors would have emigrated to Napoquin instead of Illinois. Therefore "je suis un napoquinois". The intermingling of Dutch and Huguenot and even the eventual subsumation of the Dutch colony into a Huguenot state makes great sense. Recall that a substantial part of the Afrikaner population in South Africa is of Huguenot origin as well, although in this case the Dutch element remained majoritatian and political power was lost to the Brits.
 
Wait, what? Why? What's the casus belli here, simply 'lol, they look weak'? :confused:

Well, I changed it to a British/Spanish war that takes in France and the Netherlands (the CB was something like the Nootka Sound episode, as well as a boundery question between British colonies in the Mississippi valley and Spanish Texas, but I don't feel like coming up with the details right now).

Took out the Acadian deportation too-on reading it again, it seemed kind of random, and I couldn't think of a reason the Netherlands would imitate British policy
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1791: Jean-Pierre Dreux is elected First Governor of Le Napoquin by the National Assembly

1790's: Napoquin abandons the previous Dutch policy of alliance with the Iroquois and instead begins encouraging settlement in the lands across the Alleghanies and Catskills. The Iroquois resist, and as the years go by, skirmishes escalate into battles, and then into a running, low intensity war between Iroquois and fortified Napoquinais settlements, with the Napoquinais military being drawn in to assist the latter. The Iroquois, meanwhile, seek a rapproachment with France, who want a buffer between Napoquin and their colony of Canada. Increasingly, Iroquois attacks on Napoquinais settlements use French-supplied arms, and this-and the atrocities committed by some Iroquois (though the Napoquinais side had its share atrocities as well)-are sensationalized in Le Napoquin's newspapers. Public support for a war begins to mount

1794: Due to increasing tensions with France, Napoquin signs a military alliance with Britain

1796: Financial pressures within France force King Louis XVI to call the Estates-General into session. After a series of disagreements, many radical members break off, declare themselves the "National Convention", and demand a formal constitution.

1797-1799: Events in France spiral out of control, as King Louis is forced to accept a constitution he does not want. He secretly conspires with the Austrian ambassador, apparently trying to induce Austria to invade and restore his absolute power in exchange for some territorial concessions in Alsace. The French National Convention uncovers this, and has Louis executed.

July 1798: Jean-Pierre Dreux steps down after a highly successful term as First Governor, and the assembly elects Guillaume Rochefort as his replacement. By now, Napoquinais society has divided into two major camps: The Centralists, seeking a strong national government and promoting industry, foreign trade, and a strong military, and the Federalists, seeking a weak national government, more powerful provincial governments, and promoting agriculture and an isolationist foreign policy. Dreux, being a somewhat conservative man from a family of bankers and traders, was a centralist, as is Rochefort.

March 1799: The governor of Canada, David de Frontenac, upon learning of the execution of King Louis, declares the government in Paris illegitimate, and the loyalty of Canada to the deposed dynasty.

July 1799: A French army, led by Andre Bernard, arrives off Quebec and arrests Frontenac. Bernard begins a roundup of "counterrevolutionaries" in Quebec, though many manage to flee to the countryside. The revolution is highly unpopular in Quebec, especially due to its anti-clericalist aspects, and a counter-revolutionary guerilla movement, led by Emil Leclerc, begins by the end of the year.

February 1800: Britain, Prussia, Austria, the Dutch, and Spain form the First Coalition against France. The French, however, are successful and actually gain territory in Europe from the war. But in America...

...Le Napoquin honors its alliance with Britain and declares war on France. Napoquinais forces cross the Alleghanies and engage the Iroquois, largely defeating them-and the few forces Bernard sends to help them-by the middle of 1801. Most Iroquois are forced out of the area around the shores of Lake Ontario

August 1801: Napoquinais forces invade Canada itself, with help from Leclerc's resistance movement.

