Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[hipster duck]

In an alternate history, I don't see how there would be a continuous stream of French immigrants to the New World.

Wasn't France one of the demographic anomalies of the 19th century? In 1789 it had 28 million people, and then a century later in the 1880s it had 39 million people.

It wasn't like Britain or the countries that would eventually became Germany, both of which tripled in population in the 19th century.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Weren't the Lachine Rapids sort of the "end of the line" in the early days?

Pretty much. There's a reason the British colonists didn't immediately venture into the Ohio River Valley either. For the individuals on the ground, it doesn't make much sense to pack up and move hundreds of km inland when there is plenty of more low hanging fruit. They're not making national strategic decisions in regards to expanding their monarch's sphere of influence. There's a stable colony along the St. Lawrence with a permanent garrison, access to imported goods from the home country, and unclaimed farmland available for tilling. Why do I go venture into contentious Iroquois territory until the other economic opportunities have expendended themselves?

From the perspective of the crown, they would've needed to have a lot of foresight into how colonial imperialism was going to play out over the next century. In the early days it was about trying to find immediately profitable opportunities that could be exploited for easy gain. in the 18th century this basically meant gold, silver, or sugar. Funding the settlement of Ontario would have been a purely strategic decision that would've been viewed with heavy skepticism at the time.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

What I'm saying is that populations tend to hit a threshold that is supported by geography and economic opportunity, and a French controlled Canada would have hit similar barriers to population growth as occurred in Western Canada

Don't agree, because the reason the Prairies are sparsely populated is because they were colonized late, so the urbanization and falling fertility rates arrived long before they were fully settled (plus as I said yesterday the allocation of large farms to the settlers didn't push them to make extensive use of the farmland).

If the French Canadians had moved westward unhindered they could potentially have developed the prairies earlier than what took place, so more time to grow, plus we don't know how history would have turned out in such an alternate history, perhaps the urbanization and falling fertility rates would have happened later, who knows. French society was more agrarian than English society for longer.

What's certain is the prairies could have easily accommodated 100 million people or more if we use Europe as a comparison. They are currently far, far, far from their maximum potential. Same for the US by the way, it could easily host 1 billion people (just look at China or Europe).

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Maybe I am misunderstanding, but this seems to contradict your previous points.

How so?

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

My original post that started this was in response to the idea that French Canada would far exceed Argentina in population and the prairies could have 100 million people. This would require mega-sized metropolises where non exist today

Germany has 83 million people and doesn't have "mega-sized metropolises". And it's less fertile and with a smaller territory than the prairies to start with.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Would there have been less or more migration of French Canadians to the US had this place been French Canada instead of the Canada we know?

There would have been less migration to the US of course. In fact the migration to the US would have been close to 0, as it was for the Anglo-Canadians. No need to migrate to the US when you can migrate to your own country in southern Ontario and perhaps even Detroit-Chicago-St Louis if these had remained within French Canada.

Originally Posted by Acajack

An interesting twist is that Canadian and American authorities were in agreement (some would say conspired) for French Canadians to move en masse to the NE US, as opposed to the Prairies, back in the day. This is because it was felt that existing industrial cities in the US would favour their assimilation more than the Prairies which were more of a tabula rasa where they were more likely to form their own homogenous communities and maintain their language, religion and customs.

Why didn't the Catholic church established some French Canadian settlements in the Prairies as they did in the Saguenay area or in the Abitibi area? It's not like you guys were legally banned from moving to the Prairies.

Perhaps they were afraid you would lose your "Frenchness" and Catholicism in those western provinces, but if that's the case it was even worse to let millions of French Canadians move to New England, where they were even more likely to lose their Frenchness and Catholicism.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

In an alternate history, I don't see how there would be a continuous stream of French immigrants to the New World.

Wasn't France one of the demographic anomalies of the 19th century? In 1789 it had 28 million people, and then a century later in the 1880s it had 39 million people.

Well there were French migrants to Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. And in any case what we're saying here is the very high fertility rates of the French Canadians were enough to people the rest of Canada.

Also, the reason why not that many Frenchmen migrated is because there wasn't a large Francophone "colonie de peuplement" (colony for White settlers) that could attract them. Algeria was limited in what it could offer. Surely if and when Canada would have been developed enough, more French people would have moved there (as was already starting to be the case in the 1740s and 1750s as I said yesterday). Also, the French Revolution (or other similar upheaval in an alternate history) would probably have sent dozens of thousands of French refugees to that French Canada.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Pretty much. There's a reason the British colonists didn't immediately venture into the Ohio River Valley either. For the individuals on the ground, it doesn't make much sense to pack up and move hundreds of km inland when there is plenty of more low hanging fruit. They're not making national strategic decisions in regards to expanding their monarch's sphere of influence. There's a stable colony along the St. Lawrence with a permanent garrison, access to imported goods from the home country, and unclaimed farmland available for tilling. Why do I go venture into contentious Iroquois territory until the other economic opportunities have expendended themselves?

