With a POD of 1776, can American culture heavily diverge from English culture.

It still all seems odd that Nouvelle Orléans was larger than both the major cities in Québec. While I may have been mistaken in the claim that Louisiane was larger, I was more speaking of NO being larger and more important than the major cities of Québec in the mid to late 1800s.

Well, the population of the United States as a whole was much larger than that of Canada. And New Orleans is at the mouth of the Mississippi, so essentially all goods imported to or exported from the regions west of the Appalachians would pass through it. It's an extremely strategic location.

Québec and Montréal also occupy key shipping locations, but at that time the population of the lands further beyond (in the Great Lakes region) was very small, so there wasn't all that much shipment coming from there. When that region became more settled, commerce on the St. Lawrence soared and Montréal/Québec became much larger cities.

I was under the impression that a large portio of French migrants went to Québec. I seem to have received false information. Either way, to say Québec was more uniformly francophone than Louisane in early 1800s is definitely not true. It simply was in competition with a far larger and stronger opposing non francophone culture. This can be seen in the adoption of French by the various Indian tribes in southern Louisiana (which still in some cases speak French).

I don't disagree with that. I was focusing on the actual population numbers.
 
Well, the population of the United States as a whole was much larger than that of Canada. And New Orleans is at the mouth of the Mississippi, so essentially all goods imported to or exported from the regions west of the Appalachians would pass through it. It's an extremely strategic location.

Québec and Montréal also occupy key shipping locations, but at that time the population of the lands further beyond (in the Great Lakes region) was very small, so there wasn't all that much shipment coming from there. When that region became more settled, commerce on the St. Lawrence soared and Montréal/Québec became much larger cities.



I don't disagree with that. I was focusing on the actual population numbers.


Fair enough, regardless, the entire size of Nouvelle France in the US would be quite a lot in the 1700s, and I would say that both Québec and especially francophone Louisiane benefits from this scenario. It is possible in this situation that NO does not decline as it did in otl, which has huge butterfly's for the rest of the US. I can imagine the goods from the far north in Québec to make its way back NO and vice versa the cotton boom in Mississippi reaches up to the far north through Detroit.
 
Americans just consider colonial architecture to be colonial architecture.

Exactly, a former colony will always be intrinsically connected to the metropolis to some extent. There's no Spanish, French, English or Portuguese cultures in the Americas, the new-born nation-states, created by the colonial elite, identified themselves with the culture of their colonial master. A completely different situation was seem during Asia-Africa decolonization, where the natives expelled the colonials eventually tried (and failed) to get rid off their cultural influence. Settler colonies, on the other hand, simply couldn't (unless you have a genocidal war against the ruling élite à la Haiti).
 
The English, later British colonies in North America, particularly those North of what would become the Mason-Dixon line were very different from anything existing in Spanish or Portuguese America. New England for instance was almost entirely composed of English settlers and their descendants, with small numbers of Scots and Irish in Maine and New Hampshire. As a result of the indigenous population had been reduced to a tiny minority, New England was far more ethnically homogeneous than anywhere in Latin America, and could be said to resemble a more simplified version of England. Consisting of largely yeomanry and craftsmen, where around 90% of males were literate, the settlers were largely indistinguishable from their peers in England. As a result, the settlers there looked to England, particularly to London, adopting its mannerisms, art and architecture along with philosophy long after independence. New England, for a long while was the cultural hub of the nascent United States, with universities such as Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth and Brown, often borrowing from English institutions. As a result, even American English remained much closer grammatically to dialects spoken in England than say Brazilian Portuguese. American English incorporated fewer than 100 words of indigenous origin and even fewer of African origin than did Brazilian Portuguese. The fact that Britain not only remained a world power, but was the major world power for over a century after the United States gaining independence also led to the elite of America being able to admire Great Britain. This contrasts with Spain and Portugal, which were relegated to minor players on the world stage once they had lost their American colonies.