November 18th: Battle of Montreal ends in victory for the Napoquinais, and that city is occupied. The Napoquinais then advance to Quebec city and lay seige, with help from the British navy

January 11th, 1802: Quebec surrenders, however, its quite clear that the French revolutionary government isn't going anywhere. Rochefort comes to occupied Quebec, and, after some meetings with Leclerc and the British ambassador, comes to an agreement:
-The Ohio valley, and most French territories south of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, will be annexed by Napoquin.
-The Lower valley of the Saint Lawrence, and all other French territories not annexed by Napoquin, will become a "Republic of Canada" headed by Leclerc*
The French govenrnment only grudgingly recognizes its loss of North America in the treaty ending the war of the 1st coalition, in exchange for gains in Europe.

The French Revolutionary wars would go on for almost two more decades, with a French general named Joachim Murat eventually declaring himself emperor and conquering most of Europe before loosing it all and dying in exile. Britain's naval supremancy, however, prevents France from launching any more operations in North America, and thus Le Napoquin sits out the rest of Murat's wars as a British ally, with only some naval operations against the French.

The French war will provide a major boost to the Centralists, who come to dominate Napoquin's politics for the next two decades. Meanwhile, settlers begin pouring northward and westward into Napoquin's new land...

1804: The province of Abenaq abolishes slavery (the Napoquinais constitution had banned international slave trading already). By 1810, Acadia, Nouvelle-Saintogne, and Nouvelle-Angoumois have followed suit. In addition, the national government bans slavery in the territories aquired from the French.

1806: The Anglo-Napoquinian Boundary Commission sets the Ohio river as the border between Napoquin and Britain's North American possessions. Between the Ohio and the Rappahannock (the border on the East Coast) the commission delimits a boundary line through the Appallachain mountains.

1812: The Provence de l'Allegheny (most of upstate New York outside the Hudson valley) is created, followed by Ohio in 1814, Ouabache (roughly Indiana, from a French spelling of "Wabash) in 1821, and Illinois in 1823

*or to put it more simply: Canada has its OTL bounderies, except the Maritimes.
 
Ideas

I would think the Napoquin would simply buy/trade land with local native tribes. I can also see the Napoquin marry into/convert many of the local tribes on the frontier. On the labor front I can see the Napoquin taking in lots of refugees and indentured labor since slavery is prohibited. What is happening in the British colonies?
 
I'm a little dizzy from the events of the French Revolutionary/Muratian era in North America.

Let's see, prior to 1789, we had Napoquin situated between the English colonies--essentially OTL Dixie, but still loyal to Britain--and a Royalist French Canada, which Huguenot Napoquin tends to be in conflict with for several deep and substantial reasons:

1) They are an integral part of the Kingdom of France which is ideologically anti-Huguenot and has irredentist claims on Napoquin territory much of which used to belong to the French Crown.

2) They play the role of the OTL French Canada and the successor regime of British-ruled Canada in that they are more interested in extending relations with the Native Americans in general to foster trading relations than in displacing the natives with settlers, and so stand in the way of Napoquin westward expansion by supporting selected native powers in their resistance to Napoquin settlement--which formerly was restrained by Dutch policy which is now abrogated.

The Napoquins apparently have few or no deep reasons for conflict with the British colonies to the south though conceivably the caprices of European alliance systems might someday put them at odds. They are focused on a confrontation with their co-linguists in the northwest and the native peoples who stand in their way.

Now, revolution in France and the king's execution:

Since the revolutionaries wind up killing the monarch and presumably fostering religious tolerance (for a while anyway, before they sail on over the moral event horizon to impose Cult of the Supreme Being or Divine Reason or some such), you'd think the basic animosity of Napoquin toward France would reverse polarity--there'd be a lot of sentiment for the Revolution, for reasons somewhat different than the US sympathy for it OTL. As in America OTL, the Napoquins would be divided on the matter--the conservatives presumably are already alarmed at the centrifugal and plebeian tendencies that the American frontier and developing coastal cities tend to foster and might therefore look askance at the Revolution despite the confusion it throws on their enemies.

