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Before even considering Louisiana, you would have to consider the colony of Canada, renamed Québec by the British in 1763.This is by convention a geographic definition of “Midwest”.This is a good map of the European claims in North America in 1774. (Louisiane is spelled wrong)Notice anything ?Most of that territory in 1774 was considered by the British to be to Québec.British QuébecTraditionally, the French called the south of the Great Lakes the Pays des Illinois (Country of the Illinois [people]), because it was the location where dwelled a confederation of 17-something nations regrouped in a confederacy called “Illinois” by the French. The French on their maps would say country of X indigenous nation all the time, and it was an important fact to know since they were quite often allies.So when Jean-Baptiste Pointe-du-Sable, a mulâtre (mulatto) from Louisiana, came to found Chicago (Chécagou) in 1779, it was still considered by the British to be to Québec.This would all change with the Treaty of Paris (1783). There would be short after the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 in the US territories that used to be either Québec’s Pays des Illinois or the Indian Territory.Suddenly, these people were considered under US jurisdiction, and it created a lot of problems. They didn’t cross the border, the border crossed them.The French had already granted lordships around the Lake Champlain, in what would now be the the states of Vermont and New York. In 1763, the British decided for some reason to not include them in Québec, and in 1774 they still did not. As a result, half of them were in the “Indian Territory”, a territory that stopped to exist legally when the US took over. These lords were therefore expropriated.(Some French lordships around the Lake Champlain)There were indeed some Canadiens that lived in that area, especially in places like Détroit and Michilimackinac. There were also métis (offspring of Canadiens with indigenous) living around those places. They had houses like that:These people had lived so far under the law called the Custom of Paris, which the British acknowledged partially in 1774. Now it was all void. So all the contracts, the legal acts registered in the papers of the notary were now potentially null.In the 1760’s, the lawyer from Montréal Valentin Jautard acquired some lands and a stone house in the Pays des Illinois. Now in 1786, he had to sell them, and hired the fur merchant Augustin Dubuc to represent him. Dubuc went to the village of Cahokia on the Mississippi to try to clear the legal issues. Jautard also had some lands bought from a missionary, the father François Forget Duverger. Now the new US courts said these transactions were not valid.In 1783, the French population of Cahokia petitioned the US Congress to ask them to acknowledge the legal acts made before the US’ existence. There were many other petitions like that from the Canadiens of the Pays des Illinois, in 1778, 1779, 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783, 1784, and 1786.“we hope that you will give us the assistance which we need, and grant us the enjoyment of our former laws, privileges and customs, and that as American subjects we shall enjoy the same advantages as the other inhabitants enjoy.”It’s not because the regime changed that the local French changed their legal habits rights away. They did not know much the Common Law so they were not capable of using it much. So they still did things the usual way, with procurations (power of attorney), communauté des acquets (community of marriage), douaire coutumier, etc. Also I think the French concept of notaire is much different from the English notary, it does not have the same powers and it still holds true in Québec and Louisiana. Our notaires are not like US notaries.Regime Change, Law, and Borders in the Heart of French North America during the Eighteenth CenturyThe USAmericans knew that these Canadiens were far more knowledgeable about this territory than they were and so used this expertise every time they could. For example, in 1808, Astor founded the American Fur Company. Did you really think these “Mountain Men” the US mythologized were anglophones? Think again. The historian Janet LeCompte estimated in 1997 that there were 4 francophones for 1 anglophone in the US fur trade in the 18-19th centuries. Strangely, the US would only remember the anglophone ones like Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith, Kit Carson, and Joe Meek. So in fact, the employees of the American Fur Company were often very French, and it would keep going like that when the Pacific Fur Company, subsidiary created in 1810, would be acquired in 1813 by the North-West Company (a Scottish company based in Montréal, Québec). The Scots owners were already used to work with Canadiens a lot and nearly always were fluent in French. This means that the first to colonize the current State of Washington in 1841 were the 13 francophone families brought there by the fur trade.Resurrection of St. Paul's Mission - And the Blackrobes of Kettle Falls | Spokane Historical(Last standing church from the era when Canadiens and métis voyageurs were the main settlers of the future State of Washington, the mission Saint-Paul at Kettle Falls (translation of les Chutes des Chaudières).)Spanish LouisianaI don’t know well the details for Louisiana. From 1763 to 1800, the colony of Louisiana was transferred to New Spain. It largely changed nothing to the Louisianais/Créoles. The Custom of Paris continued to apply, and it was simply supplemented by Spanish laws (I don’t know these well). This is