AHC: Split the Louisiana Purchase.

Just a random idea I've been playing with. With any POD after 1776, have the USA obtain part of, but not all of, the area constituting the Louisiana Purchase. Try to get the two halves as equally divided as possible, or at least so that it isn't a 99/1 split. Bonus if the other half is annexed by Canada. Do it however you feel fit.
 
Have the British successfully interfere with the Corp of Discovery as a screw you move for the Americans winning the American Revolution. Or even just for treating with Napoleon.
 
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Anaxagoras

Banned
The French might have accepted the original American offer to purchase only the city of New Orleans rather than the entire territory.
 
Just a random idea I've been playing with. With any POD after 1776, have the USA obtain part of, but not all of, the area constituting the Louisiana Purchase. Try to get the two halves as equally divided as possible, or at least so that it isn't a 99/1 split. Bonus if the other half is annexed by Canada. Do it however you feel fit.

Glen's Dominion of Southern America has the USA and the British colonies splitting Louisiana at 36-30.

Edit: nevermind.
 
The French might have accepted the original American offer to purchase only the city of New Orleans rather than the entire territory.

But what's the point of having Louisiana without New Orleans? It'd be a landlocked territory, if I'm not mistaken...
 
Napoleon only takes the eastern parts of those lands (basically what's now the states that adjoin the River Mississippi) back from Spain, rather than all of them, and Spain retains ownership of the western areas for a while even after Napoleon has sold the east to the USA.
 
Just a random idea I've been playing with. With any POD after 1776, have the USA obtain part of, but not all of, the area constituting the Louisiana Purchase. Try to get the two halves as equally divided as possible, or at least so that it isn't a 99/1 split. Bonus if the other half is annexed by Canada. Do it however you feel fit.

Have America do badly in the War of 1812 and actually lose territory. The only territory it could really lose is Northern Maine and large parts, but not all of the Old North West. Then have America piss off Britain further, somehow, and have them dispute the Louisiana purchase in the peace process.

Britain, for whatever reason, decides to run off with parts of the Northern Louisiana purchase, Maine, and the Western half of the Old North West.

These territories on the Great Lakes are still people with white settlers, which spurs the creation of some kind of Canadian unity quite a bit faster since America will probably be less friendly and the British North American colonies themselves more populous.

This new Canada analogue then annexes later on the other British holdings north of the United States.
 
But what's the point of having Louisiana without New Orleans? It'd be a landlocked territory, if I'm not mistaken...

Louisiana's borders weren't strictly defined back then, but its coastline extended beyond New Orleans. (Today it extends about 500 km westward from the city.) So there'd still be a lot of coastline for the French to occupy. It would be interesting to see how they'd handle not controlling New Orleans; would they try to build a rival port city nearby?
 

birdboy2000

Banned
Napoleon doesn't sell it, but France only controls it on paper. Britain occupies New Orleans, but much of the interior falls to American settlers, who set up their own independent states and later petition for US annexation.
 
Could France have done less well in the 7 Years' War & lost the territory to Britain? This puts the Brits in a position to do what was done later over Oregon: cut a deal with the U.S. & divide the Territory (say, at 40 North?).

This does predate the purchase of Rupert's Land, which might go ahead at this time TTL (not least because HBC was looking to sell off anyhow), & give impetus for Confederation. (Or, at least, for a couple of major canal- or railway-building projects for the defense of BNA.)
 
Could France have done less well in the 7 Years' War & lost the territory to Britain?

France did lose Louisiana in 7 Years War - half of it to England. Which in 1783 went to USA. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here...
 
Napoleon only takes the eastern parts of those lands (basically what's now the states that adjoin the River Mississippi) back from Spain, rather than all of them, and Spain retains ownership of the western areas for a while even after Napoleon has sold the east to the USA.

That was the Spanish interpretation from the start...though treaty language makes it apparent that it wasn't.
 
Just a random idea I've been playing with. With any POD after 1776, have the USA obtain part of, but not all of, the area constituting the Louisiana Purchase. Try to get the two halves as equally divided as possible, or at least so that it isn't a 99/1 split. Bonus if the other half is annexed by Canada. Do it however you feel fit.

Wait a second, wasn't that OTL?

Didn't Great Britain get part of the Louisiana Purchase when the USA and Great Britain agree to fix the northern border at 49 degrees north in 1818?
 
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