Louisiana and Quebec are both settler-colonial territories at the mouths of major navigable rivers, and both have a history of Francophony. But why was French broadly displaced by English in Louisiana, while this has not happened in Quebec? What are the different historical factors that led to these different outcomes? In particular, what were the roles of the rivers, if any? What is the present language situation in these regions, and what would you predict the future language situations of these regions to look like?
Bit rusty on my Franco-American history, so apologies for anything off base.
Louisiana was populated by former French settlers of New France, which eventually becomes Quebec, called the Acadians that had their own nationalist movement and were booted by the English to current day Louisiana. After the Louisiana Purchase, there stopped being a flow of French settlers to the region since it was no longer France’s, whereas New France/Lower Canada kept bringing in settlers. New France/Lower Canada also had its own treaties with English/Upper Canada that kept cultural barriers better intact. The Anglo-French divide in Upper and Lower Canada was also more along religious boundaries so Catholics and Protestants had more established communities that didn’t exist when the Acadians moved to Louisiana, which meant that assimilating to the dominant culture (Anglo-Protestant) was a lot harder to resist. There’s also the factors of Louisiana being very close to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Southern states with large Black populations that made it more of a diverse cultural and ethnic milieu that Quebec never really had outside of Montreal.
Acadians didn’t settle Quebec, they lived mostly in nova Scotia and new Brunswick, different French dudes colonized Quebec
Ah thanks for the correction!
No problem. Some avadians did come back to the east coast, mostly new Brunswick and there’s little communities spread around. The dialect and accent are different as well.