A big part in why France Antarctique did not survive was that IIRC Villegaignon was cloaking his anti-Protestant sentiment which stemmed over differing views over the Eucharist. After he got complacent with his position in the colony, he subjected the Protestant majority to disproportionately cruel treatment and discrimination and eventually expelled them from the colony. If you could avert this or tone it down then they would be in a good position to weather the Portuguese and their native allies in 1560 considering how even the Portuguese IOTL praised the construction of Fort Coligny and came close to fending off the Portuguese without the numbers advantage (only fleeing in a moment of panic). Assuming the Huguenots maintain their majority status in France Antarctique and the colony continues to grow, I do recall reading that one of its proposed initial goals was to have a trading region from Macae to Sao Vincete so most likely they would expand southward first and then later westward.
WI: The huguenot colony in Brazil - France Antarctique - survived, expanded and eventually colonize the Center-South of Brazil?
- Thread starter Rubrum
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More than that he also alienated the Normans a key group in securing support with the natives.
"Villegagnon depended on the Norman interpreters for the survival of his colony. But early on he made the mistake of alienating them. The Norman interpreters revolted against Villegagnon a few months after his arrival in Brazil, in February 1556. Rashly, Villegagnon had decreed that no Frenchman might live with an Indian woman, including the Norman interpreters, unless they were properly married. One Norman interpreter who had lived with his Indian woman for seven years decided to turn on Villegagnon;....; Villegagnon had challenged one of the sources of power wielded by the Norman interpreters, and in return, the Norman interpreters refused to continue as his transactional go-betweens with the surrounding Tupinambá villages. Villegagnon returned to France in 1559; the next year, the Portuguese would attack the colony and expel the surviving French."
Source: Alida C. Metcalf - Go-betweens and the Colonization of Brazil
Villegagnon as a whole was a terrible governor of the colony when it came to politics. (with the colonists and the natives). He would have to keep quiet with both the Normans and the Huguenots. If this occurs, the viability of the colony is very likely. Maybe Almirante Coligny himself and not Villegagnon get control of the colony? In OTL he sent Villegagnon but he may send someone, maybe Philippe de Corguilleray?
I mean the position is great to have a well-fortified port. As much as Salvador was the largest producer of ships in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro became the capital of colonial Brazil, partly due to its strategic location and natural defenses (of all the major port cities, Rio was the most secure). The city is situated on a bay and surrounded by mountains, making it naturally well-protected against potential naval attacks. The Guanabara Bay provided a sheltered harbor, offering an additional layer of defense for ships.
Francis I, even said “The sun shines for me as for everyone else: I would like to see the clause in the Testament of Adam that excludes me from sharing the world”, supports the demands of his subjects. He even obtained from Pope Clement VII a more flexible interpretation of the Treaty of Tordesillas: it was accepted that the division of the world signed in 1494 concerned only the lands then known and not “the lands subsequently discovered by other crowns”.
Yes, I know. IIRC the south was settled by some Azoreans during the 18th century, but remained a frontier (I mean technically it's to this day a border region lmao) until the 19-20th century with immigrants settling the region.
Hunsrückish and Pomerano are much more unexpected than the Spanish Inquisition. A friend of mine from Blumenau knows a few words of the former and a family friend apparently speaks it fluently (its probably his first language considering his accent). Pretty cool stuff, but
Didn't know that. I heard that many of the Italian immigrants that came to Brazil were from northern Italy (some of my ancestors being from Florence), mainly from Venice. The only thing I remember reading about was the Rhenish migration to South America (hence the Hunsrik language, being a descendent from the Franconian dialect.
For some reason I forgot about the treaty between the two countries in 1907. There was also the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 and the decrease in Italian immigration, which encouraged the arrival of Japanese, so it really depends a lot on the circumstances. I like to think they would still migrate here though.
And of course, the Christian Arabs! Another fine addiction to this multi-religious society.
This really makes me wonder what Antarctique would do once its hegemony is "secured". After cannibalizing Paraguay, I can't see any reason to expand beyong this. Maybe the Antarcticans simply flood the Chaco region during the march to the east, but I just can't see a reason for them to do this (IIRC there are some Paraguayan Mennonites in Chaco, so maybe they could settle the region). Fuck it, Antarcticans migrate to Acre and create a Deseret-style protestant francophone state.