The further south one got, the closer the British colonies could resembled what can be termed as the resource-extraction colonies that predominated the Caribbean and Latin America, though even here the social cleavages were not as extreme. In the deep south white population remained far higher than that of the majority of Latin America, and much higher than in the West Indies, where whites were usually less than 10% of the population. This is important, not because they were "white" but rather because even the poorest whites of Anglo-America had a chance to escape economic hardship. Though Spanish America and especially Brazil attracted large numbers of European settlers (in some case larger in numbers than English North America), the Europeans remained a minority of the population sitting at the top of the socioeconomic pyramid. South Carolina, which had the largest non-white component with 56% of its population being classified as white in 1790, had an economy that was far less dependent on resource extraction than Peru, Jamaica or Brazil. Contrast this with Peru, where a mere 13% of the population was classified as Spaniard (Creoles and Peninsulares) in 1792, with only 1.5% being Peninsulares. For New Spain around 18% were Creoles and around 1% were Peninsulares. With the exception of Rio de La Plata, Europeans and their descendants were far outnumbered by indigenous people along with smaller numbers of mestizos along with African slaves (particularly in Peru and the Caribbean) along with mulattoes. What developed was a socially and economically stratified society where a tiny elite held most of the wealth and power, and most people had no actual ties to Spain whatsoever.

Likewise in Portuguese America, though there were 1 million people classified as white by the close of the 18th century, however they were outnumbered by the African and Mulatto population which numbered over 2 million. This was particularly true in the Northeast and the mining areas where African slaves performed almost the entirety of the manual labour. Also, though Indians had been largely enslaved or killed, there were mestizos, many of whom intermarried with the European and African population. Coupled with a largely illiterate population, the Brazilian Portuguese incorporated around 2,000 words of Tupi origin, also hundreds of words from various West African dialects, and if one hears Portuguese spoken by Africans in Angola or Cape Verde it does share similarities to that spoken in Brazil, particularly the vernacular (not the formal written language). Spoken Brazilian Portuguese often resembles a creole dialect, often ignoring grammatical rules of European Portuguese, a common trait of creoles spoken in slave societies with low levels of literacy (like African American Vernacular English). The South of Brazil can be called an exception to the rule as it was populated by Portuguese settlers initially, and Europeans became the majority of the population, and this was followed by the arrival of Italian and a smaller number of Germans and other nationalities from Europe. Perhaps because of the absence of having been and economy dominated by plantation agriculture and slavery, the region's income inequality along with its development is much higher than Northeastern Brazil.

Northern North America, along with Australia, Argentina and Uruguay, and New Zealand are really the only settler colonies where by and large Europeans became a majority and were able to replicate the social norms and customs of their motherland. In Latin America, some people still say that if only their countries had been colonised by Britain, France or the Netherlands rather than Spain or Portugal that their societies would have been better developed. This ignores the fact that most of the climate in these regions was largely hostile to developing a European yeomanry as in North America. Also, the ability of the indigenous populations in areas like Peru or Mexico to resist disease means that the British, French or Dutch would have had to resort to mass genocide, or to have treated the inhabitants as equals (something unlikely judging by their track record elsewhere). In areas like Brazil, the Dutch imported far more African slaves than European immigrants during their brief tenure and one only has to look at South Africa to see the results of Dutch and British rule in a resource-rich region where a European settler relies on the labour non-white inhabitants. I would argue that the economic structure along with the social stratification of a colony had more long-term effects on a region than the colonial power.
 
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I have some issues with this post. I'll enumerate some, there are some misconceptions and shallow analyses.

Consisting of largely yeomanry and craftsmen, where around 90% of males were literate, the settlers were largely indistinguishable from their peers in England.

Same can be said about most parts of Spanish America where the encomiendas and slave labor weren't important, except that they were Mestizos. There was a large number of small proprietors and artisans working to supply the demands of the plantation and mining centers. The Spanish Main isn't New England, nor it's the Caribbean.

New England, for a long while was the cultural hub of the nascent United States, with universities such as Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth and Brown, often borrowing from English institutions. As a result, even American English remained much closer grammatically to dialects spoken in England than say Brazilian Portuguese. American English incorporated fewer than 100 words of indigenous origin and even fewer of African origin than did Brazilian Portuguese.

Non sequitur. A handful of universities in Spanish America are older than Harvard and produced some of most important exponents of the Spanish language Barroque, like Sor Juana and Singuenza y Gongora. Stil you have word like tomato, avocado and chocolate in Mexican Spanish.