But meanwhile the Quebecois or Canadien or whatever the northern Catholic French settlement calls themselves are not interested in furthering the Revolution; they are loyalists to both King and Church and presumably remain opposed to Napoquin just as before, but have had their ties to their royal patron severed violently at the source.

It would seem natural at first glance for the Napoquin to be pro-Revolutionary France and support an invasion of Quebec by a Republican mission. But that would put them at odds with Britain, which is now opportunistically supporting a royalist restoration in France, and should therefore be supporting the conservative Quebecois.

So, if I read the upshot of your latest post correctly, the French Republicans do send a mission under Leclerc, but meanwhile a Napoquin/British alliance largely seizes Canadien territory, especially the lands to the west of Napoquin they covet.

This is the confusing part--why would this alliance agree to let a representative of the enemy French Republic establish a Republican regime over Canadiens who hate what he stands for, one which would tend to ally with the Anglo-Napoquin alliance's enemy, revolutionary/adventurous Republcian/Muratian France if its ruler's wishes prevail--and one whose population would overthrow him and seek the patronage of the French royal dynasty that was the Napoquin's traditional enemy if they could. So Canada is a republic in name only, unless Leclerc completely re-invents himself as a Catholic conservative tantamount to a Bourbon monarchist. If Canada really is or eventually evolves to become a real republic it would again stand in the way of the Napoquin, either on its own hook or, surrendering its independence eagerly to a restored Bourbon monarchy in France.

Presumably Canadien society co-evolves; with the loss of their southern territories they eventually lose their interest in fostering pro-native and hence anti-Napoquin alliances, at least south of their new borders. Possibly loyalty to the Bourbons becomes a matter of sentiment divorced from practical meaning, especially as eventually the Bourbons become politically irrelevant. (Well they did OTL--perhaps the Bourbon restoration ITTL takes more effectively and isn't overthrown as early as 1830; perhaps they get kicked out but make a second and more lasting comeback later--perhaps they wind up settling in Canada where they are appreciated and Canada becomes a kingdom in its own right...like I said I'm a bit dizzy!)

Frankly it would seem more likely at the end of the 18th century ITTL for the Napoquin/British alliance to install a puppet Bourbon regime of some kind. In principle this would be the worst case scenario for the Napoquins, but in practice if they could count on the puppet to agree to and enforce settlements agreeable to the Napoquin, this would tend to mollify the Canadiens on the ground--the Indians left in the lurch are out of luck of course, but the same is true of Leclerc's nominally republican regime. However under a Bourbon duke, presumably at least the Canadiens are more agreeable and less restive, and if this monarchial dictator recognizes the balance of power and that he owes his regime to Napoquin acquiescence and British power, these can count on him to keep the peace and deny Canada to the French enemy.

What would happen then upon a Bourbon restoration in France is a bit alarming to both British and Napoquin interests; suddenly France would have overseas possessions again. Well, perhaps they could put fine print in the agreements that impose the Bourbons back on France--the Duc de Quebec or Montreal might in theory be a vassal of the King in Paris but actually a viceroy of British/Napoquin interests as before.

Despite the absurdity of that situation, it strikes me as more likely than these powers allowing a nominally revolutionary republican who has no support from the people he seeks to "lead" and whose deep loyalties are anti-British to try and run a Canadian republic.

Maybe what goes on there is that it is mainly Napoquin interests being served--Leclec is perforce moderated by his intention of somehow having republican legitimacy in Canada, and this makes him the kind of moderate progressive the Napoquins can agree to get behind--safely divorced from the Bourbon and hence Papist loyalty but also safely restrained from the revolutionary extremes of Europe? The fact that his rule would be very insecure due to the Catholic and royalist leanings of "his people" is a divide-and-rule benefit for the Napoquin--he is President or whatever his title is as long as the Napoquin say so, and the more dysfunctional his relations are to the Canadien people, the better it looks to them.

