WI France held Acadia through 1757?

raharris1973

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what if France did not lose Acadia in the war of Spanish succession and peace of Utrecht? Nor in the subsequent war of Austrian succession and peace of Aachen ?

If it ultimately is conquered by Britain only at the same time as Quebec might there be no expulsion and a persistent francophone majority in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick?

What would this do to the future history of North America?
 
The expulsion of the Acadians occurred only as a result of a very confused situation in the Maritimes, with France and Britain actively contending for control of the region and Acadians scattered on both sides of this frontier. The subsequent ethnic cleansing in the Seven Years War was probably expected.

If Acadia had been united under France, the colony then falling to Britain in 1757, then I don't expect that there would have been an ethnic cleansing. What would have been the point in deporting a population that, from the British perspective, had not demonstrated its lack of loyalty to Britain over the previous forty-odd years? I suppose there's the possibility of acquiring lebensraum on the fertile drained lands of the Bay of Fundy, but the New England Planters' migration to the old Acadian lands was a consequence of their previous inhabitants' expulsion, not a cause.

Assuming that New France falls, I'd think it quite likely that the colonies of Acadia and Canada would share similar fate, with Britain extending religious toleration to the colonies' French Catholic majorities and allowing a certain restoration of the older political and economic orders under British rule. One complicating factor that I could see would be the relative attractiveness of Acadia to settlers from New England and elsewhere. The Bay of Fundy area would remain the centre of Acadian civilization, but the rest of Acadia would be largely unsettled. It would be open to settlement, being much more accessible than (say) the future Ontario. What sort of arrangement will apply here?
 
The expulsion of the Acadians occurred only as a result of a very confused situation in the Maritimes, with France and Britain actively contending for control of the region and Acadians scattered on both sides of this frontier. The subsequent ethnic cleansing in the Seven Years War was probably expected.

If Acadia had been united under France, the colony then falling to Britain in 1757, then I don't expect that there would have been an ethnic cleansing. What would have been the point in deporting a population that, from the British perspective, had not demonstrated its lack of loyalty to Britain over the previous forty-odd years? I suppose there's the possibility of acquiring lebensraum on the fertile drained lands of the Bay of Fundy, but the New England Planters' migration to the old Acadian lands was a consequence of their previous inhabitants' expulsion, not a cause.

Assuming that New France falls, I'd think it quite likely that the colonies of Acadia and Canada would share similar fate, with Britain extending religious toleration to the colonies' French Catholic majorities and allowing a certain restoration of the older political and economic orders under British rule. One complicating factor that I could see would be the relative attractiveness of Acadia to settlers from New England and elsewhere. The Bay of Fundy area would remain the centre of Acadian civilization, but the rest of Acadia would be largely unsettled. It would be open to settlement, being much more accessible than (say) the future Ontario. What sort of arrangement will apply here?

I'm not an expert on the region at all, but is it possible that you could see an anglophone coast with a francophone interior?
 
I think it entirely possible. (I'm from there.)

If we're presuming continued French rule of Acadia without any substantial interruptions, mind, the whole geography of colonial Acadia would be different. We might well have seen more and more sustained French settlement outside of the Bay of Fundy area, for instance.
 
Below is a good map showing the size of the French and British settler populations in Acadia and Nova Scotia around 1750.

Acadia-1750.jpg
 
Do you know how pleased I am they correctly identified Ile-Royal as separate from Acadia in terms of culture and settlement? :D

French Newfies shall live on, in memory!
 
Indeed. The problem with this map is that it is nearly five decades after the POD that leaves Acadia French. I honestly have no idea about the historical interest of France in the Atlantic coast of Acadia. Would we have seen settlement of Ile-Royale if that specific coastline had been unavailable, for instance? Perhaps *Louisbourg would be a French harbour in Halifax.
 
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If they attempted the major Duc D'anville Expedition in the 1740s, I'd imagine they had serious interest in recovering it - not to mention Acadia was traditionally considered a prosperous colony for its inhabitants. The shift from letting North America go to hang mostly seems to be because Louis XV hadn't had the mind for colonies his predecessors had, considering even Louis XIV claimed and colonized Louisiana despite his famed attempts to dominate Europe and French colonization efforts before that (however hamstrung they would usually end up being).
 

raharris1973

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If we're presuming continued French rule of Acadia without any substantial interruptions, mind, the whole geography of colonial Acadia would be different. We might well have seen more and more sustained French settlement outside of the Bay of Fundy area, for instance.

See this is the more divergent, and in that regard, more interesting scenario.

The British could still take all this over by the mid-18th century, but the area would be much more Francophone.

Would Nova Scotia even be considered the logical new land of settlement for fleeing loyalists? Or would it be seen as inviting more trouble than it was worth?

Great map by the way!
 
See this is the more divergent, and in that regard, more interesting scenario.

The British could still take all this over by the mid-18th century, but the area would be much more Francophone.

Would Nova Scotia even be considered the logical new land of settlement for fleeing loyalists? Or would it be seen as inviting more trouble than it was worth?

That settlement was only possible because the Acadians had been displaced from the most attractive lands in the area, the drained marshes converted into farmlands along the Bay of Fundy. The New England Planters had been settled on those lands, and the main Loyalist concentration seems to have been on the Saint John River that drains into the Bay of Fundy.

https://slmc.uottawa.ca/?q=arrival_loyalists

If the Bay of Fundy and adjacent areas remain densely populated by Francophone Catholics, then Loyalists may end up having to be settled elsewhere. Elsewhere in Nova Scotia seems more plausible to me than not.
 
It's worth noting that parts of Lower Canada ended up being settled first by Anglophone migrants. The Eastern Townships of southeastern Québec were initially settled by Loyalists--the "Townships" of the placename refers to the way landholding was structured in this area, as distinct from the seigneurial system of the St. Lawrence valley. Eventually later Francophone migrants from the St. Lawrence valley came and Francized the area.
 
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