why just like Québec, Louisiana now still has a distant descendant of the Custom of Paris, which is different from ALL THE OTHER states.This is a map of the French/Spanish settlements of Upper Louisiana (Haute-Louisiane):As you can see, the Cession to the Spanish didn’t change much things, the Créoles kept doing new villages, new parishes. Saint-Louis of Missouri for example was founded in 1764.Just like the Canadiens, the Louisianais in the north also were involved in the fur trade. Your stories of Mountain Men also reach Saint-Louis of Missouri for example.The diplomacy with indigenous nations kept to be largely intact. The Spanish simply kept using the good relations of the French to avoid conflicts and secure commercial treaties.I am not sure the far north was much populated by allogenous peoples.In 1800, Spain traded this territory with the French Republic to obtain the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and in 1803, the French Republic sold it to the US.US LouisianaAs you may know, the acquisition of Louisiana was a disaster to the US : it activated the fundamental conflict about the expansion of slavery, leading to the Missouri Compromise in 1821.In 1818, the US ceded the part of Louisiana north of the 49th parallel in exchange to the part of the Assiniboia Territory contiguous to what was left of Louisiana.In 1819, the US ceded a major part of Louisiana to New Spain all over again in exchange of a bit of the province of Tejas. (which would be negated by the conquests during president Polk following the US-Mexico War).Suddenly the entire territorial framing changed. The US would implement its system of creating territories and converting them into states, which was foreign to the geography the French were accustomed to.A small bit of Lower Louisiana (Basse-Louisiane) would be turned into an US State, and they would be bilingual with French right from the start (they were required to simply send a translated version of their laws to Washington D.C.). This new Louisiana State kept having debates in French in the local House of Representatives, kept doing laws in French under the Custom of Paris. In 1808, to make the situation clearer, the laws of Louisiana were summarized into the Digeste des lois de la Louisiane. In 1825, there was a reform and the laws were codificated following the example of the famous Code civil des Français of Napoléon in France, which gave the Code civil de la Louisiane. This would in turn influence Québec because in 1866, Georges-Étienne Cartier used the model of Louisiana to make a new codification of the Custom of Paris into the new Code civil du Bas-Canada (and included Louisianian provisions regarding the protection of children) and this was the law in Québec until 1993.In Louisiana, nothing changed much. French would be the main language. Nicolas Girod in 1812 was elected mayor of la Nouvelle-Orléans, and of course some USAmericans complained that he didn’t know English and he politely told them to go f**k themselves. You would never see such pride and assurance today, right? But back then, they were not ashamed to speak French in public life.“His inauguration ceremony was conducted in French because Girod did not speak English. When it was proposed that, as a mayor of an American city, he should learn English, he responded that, since he was mayor, more citizens should learn to speak French.”Nicolas Girod and the History of Napoleon House in New Orleans | Shannon SelinThis would all change with the “US Civil War”. When Confederate Louisiana was conquered in 1862, the status of the French language was completely demoted, it stopped to be an official language (and it still is not as currently, the State of Louisiana has no official language), and in 1921 it would start to be considered a foreign language and it would be forbidden from now on to teach classes in this language.« Nous devons remarquer ici, mes enfants, quelle importance nos ancêtres attachaient au maintien de la langue française en Louisiane. Ils comprenaient bien tout que l'introduction d'une langue étrangère leur ferait perdre de leurs droits. Car ce n'est point une vaine question, que cette question du langage, c'est une question d'indépendance et de nationalité. Aussi les Louisianais doivent-ils considérer l'usage de la langue française comme un lien fraternel qui les unit entre eux. Elle fut parlée par leurs pères, elle doit l'être par leurs enfants. »“We must notice here, my children, what importance our ancestors gave to the upholding of the French language in Louisiana. They understood well the introduction of a foreign language would make them lose some rights. Because this is not a vain issue that this issue of the language, it is an issue of independence and nationality. Also the Louisianians must consider the use of the French language as a fraternal link that unites them with each other. It was spoken by their fathers, it must be spoken by their children.”