Thus Britain gets snookered into supporting a nominal offshoot of their enemy, in favor of a power neighboring their own possessions in North America that thus consolidates itself and might someday get into collision with them. Well, they are kind of distracted and Quebec is peripheral to them, the more so if it becomes a Napoquin puppet.

Is that how we should see the new Canadian Republic--as in Napoquin's pocket, a reservation for the alternate French colonial heritage kept on ice?
 
Yes, I'm back. At Shevek-most of your analysis is correct, but you misread one crucial point-Leclerc was a native Canadien, leading a pro-Bourbon insurgency kicked off by some of the more unpopular aspects of the French revolution (especially anticlericalism) against the French Republican force that had forcibly occupied the Bourbon colony of Canada. At this point, the British/Napoquin alliance invades, and Leclerc sides with them since they promise to drive the hated Republicans out.

Now, once the French forces are kicked out, Le Napoquin has a dilema-the "logical" thing to do would be to install some kind of restored Bourbon regime in Canada, of course allied with Le Napoquin. But this means that, should the Bourbons ever come back to power in France, Canada reverts back to being a French colony, which Le Napoquin doesn't want.

So, as a somewhat conservative Republic, Napoquin convinces Leclerc into supporting a similar regime in Canada-Leclerc will get to be the president (or whatever) and can implement whatever policies (pro-clerical, conservative, and otherwise) he and is supporters favor. Le Napoquin is already more populated and generally more powerful than Canada, and by forcing Canada to recognize their control of the Ohio valley, they've ensured this disparity will only continue to grow in the future. Thus, Le Napoquin now has a weaker, somewhat controllable neighbor to its north, meaning that the only real "power" they have to worry about now is British America to their south.
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The Federalists, having largely supported the French Revolution and opposed the subsequent British alliance and war, generally found their opinions discredited by the war's success, and by the excesses of the early French Revolution and its eventual end at Emperor Murat's rather conservative "popular monarchy". Le Napoquin's politics up until about 1830 would be dominated almost exclusively by the Centralist faction. Supported by the wealthy businessmen of Nouvelle-Angouleme and Nouvelle-Rochelle, the Centralists maintained Napoquin's British alliance, which proved highly profitable due to Britian's growing dominance of trans-atlantic trade. Though the Netherlands had been restored after Murat's downfall, it spent most of his reign as a group of French provinces, and all its pretentions to be a great power were shattered. Britain fast became Napoquin's chief trading partner, followed by France, and immigrants from Britian-mainly Scottish Presbyterians and Irish Catholics-soon ensured that English replaced Dutch as Nouvelle-Angouleme's second language. Some of the new immigrants brought new technical knowledge from Britian as well, and soon the Industrial Revolution spread to Le Napoquin.

Centralist era is often known as the "Nouvelle Angouleme Dynasty"-all the First Governors of the era (Guillaume Rochefort, Jean Marceau, David Chalon, and Pierre de Bray) were from Nouvelle-Angouleme or its environs, and all came from similar backgrounds as wealthy businessmen. However, much of the population grew weary of the Dynasty, and the domination by a small elite that it represented. Gradually, the Centralists began to split, into pro-Dynasty Conservatives and more populist Liberals. In 1828, for the first time, the Liberals, under Rene Neuman, won the National Assembly elections and introduced a series of reforms-slavery, having died a natural economic death throughout most of Napoquin, was legally abolished, and the property qualifications that had formally limited voting to the well-to-do were abolished in favor of universal (male) sufferage. A descendent of poor immigrants from the Palatinate, First Governor Neuman governed with a much more populist style than Napoquin had been used to, attacking moneyed interests and percieved foreign domination of the economy. Critics attacked Neuman as xenophobic and authoritarian, and his mishandling of the economy-particularly the closing of Napoquin's central bank-eventually led to the Depression of 1847, after which a Conservative government regained power. But real competition had, once again, been introduced into Napoquin's political system, and for the next several decades the Conservatives and Liberals would alternate power for the next few decades.

