What colonies might emerge in Louisiana?

[damein fisher]

Let's assume that France regains control of Louisiana in 1783, taking it back following the Spanish reclaiming Florida. I am not concerned how ASB this may be, that is the assumption. What colonies and Territories might be cut out of Louisiana by the French?

 

[LSCatilina]

Essentially, one : Lower Louisiana. The region was significantly underpopulated, no matter how hard it was attempted (half-assed attempts, I agree),and the whole colony in the 1760 barely held to 6,000 inhabitants (Lower and Upper Louisiana merged) with a bit less than half of it being gathered in New Orleans and the reminder mostly in Lower Louisiana.

Eventually, Louisiana wasn't a colony in the sense the Thirteen Colonies were, or even Canada, but rather a sphere of influence built on garrisons, tiny settlements there and there, and New Orleans with 3/4 of the region escaping a direct control.

Historically, Lower and Upper Louisiana really took a demographical expension with refugees from the Haitian revolution (for Lower Louisiana) and especially the american expension westwards. Before this, it's a big empty space with some villages (Mobile and Baton Rouge didn't managed to gather one thousand inhabitants, even adding their populations) and whom half of the colonial inhabitants were enslaved.

 

[Clandango]

Up to the Arkansas River, with the rest being sold piecemeal or left alone due to distance and emptiness? And is this including West Florida? The version with half of Alabama and Mississippi.

 

[damein fisher]

And is this including West Florida?

Yes, I'd imagine

 

[damein fisher]

Essentially, one : Lower Louisiana. The region was significantly underpopulated, no matter how hard it was attempted (half-assed attempts, I agree),and the whole colony in the 1760 barely held to 6,000 inhabitants (Lower and Upper Louisiana merged) with a bit less than half of it being gathered in New Orleans and the reminder mostly in Lower Louisiana.

Eventually, Louisiana wasn't a colony in the sense the Thirteen Colonies were, or even Canada, but rather a sphere of influence built on garrisons, tiny settlements there and there, and New Orleans with 3/4 of the region escaping a direct control.

Historically, Lower and Upper Louisiana really took a demographical expension with refugees from the Haitian revolution (for Lower Louisiana) and especially the american expension westwards. Before this, it's a big empty space with some villages (Mobile and Baton Rouge didn't managed to gather one thousand inhabitants, even adding their populations) and whom half of the colonial inhabitants were enslaved.

I agree, ITL, the early population [1783-1815] consists of almost entirely refugees from former French locations or Former French Caribbean Colonies which joined in the Revolution. I doubt if even 1% of the nations 1815 population lived there before 1783

 

[Clandango]

Essentially, one : Lower Louisiana. The region was significantly underpopulated, no matter how hard it was attempted (half-assed attempts, I agree),and the whole colony in the 1760 barely held to 6,000 inhabitants (Lower and Upper Louisiana merged) with a bit less than half of it being gathered in New Orleans and the reminder mostly in Lower Louisiana.

Eventually, Louisiana wasn't a colony in the sense the Thirteen Colonies were, or even Canada, but rather a sphere of influence built on garrisons, tiny settlements there and there, and New Orleans with 3/4 of the region escaping a direct control.

Historically, Lower and Upper Louisiana really took a demographical expension with refugees from the Haitian revolution (for Lower Louisiana) and especially the american expension westwards. Before this, it's a big empty space with some villages (Mobile and Baton Rouge didn't managed to gather one thousand inhabitants, even adding their populations) and whom half of the colonial inhabitants were enslaved.

I would say that they would manage to get statehood for a portion of the South. Just so long as enough Americans have also settled there. It makes me wonder a bit about the offer to buy the area by the Americans. Ten million for the District of Orleans (or just the city, not sure) with Napoleon coming back with an offer of fifteen million for the lot. Of course without the mouth of the river it is about impossible to get tot he rest of the region and without Haiti, there was no need to have the land to feed the slaves with. Anyone know if the original offer of ten included the several million in damages from constant French piracy, or did that come in with the second offer? And looking it up, seems that it was 68 million francs back then (more impressive sounding than fifteen million dollars), paid in gold, and worth a quarter of a billion today. Certainly a high payment to give someone who has no hope of holding land and legally could not sell it. Wonder if the Southern Planters come to think of Frenchmen as weak for not being able to control their slaves. Or just avoid them so as to not let their own slaves learn about the success of revolt.