It can't have the small colonial empire the US had, so a highbrow culture might be the way. French was one of the most prestigious languages in the Belle Époque after all.
Lmao
That's ok, few Brazilians know it either. It's basically the region in red in the first post (Southeast, South, Goiás and Mato Grosso do Sul). There is also this map I made yesterday where I tried to imagine what Antarctique's territoy could look like.
Indeed. Portugal not only prohibited the existence of universities and the printing press in the Principality, but also approved the Alvará de 1785, where the Brazilian industry was essentially killed in its cradle.
Now, the Huguenots tended to be ingenious people and, with the manpower from the French migration to the colony during the inevitable gold rush, Antarctique has the opportunity to achieve heights unusual for Latin-American countries.
EDIT: I just dont know about La Plata, maybe the Spanish would encourage a migration to Argentina to have the manpower to stop an eventual Antarctican invasion and build a more developed colony, but it would break the Caste System imposed by them
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Yes, and even though it was a sparsely populated border state, it was very influential. Especially due to the absolute majority of good-quality cavalry coming from this region. The biggest question is how the region develops economically and politically after being populated centuries before. And how this impacts internal power dynamics.
Yes, brazil had a distaste for South Italians due to them being seen as lazy.
The first Germans to migrate were the Austrians with the first empress of Brazil
Arab immigration will depend on the situation in the country. But as a whole, it will be exclusively Christian Arabs who will migrate. Considering that they were the merchant class of the Ottoman Empire, their rapid economic and political rise in Brazil makes a lot of sense.
Difficult to say, but they may focus more on international politics or simply be content with their Southern hegemony.
At most, a greater expansion into Argentina to have more fertile land. But the thing is that at some point is simply easier just to annex Argentina or put in a permanent occupation.
Argentina wouldn't have a chance in hell of surviving if Antarctique grew so much that it had millions of inhabitants by the beginning of the 19th century (like the USA) and had already swallowed up Uruguay, Paraguay and Mesopotamia. The Huguenots would be hungry for new land, and I don't see why they'd want to take over just the Chaco but not the Pampa.
Not just Huguenots, the colony will probably be multi-religious. With the southern expansion driven by them. But a serious factor is the gold fever, in OTL this increased the population of the Portuguese colony from 300 thousand to 3.6 million in 100 years. This, in my opinion, could be the greatest era of expansion. Not only to the south with Huguenots migrating to more temperate lands suitable for family farming, but with Catholics heading towards Otl Minas Gerais to extract gold. If we assume that they discovered gold in the same era as the Portuguese, +-1690, we will have a massive Catholic immigration. Probably with a war with Portugal to secure the gold-producing region. (if we use @Rubrum 's map as the territory of the French colony in 1700, would be a territory bordering the Portuguese. Another thing is if Equinoctial France fails or if it works in this TL).
I would say that the discovery of gold probably caused the mass migration of French Catholics to the southeast (in OTL 10% of Portugal, +-400 thousand, immigrated to Brazil, I doubt what percentage will be the same in France. But 5 % in 1700, this gives approximately 2 million new settlers) which in turn will generate a mass migration of Huguenots who lived in the southeast to the south which in turn will generate a migration towards the mouth of the Plata basin. This will be the moment when the region will catch fire, with French Catholic colonists attacking the Portuguese colony to the north and Huguenot colonists attacking the Spanish colony to the south.
Thus, the general consensus seems to be that, if Antarctique expanded, it would be southward with the Huguenots and northward with the Catholics. An interesting north-south divide.
There have been suggestions about a French colonization of the Rio de la Plata Basin since the beginning of this thread, and with @holycookie's mention of my map, I can't stop thinking about what the country's territory would look like. I mean, if you take the population of Argentina in 1810, it only had 400,000 inhabitants, but here 2,000,000 French colonists (if 5% of the French population migrated to Antarctica) could colonize the lands of South America in the gold rush, and neither I am considering natural population growth. Argentine Mesopotamia would be French by the 1640s (if expansion continues to be the same as it was at the time of the Battle of Mborore, although it may happen even earlier), then, as you said, they could easily take the Pampa region, perhaps up to Argentina as a whole (at least the eastern half). The only remaining parts of the Pampa biome so far would be the province of Buenos Aires (correct me if I'm wrong).
Hell, how big would the population be? In OTL we already have 110 million inhabitants in the Centro-Sul region alone. 150 million? 200 millions?