In the rest of north America, meanwhile, the Spanish colonies had become independent during the Muratian Wars, and the discovery of gold in California in 1834 resulted in its settlement by a combination of Latin Americans (the majority), Filipinos, Napoquinois, and British Americans. As California became more populated, growing resentment against rule from Mexico City led it to declare independence in 1857.
While many Napoquinois tried to cross into California, the journey was long and the Mexican government hostile. Thought the "California Trail", from Thebes, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, to California, had been blazed in 1839, the internvening mountains, deserts, and Mexican soldiers prevented many from making it all the way. Throughout the 1840's, a string of Napoquinois settlements formed, throughout the Missouri valley northern prarie, even going as far as Saint-Jean-sur-Lac (Salt Lake City) in the deserts below the Rocky Mountains.
Also in 1834, Britain abolished slavery throughout its empire, provoking a rebellion in British America. Both the rebels and the British courted Napoquin, but it stayed neutral, and Britain won. Slavery was abolished, but the blacks of British America remained an underprivilged population dominated by a white minority. When Responsible Government was extended to the Dominion of America in 1846, virtually all blacks were barred from the voter rolls.
 
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UPDATE!

This will mostly concern Europe, covering, very briefly, its evolution from 1800 to ~1920.

I have also decided that, eventually, I will rewrite another TL I've finished (Greater Syria) and have it take place in this world.
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After taking power in 1804, Joachim Murat would prove to be a brilliant strategist and skilled politician. In just a decade of fighting, his armies smashed those of Prussia, Austria, and Spain. By 1814, the bounderies of France extended from the tip of Brittany to the city of Hamburg, and took in Catalonia and much of Italy. French vassals and client kingdoms extended all the way to the Russian border. Murat had again ordered France's armies mobalized, and was rumored to be preparing for an invasion of Russia. But it never came. As his coach drove through Paris on March 15th, 1814, a man stepped forward and threw a homemade bomb. It found its target, and Murat would die in a Paris hospital three weeks later. The man, a possibly insane pro-Bourbon fanatic, had already met his date with the guillotine.

Murat's generals, setting up a confused regency for his younger son, ordered all the French armies to withdraw back past the Rhine and the Alps. Seeing its chance, France's longtime enemy Britain offered a peace treaty that, while rather humiliating in light of Murat's gains, still put France in an enviable strategic position. They gave up all the land east of the Rhine, but kept its left bank from the Alps to the sea. They withdrew from Spain and much of Italy, but kept Piedmont. The right bank of the Rhine was given to Prussia, and a Polish state set up in the east to contain Russia. Most of the rest of Italy and Germany returned to pre-war status quo, minus a bunch of the smaller German states that had been absorbed by their larger neighbors. Venetia was awarded to Austria, securing its domination of Italy.

In many ways, the next century would be France's. Their armies were the strongest in Europe, and the factories of Wallonia, Alsace, Piedmont, and the Rhineland made them into the continent's industrial powerhouse. France's traders and merchant ships plied the world, bringing it into serious competition with Britain. Indeed, the rest of the 19th century would be dominated by the Franco-British rivalry, with the latter usually allied to Russia or one of the German states. Under the efforts of men like Gladstone and Disraeli, Britain transformed into a parliamentary democracy, while France, under its Emperors, remained a conservative monarchy. It elected a National Assembly, but the franchise was highly restricted and dominated by aristocrats and industrialists, with the Emperor wielding most power anyway. After Revolutionary France's flirtation with deisim, Murat had made his peace with the Catholic church, and under the Emperors it became a pillar of the state's rule. The French church, French government, and French language were pushed on every corner of the nation, and Flemings, Rhinelanders, and Piedmont Italians all chafed under foreign rule, their lower classes occaissionally rioting or rebelling, and their intellectuals secretly meeting in salons and private homes, plotting the day when rule from Paris would end.