 

[sloreck]

The slave situation in Haiti was quite different than in the US south. Only is South Carolina was the percentage of the enslaved population as large or slightly larger than the free, while in Haiti something like 90% of the population was slave. In the US south, especially early on, the ability to get help from the government as a whole in case of something like the Haiti rebellion was much better than getting help from France across the ocean (sail power). OTL when the French government did send troops to suppress the rebellion, something like 80+% of them died from yellow fever.

 

[damein fisher]

The slave situation in Haiti was quite different than in the US south. Only is South Carolina was the percentage of the enslaved population as large or slightly larger than the free, while in Haiti something like 90% of the population was slave. In the US south, especially early on, the ability to get help from the government as a whole in case of something like the Haiti rebellion was much better than getting help from France across the ocean (sail power). OTL when the French government did send troops to suppress the rebellion, something like 80+% of them died from yellow fever.

My thoughts for a Louisiane Haiti was that the prior to the revolution, slavery is abolished [due to a higher income of settlers ITL] and the La Louisiane Government offers to annex the island and abolish slavery, even give the slaves land [though they would need to join the military to get that land]

 

[LSCatilina]

My thoughts for a Louisiane Haiti was that the prior to the revolution, slavery is abolished [due to a higher income of settlers ITL]

That seems a bit far-fetched : the very large scale slavery-fueled plantation of Haiti was state-supported, because cash-crops such as sugar (but as well tobocco and cofee, as well a bit of coton) was the only thing that prevented french trade balance to go completly fucked up (while IOTL, you didn't have as much of a balance than dependency on eastern Europe markers for trade income which certainly didn't balanced much the rest).

The whole point of Antilles in the XVIIIth (on which I would include Lower Louisiane) were to be plantation islands, no matter harsh or insanely overblown slavery was.

and the La Louisiane Government offers to annex the island and abolish slavery, even give the slaves land [though they would need to join the military to get that land]

Socially and culturally, it would comparatively make more sense to have CSA abolishing slavery during the Civil War than this to happen : the prime reason for Louisiana to go away would be if France attempted to abolish slavery or was seen as close to do so (which is what happened with French Carribean islands IOTL, with British occupation following).

 

[LSCatilina]

I realized, @damein fisher, that you maybe meant an higher income of settlers ITTL in Louisiana, not Haiti. My bad if it's the case, sorry for the confusion.
That said, I wonder who these settlers might be. See, France began (and achieved) its demographical transition earlier than some other places in Europe, since the XVIIth century, which wasn't accompanied by a demographical boom (natality and mortality lines falling in the same time) essentially because of quasi-malthusian practices and contraception.

Meaning you simply didn't have a demographical pressure and incitative to oversea settlements. Not only this, New France had "a reputation". I stress this, but you had little interest settling in Americas from French people and the settlement movement represented 0,015% of inner migrations in the XVIIth century went to New France.

It's not much.

Louisiana was even worse on this regard, and they even forced people (vagrants, beggars, smugglers, prostitutes, etc.) to settle there until they realized it was moronic and unefficient as it made the region even less attractive.
Simply said : how can you make the god-forgotten, mosquto-ridden, muddy black hole that was Louisiana, as for the french population and elites were concerned, attractive to colonization? Apart from a continental, more metissed, Haiti of course.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

I agree, ITL, the early population [1783-1815] consists of almost entirely refugees from former French locations or Former French Caribbean Colonies which joined in the Revolution. I doubt if even 1% of the nations 1815 population lived there before 1783

I'm not sure on this point. It seems unlikely that less than 1%. There were Spanish nobility in the city long before Louisiana joined the US. Further, if there was such a tiny insignificant population in NO, why did the Spanish decide to build a large cathedral (later basilica) in the city( Basilique de Roi Louis XIV/Basilica of King Louis XIV/Basílica de Rey Luis XIV)? The massive growth of the city had a base that was not only créoles from Saint-Domingue. But a fair population in NO from Spain, France, Canada and Africa.

