What if France opened up (parts of) its North American colonies to protestants.

What would be the effects on French colonisation in the USA and Canada if Louis XIII or XIV allowed protestants to settle in g.e. Acadia, or allowed protestants to settle in specific areas?

Would French protestant still move to the protestant nations of Europe like Prussia and the Netherlands or would most move to the colonies instead?
How would this affect the relations between the French and the natives?
Would this have a notable effect on the French's ability to defend Canada?
etc.
 
It does not seem plausible to me that a France that is a Catholic absolutist monarchy would encourage a religious minority strongly suspected of disloyalty to populate its overseas colonies in anything but the most disadvantageous circumstances. Did Spain send the Sephardim to the New World? Were Irish Catholics recruited by English colonizers?
 
Protestant settlers were allowed in the beginning, and in fact, the first settlement in Acadia (Port Royal) was founded by them. They were forbidden in 1627 by Richelieu during the founding of the Compagnie des Cents-Associés. This occurred during the context of the rebellion against the crown going on at that time. There were, unofficially, some Protestants in New France after that, but not many.

French history post-1610 needs to go differently for the government to not view them as a potential threat.
 
It does not seem plausible to me that a France that is a Catholic absolutist monarchy would encourage a religious minority strongly suspected of disloyalty to populate its overseas colonies in anything but the most disadvantageous circumstances. Did Spain send the Sephardim to the New World? Were Irish Catholics recruited by English colonisers?

You're on an alternate history website, is it that hard to imagine that g.e. Acadia could've been a colony with religious freedom, especially during the late reign of Henry IV? The Edict of Nantes was made in 1598 and wasn't annulled until 1685, that's an entire century that France had relative peace with its protestants. Furthermore I didn't say allowing them to colonise wherever they want, I said opening up specific colonies or sections of colonies where they could practice their religion freely. And the perceived Protestant threat wouldn't really be a treat anymore when most protestants are out in a corner of the world making settlements in what's now New Brunswick, in any case it'd be preferable to those protestants fleeing to France's enemies like the Netherlands and England. Furthermore countries didn't usually "send" people to the colonies (except for g.e. penal colonies) and Spain expulsed the Sephardi Jews prior to the discovery of the Americas and Irish Catholics did actually play a role in English colonisation since Maryland was a colony set up for Catholics and the Catholic Irish colonised the Caribbean island of Montserrat (that's just 2 examples I'm aware of, there probably are more).

Actually let's make another "what if", what if France had a penal colony for rebellious protestants somewhere in North America?

Protestant settlers were allowed in the beginning, and in fact, the first settlement in Acadia (Port Royal) was founded by them. They were forbidden in 1627 by Richelieu during the founding of the Compagnie des Cents-Associés. This occurred during the context of the rebellion against the crown going on at that time. There were, unofficially, some Protestants in New France after that, but not many.

French history post-1610 needs to go differently for the government to not view them as a potential threat.

So we make a POD where there are no more (major) protestant rebellions after the Edict?
 
Protestant rebellions in the colonies most likely.Given how heavily armed settlers need to be,there's not much doubt that France will either have to be super tolerant to these groups or they will rebel.
It does not seem plausible to me that a France that is a Catholic absolutist monarchy would encourage a religious minority strongly suspected of disloyalty to populate its overseas colonies in anything but the most disadvantageous circumstances. Did Spain send the Sephardim to the New World? Were Irish Catholics recruited by English colonizers?
Irish Catholic rebels were sent to Australia as convicts.Although I don't think our settlers here were ever as heavily armed and militarized as the American settlers as the colonies in Australia were never really under as much threat as the North American colonies.
 
You're on an alternate history website, is it that hard to imagine that g.e. Acadia could've been a colony with religious freedom, especially during the late reign of Henry IV? The Edict of Nantes was made in 1598 and wasn't annulled until 1685, that's an entire century that France had relative peace with its protestants.

During the 1620s--roughly the time that New France's colonies were being created for the first time--Huguenots in France were rebelling against the French Crown with foreign support.

It's possible to imagine things going differently if religion was a relative non-issue in France, but any timeline where religion is still an issue is

Furthermore I didn't say allowing them to colonise wherever they want, I said opening up specific colonies or sections of colonies where they could practice their religion freely. And the perceived Protestant threat wouldn't really be a treat anymore when most protestants are out in a corner of the world making settlements in what's now New Brunswick, in any case it'd be preferable to those protestants fleeing to France's enemies like the Netherlands and England.

Why would France go to the great expense of sending religious minorities with a demonstrated record of disloyalty to settle distant territories that it arguably could control only with the help of these populations?

Furthermore countries didn't usually "send" people to the colonies (except for g.e. penal colonies) and Spain expulsed the Sephardi Jews prior to the discovery of the Americas and Irish Catholics did actually play a role in English colonisation since Maryland was a colony set up for Catholics and the Catholic Irish colonised the Caribbean island of Montserrat (that's just 2 examples I'm aware of, there probably are more).

What happened to Catholic Maryland? What happened to Irish Montserrat?
 
Acadie was settled originally in 1604 but abandoned in 1611 after Henri IV's assassination. Just cancel the assassination. Reveillac gets sick or slips; Henri IV survives and invades the Netherlands. There is a larger Huguenot population as well as a Catholic Dutch and Flemish population. The towns would be settled there with a strong middle class originally, as well as traditional feudal estates.

In subsequent reigns, the Catholic population would probably blot out the Protestant population and the end result would simply be a more populous Acadie and Quebec.

This would mean that the western route to China would also be sought earlier, as well as settlement of the Great Lakes. From here, Illinois and Ohio would likely also have been settled earlier, and then the rest of what was OTL Louisiane.

This is an interesting timeline that I think deserves to be done. Very plausible.
 
@rfmcdonald
Colonisation of Acadia started in 1604, not the 1620s, furthermore I already said that the POD was that after the Edict of Nantes there were no more Huguenot rebellions which resulted in greater tolerance of them in France (what Beausoleil was also a valid POD).

Countries didn't send people to colonies, and name one reason why having a small protestant colony would be worse than having thousands of protestants move the Prussia and England (France's big rivals) instead.

Nothing of major importance happened in either Maryland or Montserrat. Maryland had some turbulence but no religious persecution or anything. The British themselves in particular tried to enforce religious tolerance in the colony, protestant settlers in the area had other ideas.
 
I could see an effort to send protestants in areas ALREADY settled by catholics (like Canada)
In a way which is "we get rid of the undesirables (in France) and send them in an area far away were they could still be kept in check by the already settled colonists, in a place where we have already a considerable missionary effort".
Plus Canada was not seen like a very important place by the crown.
 
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