But for the rest of the century and into the next, it did not. France's main allies, Spain battled the British in several wars, but neither put the question of French or British dominance to rest. France's grip, however, began to slip in 1883, when, with British help, all of Germany minus Austria united under one banner, and again in 1897, when Italy did the same. But "Italy" lacked its richest lands-Piedmont, Ligurgia, Lombardy, and Venetia-while the Rhine, once the heart of Germany, was now its border. And so, when war again broke out in 1906, France confidently predicted victory as its armies again crossed the Rhine and penetrated deep into Germany and Italy.

But, Britain had invested quite heavily in its navy, which would confine France's to its harbors for much of the war. British, German, and Russian troops stopped the French in the middle of Hannover, and in Italy, the Italians and British brought them to a halt just outside Florence. The war settled into years of grinding stalemate, as hundreds of thousands of men from both sides died in a futile attempt to break the enemy lines, and France starved under an ever-tightening British blockade.

Finally, in 1912, the Germans and British broke through French lines and again began to reclaim German territory. In Italy, Italians and British surged up the peninsula, knocking France's Austrian allies back into the Alps. On May 23rd, 1913, France finally had to admit defeat. The penalties were harsh-France lost Flanders to the Netherlands, and the entire left bank of the Rhine [ie, Alsace and the western parts of OTL North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate] to Germany. It had to give up Piedmont to Italy as well, and in the chaos of the war, the Austrian empire simply broke apart-some went to Germany, Hungary became independent, and Lombardy and Venetia went back to their Italian brethren. Now Europe revolved around the German behemoth, and France was left to stew in its juices...until one day, aligned with a resurgent Britain, it would make its name known again...
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I know this is very brief, and I plan to flesh some of it out later. Any comments and criticism is welcome.
 
Very interesting timeline. I wonder just how divergant Napoquin French will wind up from Metropolitan French. OTL Quebec French is filled with minor (& occasionally major) differences from Metropolitian French. Quebec French being derived from the French of the royal court and Metropolitian French from the dialect spoken by the Parisian bourgeoisie. Of course Napoquin French will have influences from Dutch & German as well as Amerindian languages. Napoquin also won't be as isolated linguistically as OTL Quebec was for most of it's history and French itself will become a very pluricentric langauge.

What do you think? I tried to be original with the constitution, and figure out what people who's main experience was with French and Dutch colonial rule might actually come up with. Thoughts?

I know I'm late to the party, but I have some questions. The Assemblee Nationale du Napoquin is unicameral, correct? Did the 6 founding provinces of Napoquin have similiar size populations? Because if that's not the case then they're going to run into same issues as the 13 Colonies did in OTL; equal-size delagations for each province vs assigning delates based on population. A bicameral legislature seems more likely at the national level. Say in the upper chamber each province get's the same size delegation (possible chosen by the provincial assembly & subject to recall by them) and the lower chamber is based on population and directly elected.

What are the terms of office for various officials (ie the First Governor, assembly deputies)? Some form of term limits for the First Governor might be a possibility given how eager the Founding Fathers of Le Napoquin would be to avoid a crowned republic like in the Netherlands. Will the Republic of Napoquin be used as a "blueprint" for future republics like what happened OTL with the US? I think it's interesting that you've basically made parliamentarism the default form of government for republics (what with the chief executive & his ministers being directly responsible to the legislature). That & the British example means nothing like the "presidential republic" model (ie seperate of powers, the executive being chosen seperatly from & independant of the legislature, etc) never develops. Or even more models could develop (ie split executives like in Switzerland) or more closely modeled on the ancient Roman Republic.

BTW where is the capital of Napoquin? Nouvelle-Angouleme seems like the most likely choice, at least for a provisional capital, but I don't think the other provinces will be all that happy to keep it there. Especially since Nouvelle-Angouleme is also the capital of the Province of Nouvelle-Angouleme. Will the federal government of Napoquin try to set aside some land to build a new capital city it can govern directly?
 
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