Talk:Louisiana (New France)

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[edit] Page Title

This page should not be called "Louisiana (New France)" as Louisiana was also a region of the Spanish colonial possessions in America. However, I cannot think of a good name and would appreciate some help. --Gpyoung talk 01:38, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I think the current name of "Louisiana (New France)" serves the article well because this article is about the French colony of Louisiana. I do think there should be a new article created to describe Louisiana's history under Spain's rule.
The Spanish colonization of the Americas article currently has the following:
Louisiana territory - Spain controlled this territory from 1762-1800. Most of the north and interior was not inhabited by Spain. French settlers made up most of the inhabitants and new immigrants. This included land in the present U.S. states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Idaho, and Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
— Fingers-of-Pyrex 19:21, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I do agree with this. Louisiana was passed to the Spanish in 1769, and stayed in Spanish hands until Napoleon grabbed it when he tried to conquer Spain. That is how matters stood until Jefferson took advantage of Napoleon's money woes in 1803.

gab 21:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Napoleon's acquisition of Louisiana was unrelated to his invasion of Spain (which took place in 1807, seven years later). Also, he ended up selling it not simply because of a lack of money but also because the French army that was intended to take possession of the territory got bogged down, and devastated by yellow fever, trying to put down a revolution in Saint Domingue. Funnyhat 06:13, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] semi-wiki-links

Somehow this article contains semi-wiki-links of some kind, typed as [ [ articlename ] ].

Are these supposed to be changed to articlename? It is a lot of tedious manual work to make these changes. Thanks Hmains 19:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I suspect someone took the featured article from the French WP and ran it through an automatic translator--which may be where the weird links come in--or perhaps it was a cue that there was a linked term there in French but a choice was made to not create the links by default (I dunno, I'm just speculating). I agree completely though about the level of tedious labor required to fix this. I had started but quickly gave up. I might have another go at it, but it will take some time to sort this all out. older ≠ wiser

I've searched and replaced all the square brackets, but someone will still need to fix the Babelfished French grammar. DanBishop 20:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I've translated (not with a bot :) ) the pictures captions that were still in french. Gadro 11:54, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible cleanup

Does anyone else see the need for a cleanup on this page? Some sentences are slipshod and truncated and run-on sentences abound. This site could use a make-over. Thoughts?

Yes, large chucks of it need a sentence by sentence overhaul. There is a lot of information, but the English is poor. This mainly applies from the heading "Template:XVIIIe siècle : le véritable début de la colonisation" onwards. Tellingly that is in French, which I suspect was the original language of much of the text. Chicheley 03:21, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scope, Infobox

I am hoping dis-enangle some of the information we have on WP about New France. Too often Canadian sources treat New France as being synonumous with Canada, New France. Part of the solution is to make it clear by using an infobox that Canada was a sub-division of New France, as was Acadia, and Lousisia. To that end, I would like to add the Template:Infobox Former Subdivision to this article as I have done to Acadia and Canada, New France. I t might look like this:

Thoughts?Kevlar67 21:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the distinction is necessary too. In the late 1750s, Louisiana had almost the full set of provincial institutions that Canada had and as such it could be considered, from a comparative point of view, as almost a province inside the province of New France. Acadia never reached that level of political development because it fell to the British very soon. Are you going to make templates for the other regions of the late New France? -- Mathieugp 23:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested map

The map currently used in the article, LouisianaPurchase.png, is problematic because it shows only the area of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, while the subject of the article is the much earlier territory of New France which extended into present-day Florida and large portions of the Great Lakes region. older ≠ wiser 13:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Replaced with one translated from the French wiki. Kmusser 14:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Propose new Navbox

The main problem with WP's coverage of New France is that there is little continuity between the different locales. Americans editors have made the Louisiana page very good, but much of it duplicates the main page. Meanwhile the main page concentrates way too much on Canada, and neglects Acadia, Louisiana, etc. There is a separate page for the colony of Canada but it is mostly unused. To help readers, and editors get a better understanding of how New France was organized. I am proposing creating this new Navbox template. The first section I am committed to and eventually I want to see it on this page regardless. The rest is open to debate and change.

