AHC - US purchase of French Guiana

The challenge is to have both the USA and French agree to the sale of French Guiana to the Americans with a PoD of 1880 and any circumstances you should wish - is this possible ?
 
The challenge is to have both the USA and French agree to the sale of French Guiana to the Americans with a PoD of 1880 and any circumstances you should wish - is this possible ?

Only if the us and france go to war and the us occuppies the territory, with the 'purchase' being a recognition of a fait accompli.

Of course, getting the us to be able to defeat France at sea... maybe the us and uk ally against France and ?Spain? And the us gets french guiana and martinique as spoils while britain gets frances other colonies in africa and asia?



Hmm.. or maybe France simply cant pay off wwi debts, say, and the us takes her american territory in recompense?
 
Only if the us and france go to war and the us occuppies the territory, with the 'purchase' being a recognition of a fait accompli.

Of course, getting the us to be able to defeat France at sea... maybe the us and uk ally against France and ?Spain? And the us gets french guiana and martinique as spoils while britain gets frances other colonies in africa and asia?



Hmm.. or maybe France simply cant pay off wwi debts, say, and the us takes her american territory in recompense?

The latter might fit what I was thinking of - would it be plausible ?
 

katchen

Banned
Circa 1880 is hardly feasible. The US at that time was extremely anti expansion. Congress was even refusing to fund any administration of Alaska Territory and had refused since 1867 out of pique at having purchased it. Moreover, France was in one of it's stable periods 10 years on after the French Republic.
If France did not want French Guiana, the US would be more likely to go along with France selling French Guiana (which at the time extended to the Amazon River) to the Netherlands and making it part of Suriname, than buying it itself. And more likely to approve selling to Netherlands than to Brazil, since Brazil still had legal slavery.
Go back 15 years and have the US invade Mexico and go to war with France over Mexico in 1865, (possibly with Lincoln getting a headache and not going to Ford's Theater that night and the conspirators being apprehended over the attempted murder of Seward), and US acquisition of French Guiana (along with Guadalupe, Martinique, St.Pierre & Miquelon and French St. Martin and Clipperton Island (maybe even French Oceania and even New Caledonia) becomes likely, along with US acquisition of all or part of Mexico. If he had lived, Lincoln might well have done it while the US was still mobilized. And Congress would not have denied him.
It would be very interesting to see the US with a territory on the Amazon River, to which French Guiana extended at that time. Peru might loom larger in US foreign policy concerns if Peru was literally only a week away by steamboat from US soil (the Guano War was starting in 1870) and the US would be sure to ensure that the Amazon would be declared an international waterway to Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. There would be a gold rush in Guiana Territory--there is one there now, much to France's annoyance--and it would spread to the rest of Guiana, Brazillian, Dutch and British, and to the Brazilian Highlands as well. A rubber rush too, and rubber plantations. Much Brazilian immigration to the US via Guiana.;)
 
Hmm.. or maybe France simply cant pay off wwi debts, say, and the us takes her american territory in recompense?

Did the Americans pay the French for their decisive assistance during the independence War? No, France has been ruined and the French Revolution could had been much less bloody...

This thread is just unrealistic, there are too many American and British dreamers on this site. I don't know why France would sell French Guiana, the French had territories in Africa, Asia, Pacific, etc and they did everything to keep a territory in South America.
 
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Possible, Germany does not resume unrestricted submarine warfare in 1916, thus no Zimmerman note and no US entry into WWI. The Entente runs out of collateral for further loans and the US treasury department is frowning on unsecured loans. To raise money to pay for the raw material imports France needs to make up for the mines controlled by the Germans means the Entente needs to get lots of cash, and Britain isn't willing to sell any of her territory, so France decides that selling French Guiana to the US is preferable to losing the war and losing European French territory, pro Entente Wilson agrees to the deal to keep the Entente fighting
 

katchen

Banned
Remember, for a while there, French Guiana includes what is now the Brazilian State of Amapa, all the way to the Jari River. Portugal gave Amapa to Napoleon and France finally gave Amapa to Brazil at some point in the early 20th Century.
 
Remember, for a while there, French Guiana includes what is now the Brazilian State of Amapa, all the way to the Jari River. Portugal gave Amapa to Napoleon and France finally gave Amapa to Brazil at some point in the early 20th Century.

No, the region was disputed between Brazil and France for over a century, but France never controlled all of it; France repudiated the treaty signed in the early 18th century establishing the border (moe or less the modern border), however this was not out of claiming the entire region, but because they did'nt like the exact border, this eventually lead to the short-lived Republic of Independent Guyana forming in the region in defiance of both Brazil and France; France officially recognized the border in 1900.
 
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