The regions of Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo would probably end up as a separate colony of Antarctique, transformed into a giant Haiti populated by 90% black slaves (France having probably lost interest in the Caribbean in this scenario), where gold is a strongly defended state monopoly and where Whites rarely go due to malaria.
Catholics would be as interested as Huguenots in colonizing Argentine lands, and the movement of the Frontier will be exclusively south and southwest, as it was exclusively west for the USA in OTL. Antarctique settlers might stop at the Andes, but they might also cross the mountains during the 19th century to make Chile their California and unify the entire Southern Cone.
Catholics would be as interested as Huguenots in colonizing Argentine lands, and the movement of the Frontier will be exclusively south and southwest, as it was exclusively west for the USA in OTL. Antarctique settlers might stop at the Andes, but they might also cross the mountains during the 19th century to make Chile their California and unify the entire Southern Cone.
This is hard to say simply due to the large number of variables that exist. For example from where will the long-term migration? what are the incentives, how is the situation in the colony, how is race viewed there, etc.
Maybe more maybe less it all depends on the culture of the colony and its decisions long term.
And this will not happen, the region is very valuable for the other side to let go, especially in terms of resources. Even if the Huguenots are the majority in the colony, which is not something expected, they will fight for the region.
This is something that has always caught my attention, the tendency to imagine the colonization of Latin America by the French creating Haiti. I don't know if it's a lack of knowledge, little interest, or imposing the view of what happened in Haiti on the rest of America. Let's assume that the ethnic composition is similar to that of Otl (which is unlikely due to greater migration from France).
Rio de Janeiro: Whites: 46.5%; Pardos ( Mix people of white, black, and indigenous descent): 43.8%; Blacks: 8.8%; Yellow: 0.8%; Indigenous: 0.1%.
Minas Gerais: Whites: 47.2%; Pardos: 44.1%; Blacks: 7.9%; Yellow: 0.7%; Indigenous: 0.1%.
São Paulo: Whites: 58.8%; Pardos: 30.4%; Blacks: 8.3%; Yellow: 2.2%; Indigenous: 0.3%.
All of these states have a simple white majority unless you are considering mixed race as black. Then we have a simple black majority. In this case, this will depend on how race is seen in the colony and how interactions occur. For example, will the French Catholics mix with black people in the same way as the natives did or not?
You just don't know about South America, ok, that makes sense, it's a continent that a lot of people have little knowledge of. Well, malaria is a disease that spreads primarily in the Amazon due to its climate. Malaria is not one of the diseases that occurs in the southeast of Brazil or even in the northeast.
This is a map of malaria in Brazil and the world.
White Catholics will migrate to Minas Gerais, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro. Because these states are the heart of the country and the climate is good enough for Europe. The land is more secure and the central catholic government is at its strongest. Regarding land in Argentina, yes Catholics will migrate too, but unlike Huguenots who will probably want land far from the central government, they probably will go to the few major cities. At least until the 19th century with its mass migration. The Huguennt advance is generated by Catholic migration but will have to deal with the Spanish and aggressive tribes. Probably generating a culture similar to Otl (the Gauchos), basically a cowboy culture.
Another factor is what the composition of the population will be like during the gold rush. I would say she should go heavily towards the masculine side. So we will probably have a large mixed group. The question will be whether they will mix with blacks at the same rate as they mix with natives.
Hey don't get condescending, alternative history isn't a science but a creative art where anything can happen (within reason). What you believe would happen is no less valuable than what I believe would happen (IMO, I like the idea of Antarctique unifying the entire Southern Cone).This is hard to say simply due to the large number of variables that exist. For example from where will the long-term migration? what are the incentives, how is the situation in the colony, how is race viewed there, etc.
Maybe more maybe less it all depends on the culture of the colony and its decisions long term.
And this will not happen, the region is very valuable for the other side to let go, especially in terms of resources. Even if the Huguenots are the majority in the colony, which is not something expected, they will fight for the region.
This is something that has always caught my attention, the tendency to imagine the colonization of Latin America by the French creating Haiti. I don't know if it's a lack of knowledge, little interest, or imposing the view of what happened in Haiti on the rest of America. Let's assume that the ethnic composition is similar to that of Otl (which is unlikely due to greater migration from France).
Rio de Janeiro: Whites: 46.5%; Pardos ( Mix people of white, black, and indigenous descent): 43.8%; Blacks: 8.8%; Yellow: 0.8%; Indigenous: 0.1%.