TRIAL BOX DELETED

What do you think? Is it too broad, too narrow? Would a list of topics be better? Thanks for the imput. Kevlar67 21:37, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

A template could only be a positive move in my opinion. I'd say that based on what is currently in Wikipedia, it is broad enough. It can always be broadened later. To avoid confusion, I believe we could clarify the lifetime of the colonies, possibly this way:
Acadia (1604-1713) • Île Royale (?-?) • Canada (1608-1763)• Hudson Bay (?-?)• Louisiana (1699-1803) • Newfoundland (?-?)
I agree fully. However, did Île Royale have a seperate government from Acadia? Wouldn't we include the post-1713 parts of Acadia that were retained under "Acadia" (Île Saint Jean, Île Royale [esp. Louisbourg]), or was it considered a seperate, new colony? And wouldn't Louisiana be (1699-1763, 1800-1803)? Kevlar67 03:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
I believe that the government of Île Royale was separate. At least, it didn't exist before the cession of Acadia. The Acadiens were invited to resettle on the Ile Royale by the French government. Louisbourg, the capital, was founded on the island in 1713. The colony at Plaisance was also moved on the said Island. Philippe Pastour de Costebelle was first governor of island. Before that, he was governor of Terre-Neuve (since 1706). This source ([1]) says that "dans le but de contrebalancer l'hégémonie britannique à Terre-Neuve et en Acadie, la France établit la colonie de l'île Royale, qui comprenait l'île du Cap-Breton, rebaptisée île Royale, et l'île Saint-Jean, devenue depuis l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard." It would seem that the île Saint-Jean did not have its own government under French rule. Regarding Louisiana, yes, it might be wise to exclude the period under Spanish rule to avoid confusion. -- Mathieugp 19:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
We could also add the name of the city where the governor of New France was residing, i.e., the capital, but that might be too much information. Regarding the Settlement & forts, I am not sure we can fit them all in a single row. Won't the list be just too long? For the Government row, we might also end up with a long list if we add the governors and intendants of all colonies. But it could be good to write up the list of all the governors of Québec, Montréal, Trois-Rivières, Acadia, Louisiana, Ile Royale and Terre-Neuve. We could also have a row for Judicial with the Conseil supérieur, Amirauté, Prévoté, tribunals and seigneurs (highest to lowest authority).
If there are that many forts that we have articles on, then we need to create a list of them (e.g. List of French forts in North America)! We could then include the list in the template. We should eventually have lists of all the governors of the colonies, perhaps indendants too. We could create a category to put them in (e.g. Category:Government of New France and link to that. I'm not sure what to do about the legal system. Kevlar67 03:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Good idea. Yes, the intendants should be under government. I'll do a little research to know if the Amirauté and Prévoté have equivalents in English. If not, then the list of the core judicial institutions of New France are pretty much those I have listed. The seigneurs had powers equivalent to peace justices, then there were small tribunals, then specialized tribunals (Amirauté and Prévoté) and finally a "supreme court" of a sort in the Sovereign Council (or Superior Council as it was later called for most of its history). -- Mathieugp 19:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
I am really not sure about the examples given under Economy, Events and Related, but I think it is a very good start. Under economy, I see things that to me seem more political and social. Under events, I of course see events, but they could very well go under History along with what is presently under Related, don't you think? -- Mathieugp 23:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
"History" might be a better name. I only avoided it because it's all history! :-) Kevlar67 03:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
You're right. It's all history anyway. I think the problem is that articles that are specialized in specific aspects of New France society are not yet part of Wikipedia. Maybe we can leave those two categories out for now? -- Mathieugp 19:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
I started an article on the political organization of New France in French in mid-October 2006 here : fr:Utilisateur:Mathieugp/Brouillons/Organisation politique de la Nouvelle-France. There is a lot of work left to do, but once it is there, I'll make sure to translate it to English. This should also help readers and editors better understand the New France system I hope. -- Mathieugp 23:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Sounds excellant. The title is quite long though. Why not just "gouvernement de la Nouvelle-France" or "politique de la Nouvelle-France"? Speaking of translations, once this template is finalised, could you help me translate it to French? Kevlar67 03:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I'll translate them if you want. -- Mathieugp 19:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] US Flags?

Why are the US flags on this article since it's about the territory before U.S. takeover. ? I tried to nuke them but it screws up the template. Americasroof 10:47, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

They show up next to links the the entities that replaced French Louisiana. It's like a succession box.Kevlar67 03:59, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I love this article and refer to it frequently. However, I think we have to change the templates so that it reflects the true process. The flags if there is predecessor would be Spain based on Desoto's first claim to the territory (although the Spanish did not settle). Following would be Louisiana (New Spain) with the fleur de lee as the earlier flag and subsequent flag being the French tri-color for Louisiana (Republic of France). Following that would be the United States. The template currently is inaccurate on the dates. Americasroof 01:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Well I didn't know we had a seperate article for the Spanish period, so there you go. Help us create the new one for the Republican era and then we'll have all the bases covered. Kevlar67 23:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)