Your assertion would be correct if we extrapolate the entire Haute Louisiane into the Basse Louisiane. This to me is incorrect terms. The only actual colony of Louisiana/Louisiane/Luisiana was the lower section, everything North, was regarded by the Spanish as Illinois and outside their direct power. It was even less power with the French dominion as Charles Gayyaré enumerates in comparisons of the periods. He himself was of Spanish noble descent. Even by the 1790s, Spanish rule in the colony had began to make turns for the better with the beginnings of Louisiana's sugar potential in plantations in areas such as Vacherie.

A small note, much of that refugee population where actually not necessarily francohones to begin with. Many were from Cuba, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, etc... Not to mention what I have already written, that large portions of people's existed in the city and surrounding areas directly from France, Spain, Ireland, Alcase-Lorraine (German speakers) and from other odd areas. Yes the majority came from Saint-Domingue, but it is not totally correct.

@LSCatilina

This is an area we have a disagreement in as you know. Your view and others of similar opinion, see Louisiana as bleak and unfit. This comes from a totalising French view of Louisiana as oppossed to a Spanish view, which revolutionized the colony completely with integration of Spanish nobility and sugar cane. The French of course saw Louisiana as inhospitable as it was it required a plan of colonization that demanded more attention and approaches than did Canada. Louisiana from my travels is much more like say Venezuela than it is like Haiti or Canada. The reason that I say this, is that Louisiana has a very particular environment that is unlike Haiti which is far more mild and is also more conducive for growing coffee than it is sugar (my opinion).

I have also argued elsewhere, that Louisiana is in my personal opinion the most pristine and affective in the Gulf-Caribbean sea for the agriculture of sugar cane. Even today, with a lower land use and number of laborers, Louisiana outproduces all the former sugar powerhouses of the Caribbean region, including Cuba and Hispaniola. This mind you is not in terms of finished product, but in terms of raw sugar cane, whose production methods are not radically different by nation.

I though do agree, the only possible colony is lower Louisiana that can take advantage of its position on the Mississippi and of its sugar cane potential.

One last point for you though @LSCatilina , while it may seem quite astonishing that Baton Rouge was so small in this period, it shouldn't come at too large a surprise. NO was clearly developing (until the late XIX and XX) as a Buenos Aires esque primate city. Even at the beginnings of the Civil War, NO held perhaps more than 50% of the state's population (800k~). You will in turn say is due to the power of the US on it, which I cannot dispute, but the same demographics would occur regardless in terms of NO being a true primate city in the region as it was for most of its three centuries of existence.

Also a quick point, all the schools within NO in 1861 except one was devoted to a curriculum in French. Which would be odd if the entire population of the city was immigrants from other US states as some may contend.

 

[Revachah]

Encourage all free middle and upper class mixed race people who are Catholic similar rights to Whites and you will basically be flooded with the best and brightest of the Americas, Asia and Africa.

 

[LSCatilina]

This is an area we have a disagreement in as you know. Your view and others of similar opinion, see Louisiana as bleak and unfit.

This is how it was seen during this period, and it does matters when we mention more settlers. Either you turn Louisiana as sort of Australia equivalent as it was attempted (and the problems it brings) or at the very least you try to change this perception. There's no much going around it.

You will in turn say is due to the power of the US on it, which I cannot dispute, but the same demographics would occur regardless in terms of NO being a true primate city in the region as it was for most of its three centuries of existence

I really disagree there : New Orleans was a fairly small city without an hinterland up to the XIXth. While it harboured refugees, it was mostly contingential to the Haitian revolution (something quite butterfliable with a 1770's PoD), arguably with other origins as well, and it provided little to no incitative about actual settlement for most of the XVIIIth century, while the colony was seen as an eventual cash cow without any real effort to turn it as such (arguably, the sheer cost doing so, when it was far easier to capitalize on Antilles...)

Americans, on the other hand, already began a more or less spontanous structuration of the territory after the independence, and had a real strategical but as well political interest on Mississipi which was ten times the economical artera it ever was for New France (if anything, you had a real rupture between Lower and Upper Louisiana). Louisiana without Canada offers little interest for France : at best it turns into a continental Haiti, at worst it's taken over by force which would be a walk in the park.