Minas Gerais: Whites: 47.2%; Pardos: 44.1%; Blacks: 7.9%; Yellow: 0.7%; Indigenous: 0.1%.
São Paulo: Whites: 58.8%; Pardos: 30.4%; Blacks: 8.3%; Yellow: 2.2%; Indigenous: 0.3%.
All of these states have a simple white majority unless you are considering mixed race as black. Then we have a simple black majority. In this case, this will depend on how race is seen in the colony and how interactions occur. For example, will the French Catholics mix with black people in the same way as the natives did or not?
You just don't know about South America, ok, that makes sense, it's a continent that a lot of people have little knowledge of. Well, malaria is a disease that spreads primarily in the Amazon due to its climate. Malaria is not one of the diseases that occurs in the southeast of Brazil or even in the northeast.
This is a map of malaria in Brazil and the world.
White Catholics will migrate to Minas Gerais, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro. Because these states are the heart of the country and the climate is good enough for Europe. The land is more secure and the central catholic government is at its strongest. Regarding land in Argentina, yes Catholics will migrate too, but unlike Huguenots who will probably want land far from the central government, they probably will go to the few major cities. At least until the 19th century with its mass migration. The Huguennt advance is generated by Catholic migration but will have to deal with the Spanish and aggressive tribes. Probably generating a culture similar to Otl (the Gauchos), basically a cowboy culture.
Another factor is what the composition of the population will be like during the gold rush. I would say she should go heavily towards the masculine side. So we will probably have a large mixed group. The question will be whether they will mix with blacks at the same rate as they mix with natives.
+ holycookie. This is a historical map of malaria incidence. The whole of Brazil was totally affected before 1900, and a White person traveling to certain regions had a life expectancy of a few months.
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The idea was not to be condescending if it seemed, I apologize. It's more the fact that most people don't know about South America.
about malaria distribution, the best map I found is this one
I think yes, there will be a presence of the slave trade here, but I don't think it would reach that level. It just couldn't get to this point (I mean, 'can't' is too strong a word in this case).
The region, largely due to gold, will definitely be a migration center not only for the French, but for other European nationalities once the era of mass immigration arrives. Furthermore, despite Brazil being the largest focus of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the black population is considerably small, even smaller than the American population, even in percentage terms. This is largely due to miscegenation and the death rate among slaves. While there was a market within the United States, where slaves reproduced to maintain numbers, in Brazil it was preferred to import more Africans than to reproduce them.
If this also happens in Antarctique, then I don't see why the population is 90% black or even mixed race. During the 1940s, São Paulo was the whitest state in the Southeast, with 86% of the population being Caucasians, while Rio de Janeiro (the state, not the city) had a proportion of 64%. If slavery was abolished earlier and immigration was encouraged, you would probably have a much larger white population (especially if something like the Branqueamento policy - to make the population whiter through miscegenation, practiced by the oligarchies of the first Brazilian republic - is put into practice), but also a black population with an earlier headstart to begin with.
Now, one thing I must agree with you, I don't think France would try anything in the Caribbean, in the same way that Portugal left Bermuda and Curaçao once Brazil was consolidated. In fact, Antarctique's position in the south of the Atlantic, added to the wealth they would obtain with the gold of Minas Gerais, Goiás and Mato Grosso, makes me wonder if the French would try to colonize India, with the South Atlantic as a stopping point and to replenish supplies (speaking of other French colonies, this makes me think of the consequences that would have occurred if both Antarctique and the Huguenot/French colonies in the southern United States had succeeded).
He still has a point, however. I know that this could be easily avoided if the country, well, was functional and had early vaccination programs, but Rio de Janeiro, the country's capital at the beginning of the 20th century, had cases of yellow fever, dysentery, smallpox, tuberculosis and even black death (although this was dealt with after some time, mainly during Pereira Passos' term as mayor).
I've seen this map before too, i was going to send it here. But I don't think it (malaria) would be completely deadly, although there are still other tropical diseases such as yellow fever, dengue fever, etc.
Indeed! Destinée manifeste! L'Antarctique est destiné à coloniser le Cône Sud et à propager son mode de vie!
Btw, are there any records or sources regarding the frequency of miscegenation between whites and blacks in New Orleans? I don't think it would be something mirrored, but we could have an idea.