(Laure ANDRY, Histoire de la Louisiane racontée aux enfants louisianais, 1882.)Unfortunately I don’t know the details for Upper Louisiana in general. The problem with the US is that they make history from the perspective of their states, which are not much relevant to discuss francophone history and so it makes the archives spread everywhere instead of being centralized in a single place, so it forces an historian to travel all over the place to make the history of the same populations that largely ignored these state borders… For example, New France documents for Upper Louisiana are spread between the Missouri History Museum, the Kaskaskia Manuscripts in Illinois and many other. Often, since US archivists can’t read French, they never bothered to index the documents and make research instruments so it takes time to look for something in these documents. Louisiana is being segmented into each state instead of being understood as a whole. As for fluent francophones that would be very knowledgeable in that history, the problem is that often Quebecers and Acadians do not know the US territory well, don’t know the sources, don’t know where they are, don’t understand the local politics as well…The Franco-Ontarian historian Joseph Gagné is trying to fix this by making these sources more famous.https://nouvellefranceelectronique.wordpress.com/archives/Thomas de La Marnierre (トマ・サレ)'s answer to Is there anywhere in Louisiana that still has the French colonial documents, preferably transcribed an/or digitized?Assiniboia Territory (in the Rupert Land, British North America)You remember this map?Notice the Rupert’s Land (UK) ?It refers to this, the Assiniboia Territory, in the Rupert’s Land.In 1817, Lord Selkirk from the Hudson Bay’s Company was granted a private colony called the Assiniboia Territory. Until 1818, it would include some territory in the US, in what is now North Dakota and Minnesota.The North-West Company (NWC) of Montréal and the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) were at war with each other. This was profitable to the francophone Métis and to the indigenous because they would compete for their labour, for their allegiance, would try to give them reasons to not side with the other fur company. It led to real actual violent battles.Battle of Seven Oaks - WikipediaThis is why the British government decided to force these two companies to merge in 1821. This led to the closing of a lot of trading posts and a lot of Canadiens or Métis voyageurs became jobless.Therefore many settled in the Assiniboia Territory and became the ancestors of the Métis nation; it was the Red River colony.Red River Colony - WikipediaThe organized themselves autonomously. They had their own catholic parishes, they divided lands the French way (but without lords, so it was alleu lands). They had their own law for bison-hunting, la Loi de la Prairie.(There are English parishes because some Scots joined the Métis population afterwards.)For years they were excluded from the decisions because they did not siege on the Assiniboia Council that ruled the place. Therefore a major cause for them was to siege on it, which they eventually obtained.They had a war with the Sioux (Lakota), who were the enemies of the Cree allies. So again it involves places in the current US.Battle of Grand Coteau (North Dakota) - WikipediaThey would cross the border ALL THE TIME. They largely used the steamboat that came from Missouri. When they wanted to go to the east to Lower Canada (current Québec), they used US trains since there was no British trains reaching there. They would teach in catholic schools in the US. Gabriel Dumont also participated to the Wild West Show as sharpshooter.(Gabriel Dumont in the Wild West Show)In 1868, the HBC sold the Rupert Land to the new Canadian Federation, that renamed them North West Territories. Then they sent land surveyors, that completely ignored the Red River colony existed and so the Métis did not accept that they would resurvey the lands they were used to and question their geography. So they rebelled in 1869, took the fort Garry (ancestor of Winnipeg) and declared a new Métis Provisional Government.However they knew the British were coming for them so they decided to negociate instead of fighting a war of independence, and so a province of Manitoba was created for them in 1870. According to the 1870 Manitoba Act, Manitoba (a name chosen by the Métis) was bilingual in English and French, and some lands were guaranteed for the children of the Métis.Soon there was a tidal wave of anglophones from Ontario. They soon became the majority. In 1890, they elected the liberal Thomas Greenway that abolished the French language in Manitoba. Teaching in French in school was also restricted and had double pricing since they had to pay for the English school system while not getting public money for their own.When they asked for the lands they were by law entitled to, they were kind of forgotten and they could only get the worst ones.So the Métis fled to Saskatchewan, but the same scenario repeated…Eventually they rebelled again, and this all ended when they were massacred with gatling guns in 1885…Battle of Batoche - WikipediaThe Métis again had their own government… Provisional Government of Saskatchewan - WikipediaAs for Louis Riel, one of the Métis leaders, he was hung in 1885 in a mock trial in Regina for a crime he did not commit (killing Thomas Scott). The irony is that now they got a Riel Day in Manitoba.So as you can see, when you are dealing with a franco history of North America, you are crossing the border over and over…Francos were east of the Mississippi before it was British in 1763.They were around the Lake Champlain before the border was set in 1763.Francos were both sides of the border because of British Québec (1774) before the border was set in 1783.They were in Maine before there was a Maine because Acadia reached there and the border was only set in 1842.They were in the Assiniboia Territory before the border was set in 1818.They were in the Oregon Country/District of Columbia before the border was set in 1846.They were in Texas before the Louisiana/Texas border was the current one.John Charles Frémont and his men explored the area of California before it was to the US, when it was still Mexican.etc.So that’s inconvenient from the perspective of either the US’ or Canada’s national histories.