Coupled with a largely illiterate population, the Brazilian Portuguese incorporated around 2,000 words of Tupi origin, also hundreds of words from various West African dialects

Which kind of vocabulary are you talking about? It's far from scientific to just throw away numbers without analyzing context: We're talking about an exotic nature to Europeans, As a Brazilian, I won't be exagerating when I say that 90% of Tupi names in Brazilian Portuguese are toponymy, fruits, vegetables, natural phenomena, etc. Nature is simply different in the tropics, English settlers in a temperate area didn't need to adopt that many loanwords to talk about their daily life.

if one hears Portuguese spoken by Africans in Angola or Cape Verde it does share similarities to that spoken in Brazil, particularly the vernacular (not the formal written language). Spoken Brazilian Portuguese often resembles a creole dialect, often ignoring grammatical rules of European Portuguese, a common trait of creoles spoken in slave societies with low levels of literacy (like African American Vernacular English).

As a Brazilian, I cannot understand my Cape Verdean friends when they speak Creole or their version of Portuguese (which is based on European Portuguese). You're right when you say that BrP is a decreolized creole, like AAVE and Afrikaans. This is mainly seem in Brazilian syntax. However, phonologically speaking BrP is a dialect closer to 16th/17th century Portuguese than Modern European Portuguese, which has diverged independently, like European French and Québecois.

In Latin America, some people still say that if only their countries had been colonised by Britain, France or the Netherlands rather than Spain or Portugal that their societies would have been better developed. This ignores the fact that most of the climate in these regions was largely hostile to developing a European yeomanry as in North America.

I'm not saying that these people are right, but, "European yeomanry" is far from being a rule. It's more like a British exception. The French Seigneurial System is a proof that Europeans can recreate a exploiting system even in "a few acres of snow". Also, the Latifúndio system was created in the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquista and it's still part of Iberian economy to an extent, particularly in the south.

There's more than demographics in history.
 
Well Argentina was doing as well as Canada until Peron took over, but I don't think that has to do with colonialism. And also it helps that Canada, Australia, and the US were mostly depopulated compared to South Africa, Mexico,etc. I don't know too much about New Zealand ,but it appears to have a large Maori minority. Brazil also had political instability, but I don't think that has a lot to do with colonialism either, but I don't know too much about it. I think that the main reason for why British settlers colonies mostly did well compared to South America is because they didn't have to deal with ethnic clashes, but that could be said of most successful colonies, just look at Uruguay.

In general the Southern come of South America does well. If it weren't for political instability , they would probably be at Canada's and Australia's level.

Uh.....I'm gonna be that guy, and point out that you're playing the same game as people who think you need Anglo-Saxons for prosperous colonies, by pointing at overwhelmingly white colonies, and not really answering anything at all with this statement. Plus, almost all post-colonial states in the Americas were completely dominated by Criollos anyways; skin tone's got all of nothing to do with the development of structural stability in a nation like a respect for democracy as an institution, a diversified economy, etc.

A better question to ask would be why Spain and its associated colonies spent the better part of 150 years from 1700 onwards acting as basket cases obsessed with ultra-conservatism; Spain refused to accept constitutional monarchy and had its Carlist wars, Mexico danced between dictators and a fascination for monarchy for the majority of its first century after independence, etc. It's a chronic pattern in Latin America's history to look to strongmen to 'get things done', at first monarchs, later dictators, and finally today's populists like Chavez. That's probably a better avenue of discussion than wondering pointlessly about skin tones, work ethic, or religion.

And I think you might want to reconsider that statement about less natives = less problems. The US' Native American problems versus say, post-independence Brazil or Peru? You've got it backwards. Latin America had far less problems with their indigenous populations in that period of time that led to America's rise.
 
Uh.....I'm gonna be that guy, and point out that you're playing the same game as people who think you need Anglo-Saxons for prosperous colonies, by pointing at overwhelmingly white colonies, and not really answering anything at all with this statement. Plus, almost all post-colonial states in the Americas were completely dominated by Criollos anyways; skin tone's got all of nothing to do with the development of structural stability in a nation like a respect for democracy as an institution, a diversified economy, etc.

A better question to ask would be why Spain and its associated colonies spent the better part of 150 years from 1700 onwards acting as basket cases obsessed with ultra-conservatism; Spain refused to accept constitutional monarchy and had its Carlist wars, Mexico danced between dictators and a fascination for monarchy for the majority of its first century after independence, etc. It's a chronic pattern in Latin America's history to look to strongmen to 'get things done', at first monarchs, later dictators, and finally today's populists like Chavez. That's probably a better avenue of discussion than wondering pointlessly about skin tones, work ethic, or religion.

