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Not the first time this has been considered, but apparently the British and French were poking around the area at almost the same time.

In 1698 a one Daniel Coxe gained a patent for the Mississippi Valley to settle a colony there, a 'Province of Carolana'. He set a group of colonists over to the mouth of the Mississippi under one William Banks/Bond but this captain was turned back by Louisiana's founder, Iberville, who successfully bluffed that a large French fleet was already in the area. The point where this happened and Banks/Bond turned back is known as English Turn and a part of New Orleans today.

What if Coxe and Banks/Bond called Iberville's bluff and settled anyways? Not even Biloxi has yet to be settled, nor Port Bayou St. Jean in the New Orleans to-be limits, and so the Europeans in the area would be overwhelmingly English. France's claim to the area would be contended but have to eventually be dropped.

So, adapting off the above, what if Iberville and his whole expedition get delayed, and the English get established first at the mouth of the Mississippi and survive while excluding the French from what became OTL Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Mobile, Biloxi, etc.?

This ends up establishing a British Gulf Coast colony, probably called "Carolana", that is a couple decades younger than Pennsylvania and Carolina on the east coast, but several decades older than Georgia.

What would the culture of the colony be like?


What would the process of competing with France be like?

Would Carolana-based colonists expand any more or less to the east, north or west (for example, east to the Appalachicola river where the Florida panhandle and peninsula meet, east to Texas & Rio Grande) than the French?

Would English presence on the Gulf, if more populous extensive than the French, stimulate earlier Spanish counteraction in Texas, Florida, northern Mexico?

Would Carolana join a continental congress and independence movement if the Atlantic colonies start one?

If so, how does having the Gulf Coast settled and additional southern colonies, in comparison to the whole set of English American colonies, change development of British North America or an independent Anglo-America?

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