Hispaniola as apart of the Louisiana Purchase

In 1803 , The US set out to purchase the City of New Orleans from its then French owners. Napoleon realizing that war with the British was becoming inevitable decided to give up his possessions on the North American continent. What if he decides to throw in the troublesome island of Hispaniola as well? What might come out of this?

Expanding on this, Assume that Hispaniola is entered into the US as a free state/territory. How might this effect the dynamics of the slavery debate and the establishment of Liberia?

wemayberry said:

In 1803 , The US set out to purchase the City of New Orleans from its then French owners. Napoleon realizing that war with the British was becoming inevitable decided to give up his possessions on the North American continent. What if he decides to throw in the troublesome island of Hispaniola as well? What might come out of this?

Expanding on this, Assume that Hispaniola is entered into the US as a free state/territory. How might this effect the dynamics of the slavery debate and the establishment of Liberia?

Click to expand...

You are forgetting the little revolt that made Santo Domingo a write-off? Surrendering nominal claims would be possible, but it would simply eat filibusters as it is too far off to bother conquering outright against British objections.

You might get to the point where Congress would dump freedmen there, but there is no chance of admitting the place as a state without risking an early civil war.

HTG

I was recently thinking of this myself. You can forget about a free state but a slave state is a possibility. What we need is a America that is truly terrified of a free black state spreading slave revolts across the Americas. A concurrent slave revolt erupting in the South maybe enough to do just this. I personally can't think of why Napoleon would object to American requests to add Hispaniola to the purchase(for a lot more money though). I doubt Britain would care that much either after all they gave Napoleon a free shot at conquest. The British may see America getting involved in pacifying the island as a way to safeguard Canada seeing how impossible it was for Europeans to defeat the Haitian rebels America could easily become mired in endless warfare.

Jefferson would be unhappy, IIRC He pushed Virginia to ban all Haitian flagged Ships.

Jefferson would be unhappy with an independent black republic. Regarding the possibility of purchasing and then pacifying Hispaniola I can't see him having anything against the scheme outside of the cost involved but if Southerners are scared enough I believe Jefferson and other Southerners would argue for strong action.

Interesting idea. I'm guessing the French would toss in nominal rights for free. I don't know if the US would be dumb enough to grasp that tar baby.

"Passion governs, passion never governs wisely" this statement is particularly true in the South. The northern states would be split as mercantile interests would favor gaining control of Hispaniola while early abolitionists like Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and John Jay would vehemently oppose outright annexation and conquest.

This is hard to accomplish. Even with the slave revolts going on, Hispaniola provided more profit to France than all of the Louisiana Territory ever did, and they'd never sell it for anything the US could afford at the time. You'd need to make it absolutely useless to the French, a lost cause in all possible ways without any potential of redemption.

Well Haiti basically purchased their own independence from France so its possible the US could offer more.