From the perspective of the crown, they would've needed to have a lot of foresight into how colonial imperialism was going to play out over the next century. In the early days it was about trying to find immediately profitable opportunities that could be exploited for easy gain. in the 18th century this basically meant gold, silver, or sugar. Funding the settlement of Ontario would have been a purely strategic decision that would've been viewed with heavy skepticism at the time.

Nonetheless, it didn't prevent 7,000 French people from living in Upper Canada by the time of the French Conquest, as Biraben says in his paper that I posted yesterday. The Detroit-St Louis area in particular was in full development when the British conquest took place, but unfortunately it happened too late to make a real difference. But give it 50 more years and...

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

How so?

Because the way you were talking it sounded like it would be extremely challenging for either France retaining Canada or “French Canada” as a country, in the post-1760s world. Even if the British conquest of Canada and the American Revolution never happened. You mentioned that the French entity would have had to face constant military challenges to its existence from the 13 Colonies/Britain working together against it, and that France would have its hands full trying to keep them away.

[New Brisavoine]

Yes, and? Don't see the contradiction. Between what and what?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

There would have been less migration to the US of course. In fact the migration to the US would have been close to 0, as it was for the Anglo-Canadians. No need to migrate to the US when you can migrate to your own country in southern Ontario and perhaps even Detroit-Chicago-St Louis if these had remained within French Canada.


Why didn't the Catholic church established some French Canadian settlements in the Prairies as they did in the Saguenay area or in the Abitibi area? It's not like you guys were legally banned from moving to the Prairies.

Perhaps they were afraid you would lose your "Frenchness" and Catholicism in those western provinces, but if that's the case it was even worse to let millions of French Canadians move to New England, where they were even more likely to lose their Frenchness and Catholicism.

They did to some degree. The scattered francophone communities of the west are largely the result of these efforts, but there weren't that many relative to the other groups that were brought in to settle the Prairies, and of course these communities were subjected to fairly strong assimilation measures by the government.

Places like St-Pierre-Joly (MB), Gravelbourg (SK) and (St-Jean-Baptiste-de-)Falher (AB) are the result of these efforts.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Yes, and? Don't see the contradiction. Between what and what?

Vous dites d'une part qu'historiquement l'existence d'une entité géopolitique francophone durable dans l'espace canadien aurait été tout à fait plausible, mais d'autre part qu'elle aurait été attaquée constamment par ses voisins et que sa défense aurait été une entreprise très onéreuse.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Vous dites d'une part qu'historiquement l'existence d'une entité géopolitique francophone durable dans l'espace canadien aurait été tout à fait plausible, mais d'autre part qu'elle aurait été attaquée constamment par ses voisins et que sa défense aurait été une entreprise très onéreuse.

Tu peux me tutoyer.

This isn't contradictory. All polities face some opposition and confrontation, it's a dog-eat-dog world. That's international relations since the dawn of time. In French Canada's case, it would have been tough, because you're well placed to know the Americans (whether independent or mere British colonists) do not accept otherness and do not accept anything other than full domination. But that doesn't mean French Canada (with or without the help of France) couldn't have successfully resisted them.

It's impossible to predict things beyond a few decades. One can only figure out a few probable trends. Strong contention with the southern neighbors is highly likely, with lots of repeated wars. But the mere fact of French Canadian demography would, after a certain number of years, have prevented the Americans from totally defeating and annexing French Canada (just as was the case in real history with Canada, and I don't think the Royal Navy had much to do about it, because America is insular and at the end of the day what matters is land battles, not naval battles, and Canada was saved from US annexation more due to the resistance of its population in the 1770s and 1810s than due to huge reinforcements from Britain, which weren't all that huge, certainly not bigger than the reinforcements that France could have brought).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Tu peux me tutoyer.
.

Bien sûr, si vous voulez!

(Clin d'oeil à François Mitterand, qui aurait répondu ça à un interviewer demandant la permission de se tutoyer.)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Tu peux me tutoyer.

This isn't contradictory. All polities face some opposition and confrontation, it's a dog-eat-dog world. That's international relations since the dawn of time. In French Canada's case, it would have been tough, because you're well placed to know the Americans (whether independent or mere British colonists) do not accept otherness and do not accept anything other than full domination. But that doesn't mean French Canada (with or without the help of France) couldn't have successfully resisted them.

