The United States of America is a crowded country today. We've all heard about overpopulation, etc... and yet if you look into areas like the Indian Confederation and southern Canada (north of the Ohio but south of the Great Lakes specifically), it's a different pattern of settlements- there are the great lakes cities, but beyond that... (especially in the Indian Confederation) And of course the northern regions of the Republique Louisiana and central Canada took much, much longer to have a decent population...
My proposed POD here is at the Treaty of Paris. What if the United States had managed to gain the Trans-Appalachian region we wanted? This massive region might mean that we might not get Florida transferred to us as well (returned to Spain?), but it's a price worth it, and we could get Florida later, possibly in the same we got the disputed region in northern New Connecticut. Our western border would be at the Mississippi River, rather than the mountains... Possibly, Napoleon could sell Louisiana to the United States- Louisiana's Pacific Coast claims could actually be enforced by us, and this possibly opens the door to gaining California or the rest of Canada...
My proposed POD here is at the Treaty of Paris. What if the United States had managed to gain the Trans-Appalachian region we wanted? This massive region might mean that we might not get Florida transferred to us as well (returned to Spain?), but it's a price worth it, and we could get Florida later, possibly in the same we got the disputed region in northern New Connecticut. Our western border would be at the Mississippi River, rather than the mountains... Possibly, Napoleon could sell Louisiana to the United States- Louisiana's Pacific Coast claims could actually be enforced by us, and this possibly opens the door to gaining California or the rest of Canada...
Who do you suppose would have colonized the Congo Free State in such a world?