And I think you might want to reconsider that statement about less natives = less problems. The US' Native American problems versus say, post-independence Brazil or Peru? You've got it backwards. Latin America had far less problems with their indigenous populations in that period of time that led to America's rise.
Well, people don't say white colonies they usually just say Iberian colonies, and some people say "Europe begins after the Pyrenees" suggesting that Iberia is in Africa. Also Latin America has been frequently messed with by the US, after all Southwest US was Mexico. And the US would support such dictators like Peron ,so they would be at best pro US and at least anti communist during the Cold war. About the natives, the really strong ones can be problem for states trying to assimilate , for better or worse, as the Apache kept destroying settlements in northern Mexico(New Mexico, East Texas) while the Maya had rather impressive guerilla warfare in Yucatan peninsula as they resisted Mexican rule. Can't say I blame them though, be it Mexicans or Americans colonization of your people sucks.
 
I have some issues with this post. I'll enumerate some, there are some misconceptions and shallow analyses.

Same can be said about most parts of Spanish America where the encomiendas and slave labor weren't important, except that they were Mestizos. There was a large number of small proprietors and artisans working to supply the demands of the plantation and mining centers. The Spanish Main isn't New England, nor it's the Caribbean.

Non sequitur. A handful of universities in Spanish America are older than Harvard and produced some of most important exponents of the Spanish language Barroque, like Sor Juana and Singuenza y Gongora. Stil you have word like tomato, avocado and chocolate in Mexican Spanish.


Which kind of vocabulary are you talking about? It's far from scientific to just throw away numbers without analyzing context: We're talking about an exotic nature to Europeans, As a Brazilian, I won't be exagerating when I say that 90% of Tupi names in Brazilian Portuguese are toponymy, fruits, vegetables, natural phenomena, etc. Nature is simply different in the tropics, English settlers in a temperate area didn't need to adopt that many loanwords to talk about their daily life.

As a Brazilian, I cannot understand my Cape Verdean friends when they speak Creole or their version of Portuguese (which is based on European Portuguese). You're right when you say that BrP is a decreolized creole, like AAVE and Afrikaans. This is mainly seem in Brazilian syntax. However, phonologically speaking BrP is a dialect closer to 16th/17th century Portuguese than Modern European Portuguese, which has diverged independently, like European French and Québecois.


I'm not saying that these people are right, but, "European yeomanry" is far from being a rule. It's more like a British exception. The French Seigneurial System is a proof that Europeans can recreate a exploiting system even in "a few acres of snow". Also, the Latifúndio system was created in the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquista and it's still part of Iberian economy to an extent, particularly in the south.

There's more than demographics in history.

I do not attribute everything to demographics, though I do believe coupled with social and economic aspects, that they do play a major role in developing societies.

There were areas in Spanish America that were dominated by mestizos, but even there the culture wasn't nearly identical to Spain in the way that New England at least represented something closer to what I would call a transplanted European society. Perhaps that is why there was more identification with England that perhaps someone from New Spain or New Granada would have with Spain itself.

Also, while there were universities in Spanish America, most of them were controlled by the church and suffered as a result of the suppression of the Jesuits. However, my point was not that Spanish America did not have institutions of higher learning, rather that the cultural hub of Anglo-America happened to remain in what was the most English part of the continent. The OP wanted to know why there was some attachment/identification with Britain, and that was my hypothesis.

And you are saying that the fact that there were few European women in the early days of colonial Brazil meant that European men having children with indigenous women would not have certainly contributed at all to more Tupi words being incorporated into the Brazilian dialect than in American English where cohabitation with Indian woman was much less common? I imagine that the offspring would have at least used some Tupi words in their vernacular.

Of course Brazilian Portuguese is not like Cape Verdean criolo, what I meant was that the African influence on the Brazilian dialect is there (with at least half of the population having African ancestry, it would have to be present). I read an excellent paper about the African influence on Brazilian Portuguese the author did claim that in Brazil, despite the attitudes of being a non-racist country, people often prefer to disregard the African influences on the country, preferring to highlight the contributions of Italian or German immigrants instead. When I hear "tu faz" from parts of Brazil, I cannot help but be reminded of "I is" in African-American vernacular, which is not conforming to standard grammar.