It's impossible to predict things beyond a few decades. One can only figure out a few probable trends. Strong contention with the southern neighbors is highly likely, with lots of repeated wars. But the mere fact of French Canadian demography would, after a certain number of years, have prevented the Americans from totally defeating and annexing French Canada (just as was the case in real history with Canada, and I don't think the Royal Navy had much to do about it, because America is insular and at the end of the day what matters is land battles, not naval battles, and Canada was saved from US annexation more due to the resistance of its population in the 1770s and 1810s than due to huge reinforcements from Britain, which weren't all that huge, certainly not bigger than the reinforcements that France could have brought).

OK I get it. I suppose a big factor is what interests the Americans would have had in taking us over. Relative to other things they were seeking by moving westward under Manifest Destiny. Maybe we wouldn't have been worth the trouble. They could have just gotten on our nerves (and ours on theirs) without any true annexation effort. Similar to the current Canada, as you say. (With the exception of 1812.)

Would they have wanted the St. Lawrence River as navigable route into the heart of the continent, for example? (Though not a complete one in the 1800s, before the construction of the seaway lock and channel system.)

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Don't agree, because the reason the Prairies are sparsely populated is because they were colonized late, so the urbanization and falling fertility rates arrived long before they were fully settled (plus as I said yesterday the allocation of large farms to the settlers didn't push them to make extensive use of the farmland).


What's certain is the prairies could have easily accommodated 100 million people or more if we use Europe as a comparison. They are currently far, far, far from their maximum potential. Same for the US by the way, it could easily host 1 billion people (just look at China or Europe).

Such an oversimplification. The date of initial colonization is not the sole indication of what areas are going to be more populated than others. By your logic, if 1 million people had been forcibly moved to the Dakotas and Montana in 1850, those combined states would be larger than California today. Ignore all of the migration patterns that occured in Western societies over the last 200 years. It's simply a matter of starting population + amount of fertile land.

On your point about Germany. The Rhine Ruhr Metropolitan region is one of the largest contiguous urban areas in Europe. It sits on possibly the single most important European river for trade, providing direct access to world markets. It was located at the centre of the Ruhr coal fields and iron mines, providing outsized economic opportunity during the industrial revolution. Your projections for Western Canada are basically like saying that a Rhine-Ruhr region could exist where Lviv is today, simply because the Germans popped out more children. I think you are drastically underestimating how important access to major waterways were for outsized urban growth. One of the main reasons the Prairies are so sparsely populated relative to the American Midwest (other than the obvious climate differences) is because Western Canada does not have anything like the Mississippi River. Western Kansas and Nebraska are not that physically different from the Eastern part of their states. They were colonized at the same time, and yet the majority of their populations live within 100 miles of the Mississippi. Not surprising that the Prairies feature similar population distributions as the interiors of those States regardless of how many children people were having when they were settled.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Bien sûr, si vous voulez!

(Clin d'oeil à François Mitterand, qui aurait répondu ça à un interviewer demandant la permission de se tutoyer.)

Lol, no, not at all.

He was facing prime minister Jacques Chirac in the presidential TV debate of 1988. Chirac told him: "Mr Mitterrand, here you are not the president of the Republic, and I am not the prime minister, we are two candidates." And Mitterrand replied: "But you are entirely right Mr prime minister." ("Mais vous avez tout à fait raison Monsieur le premier ministre !" with an ironic smile)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Lol, no, not at all.

He was facing prime minister Jacques Chirac in the presidential TV debate of 1988. Chirac told him: "Mr Mitterrand, here you are not the president of the Republic, and I am not the prime minister, we are two candidates." And Mitterrand replied: "But you are entirely right Mr prime minister." ("Mais vous avez tout à fait raison Monsieur le premier ministre !" with an ironic smile)

Haha. Elle est bien bonne aussi.

[Acajack]

« On pourrait se tutoyer ? – Si vous voulez… » Prêtée à François Mitterrand, cette réponse à un vieux militant socialiste montre, s’il en était besoin, qu’entre l’usage du tu et du vous existe une frontière malaisée à établir, parfois difficile à franchir mais toujours mouvante.

https://www.lopinion.fr/politique/vouvoiement-tutoiement-a-tu-ou-a-vous

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

OK I get it. I suppose a big factor is what interests the Americans would have had in taking us over. Relative to other things they were seeking by moving westward under Manifest Destiny. Maybe we wouldn't have been worth the trouble. They could have just gotten on our nerves (and ours on theirs) without any true annexation effort. Similar to the current Canada, as you say. (With the exception of 1812.)

Would they have wanted the St. Lawrence River as navigable route into the heart of the continent, for example? (Though not a complete one in the 1800s, before the construction of the seaway lock and channel system.)

I think the main bone of contention would have been the Detroit-St Louis-Chicago area.