Strategical position isn't everything (or Gibraltar would be one of the main cities of Europe) : there's as well the economical and political background, and let's face it XVIIIth France couldn't give a damn about Louisiana except for embarassing fizzled projects (turning it into a quasi-penal colony, or the Mississipi Bubble) and since 1713, it was increasingly dependent on Spanish good will. French Louisiana is a textbook exemple of a badly tought, planned and structurated colony, and it comes back to its establishment and frankly, it's almost surprising it wasn't lost in the late XVIIth century, maybe it would have allowed to relocate more seriously colonial ressources.

It was probably salvagable even in the XVIIIth, but it would ask for a perillous policy : such as definitely tying western Florida to Louisiana, admitting that Upper Louisiana in this context was a loss of everyone's time and ressources, and making it a de facto a Franco-American condominium hoping really hard iait wouldn't turn into an earlier Texas. Not litterally impossible : just very, very hard to enact from afar.

Also a quick point, all the schools within NO in 1861 except one was devoted to a curriculum in French. Which would be odd if the entire population of the city was immigrants from other US states as some may contend.

The IOTL situation isn't that relevent : the first immigration worth of notice was directly and indirectly due to French Revolution, in an essentially tripartite repartition (1/3 White, 1/3 Metis, 1/3 Black). Even from there, it as enough to provide with a strong identitarian feeling among the "old families", so to speak, which is the tree hiding the forest : between 1810 and 1860, with a demographical explosion, the massive part of the city was made of German and Irish migrants (that, arguably, tied themselves with the old inhabitants).

 

[LSCatilina]

Encourage all free middle and upper class mixed race people who are Catholic similar rights to Whites and you will basically be flooded with the best and brightest of the Americas, Asia and Africa.

I'm not sure how a region that was a, less successful, mainland Haiti would pull this to be honest. We were rather, in the XVIIIth century, in a tendency where interracial marriages passed from frowned upon to illegal, while the remote power of the state is essentially transmitted trough planters and white slaveowners.
A successul Louisiana, at least if you ask Versailles, is a Louisiana which is firmly tied to the (relatively) successful mercantilist model and its colonial apogee between the 1760's and the 1780's.

You could have, arguably, a Louisiana specializing itself in the significantly less servile-based (I mean, demographically) cultures of tobacco or coton; and therefore giving more room to subsistance production.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

This is how it was seen during this period, and it does matters when we mention more settlers. Either you turn Louisiana as sort of Australia equivalent as it was attempted (and the problems it brings) or at the very least you try to change this perception. There's no much going around it.


I really disagree there : New Orleans was a fairly small city without an hinterland up to the XIXth. While it harboured refugees, it was mostly contingential to the Haitian revolution (something quite butterfliable with a 1770's PoD), arguably with other origins as well, and it provided little to no incitative about actual settlement for most of the XVIIIth century, while the colony was seen as an eventual cash cow without any real effort to turn it as such (arguably, the sheer cost doing so, when it was far easier to capitalize on Antilles...)

Americans, on the other hand, already began a more or less spontanous structuration of the territory after the independence, and had a real strategical but as well political interest on Mississipi which was ten times the economical artera it ever was for New France (if anything, you had a real rupture between Lower and Upper Louisiana). Louisiana without Canada offers little interest for France : at best it turns into a continental Haiti, at worst it's taken over by force which would be a walk in the park.

Strategical position isn't everything (or Gibraltar would be one of the main cities of Europe) : there's as well the economical and political background, and let's face it XVIIIth France couldn't give a damn about Louisiana except for embarassing fizzled projects (turning it into a quasi-penal colony, or the Mississipi Bubble) and since 1713, it was increasingly dependent on Spanish good will. French Louisiana is a textbook exemple of a badly tought, planned and structurated colony, and it comes back to its establishment and frankly, it's almost surprising it wasn't lost in the late XVIIth century, maybe it would have allowed to relocate more seriously colonial ressources.

It was probably salvagable even in the XVIIIth, but it would ask for a perillous policy : such as definitely tying western Florida to Louisiana, admitting that Upper Louisiana in this context was a loss of everyone's time and ressources, and making it a de facto a Franco-American condominium hoping really hard iait wouldn't turn into an earlier Texas. Not litterally impossible : just very, very hard to enact from afar.