The French seigneurial system was imported from France, just as free-hold agriculture was imported to the English colonies from England. The crux of the matter was that free-hold agriculture was gaining ascendancy in England was transferred to its colonial possessions by English settlers. Such guarantees of rights over land were rarely extended to non-Europeans in the British colonies (at least until much later on), so areas with a English or British majorities embraced this economic system. Even in areas where British settlers were the minority, they embraced this pattern (Kenya, Rhodesia). Perhaps the uniqueness of this system, coupled with English common law could be another reason why by and large Americans could easily identify with British culture in a way that they could not as easily do so with other countries (at least in the 19th century).
 
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I do not attribute everything to demographics, though I do believe coupled with social and economic aspects, that they do play a major role in developing societies.

There were areas in Spanish America that were dominated by mestizos, but even there the culture wasn't nearly identical to Spain in the way that New England at least represented something closer to what I would call a transplanted European society. Perhaps that is why there was more identification with England that perhaps someone from New Spain or New Granada would have with Spain itself.

Things are for more complex than that and, unfortunately, to explain it goes beyond my power of concision (and my English skills). You're simply applying 19th/20th century scientific racism to a 17th/18th century society. A Peninsular feels clearly closer to a Mestizo than a English Anglican and a American Puritan of the 18th century. Also, a Grandee of Spain will eventually identify himself better with a Mestizo with Noble Inca blood than a pure-blooded Spaniard from Spain who is classified as a New Christian (ie. someone who supposably has Jewish or Muslim blood). By the way, Article 1 of Cadiz Constitution clearly states: "La Nación española es la reunión de todos los españoles de ambos hemisferios" - Spaniards from both hemipheres. There was never such a legal statement (nor political will) in England to accept the 13 Colonies like that. To sum it up, ethnicity is important, but not in the way that you put it, this line of thought is somehow anachronic.

And you are saying that the fact that there were few European women in the early days of colonial Brazil meant that European men having children with indigenous women would not have certainly contributed at all to more Tupi words being incorporated into the Brazilian dialect than in American English where cohabitation with Indian woman was much less common? I imagine that the offspring would have at least used some Tupi words in their vernacular.

The church (most specifically, the Jesuits) controlled education and literacy and were fundamental to the standardization of Native Languages, as soon as they were kicked out Tupi started to fade away. That's only relevant to the countryside though, the "urban" coastal areas elite always used Portuguese and the slaves used some kind of African-based creole. A similar example is French in South Africa, the VOC appointed Dutch-speaking Predikants to Huguenot communities in order to make them "turn Dutch".

Also, if miscegenation helped to integrate African vocabulary in BrP, it also helped its absorption into the Standard. The only still living creole in Brazil is a dialect of a small village in the State of Bahia, a former 19th century plantation of Swiss colonists who mainly used African-born slaves. As the masters didn't use Portuguese to speak with their slaves, the locals kept their "broken language" learnt during their stay in the Slave Ports.

Of course Brazilian Portuguese is not like Cape Verdean criolo, what I meant was that the African influence on the Brazilian dialect is there (with at least half of the population having African ancestry, it would have to be present). I read an excellent paper about the African influence on Brazilian Portuguese the author did claim that in Brazil, despite the attitudes of being a non-racist country, people often prefer to disregard the African influences on the country, preferring to highlight the contributions of Italian or German immigrants instead. When I hear "tu faz" from parts of Brazil, I cannot help but be reminded of "I is" in African-American vernacular, which is not conforming to standard grammar.

African influence is far more important in BrP than the indigenous languages and particularly because of racism the standard tried its hardest to drift away from African influences. Today it can mostly be seem in vernacular syntax (i.e. the way people arrange words in a phrase in common speech doesn't necessarily follow the rules of Standard Portuguese - Brazilian or European) and in slang (as it was seem as "bad language" throughout most of our history).

The use of "tu (2nd sing. person) faz (3rd sing. person)" is not a sign of creolization, though. It's a variant of "você (3rd sing. per.) faz (3rd. sing. per.)" - which is the standard in BrP; most Western European languages still use the 3rd person to refer to someone they're talking to (it. "Lei fa", ger. "Sie haben", sp. "Usted sabe", etc.) BrP still maintain most of the verbal irregularities present in its European counterpart, unlike African-based creole languages or even Afrikaans ("Ik is"), which tend to lose all verbal irregularity.
 
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