The IOTL situation isn't that relevent : the first immigration worth of notice was directly and indirectly due to French Revolution, in an essentially tripartite repartition (1/3 White, 1/3 Metis, 1/3 Black). Even from there, it as enough to provide with a strong identitarian feeling among the "old families", so to speak, which is the tree hiding the forest : between 1810 and 1860, with a demographical explosion, the massive part of the city was made of German and Irish migrants (that, arguably, tied themselves with the old inhabitants).

I forgot that the poster dictates that it must be French. Personally, I find it far more tenable for Spain to keep Louisiana than France, but this is my opinion. France had no idea of how to deal with Louisiana.

It makes far more sense for a city at the mouth of the Mississippi to reach a massive size than Gibraltar, that is quite a strawman in my opinion. I do agree though, that strategic positioning isn't everything, but it is something and cannot be waved away.

I also disagree that it would look like Haiti, I think more along the lines of the Dominican Republic. Haiti is very unique due to its history and I doubt a similar slave insurrection would occur in Louisiana. In another thread, I argued this point on it becoming simply a playground for investment and dependent upon the US, but otherwise independent.

Regardless, it is too early to warrant a serious response.

 

[Revachah]

I'm not sure how a region that was a, less successful, mainland Haiti would pull this to be honest. We were rather, in the XVIIIth century, in a tendency where interracial marriages passed from frowned upon to illegal, while the remote power of the state is essentially transmitted through planters and white slaveowners.

The Louisiana Code Noir of 1724 differed from the Saint Domingue Code Noir of 1685 in several important ways. First, the Saint Domingue laws prohibited concubinage (living together out of wedlock) but permitted interracial marriages between blacks and whites baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, while the Louisiana laws prohibited such marriages. Second, it was possible for masters of Saint Domingue to manumit their slaves at their own discretion, while masters of Louisiana required the approval of the Superior Council. The Louisiana code also included more restrictive measures aimed at regulating the lives of free blacks and preventing the organization of maroon communities composed of runaway slaves.

Alter OTL in such away to butterfly the Vincent Ogé Revolt.

France ignores the Petit Blancs, key Grand Blancs support their sons and support the GdCl assimilation.

Create a Code Noir of Louisiana that maintains an clear yet distinct anti-black stance but maintains support of mixed race people who are perceived as a distinct class of people.

Or just have France sell Louisiana to Spain earlier.

There is a precedent OTL in the Adams Onis treaty with Spain and the US guaranteeing the rights of ancienne populations that held over in the Jim Crow South allowing for a distinct Middle tier for the Alabama Creole population (not mixed people who came later).

This of course even ignores the legality and practice of black and brown men marrying white women up until the Civil War who were not Creoles of Color in American Alabama.

A successful Louisiana, at least if you ask Versailles, is a Louisiana which is firmly tied to the (relatively) successful mercantilist model and its colonial apogee between the 1760's and the 1780's.

You could have, arguably, a Louisiana specializing itself in the significantly less servile-based (I mean, demographically) cultures of tobacco or coton; and therefore giving more room to subsistance production.

Have a ATL Norbert Rillieux occur earlier that industrializes and alters the agrarian society and use him to sponsor a bill to introduce European educated elites to immigrate.

 

[Revachah]

I forgot that the poster dictates that it must be French. Personally, I find it far more tenable for Spain to keep Louisiana than France, but this is my opinion. France had no idea of how to deal with Louisiana.

It makes far more sense for a city at the mouth of the Mississippi to reach a massive size than Gibraltar, that is quite a strawman in my opinion. I do agree though, that strategic positioning isn't everything, but it is something and cannot be waved away.

I also disagree that it would look like Haiti, I think more along the lines of the Dominican Republic. Haiti is very unique due to its history and I doubt a similar slave insurrection would occur in Louisiana. In another thread, I argued this point on it becoming simply a playground for investment and dependent upon the US, but otherwise independent.

Regardless, it is too early to warrant a serious response.

Beat me too it

 

[rfmcdonald]

The major problem is that, outside of lower Louisiana around New Orleans and points west, there was vanishingly little French settlement. I might imagine that the French settlements on the lower Missouri had the potential to become a separate colony given sufficient growth, for instance, but that growth was just profoundly lacking in the French era. Louisiana was almost a terra nullius insofar as French colonial potential goes.