Independent Louisiana

POD, the Haitian slave revolt was suppressed, so as a result instead of selling all of what in TL would be the Louisiana territory, Napoleon retains the Orleans Territory and portions that are in TL part of Louisiana and Arkansas, plus the Spanish session bits that came a bit earlier (those damn butterflies!). And sends more French colonists (i.e. people he'd rather not have in France due to questionable loyalties).

But history still happens and Napoleon falls, no wait he's back up! No wait he's defeated again. And meanwhile French Louisiana functions quite independent of France proper and decides that it would rather stay that way...

So how would Louisiana's independence come about? Would it be a Republic of a Monarchy (of some sort)? How would it stay out of the control of the United States? And most importantly of all, what comes afterward?
 
I would imagine northern/Upper Louisiana is going to be taken over by America no matter what. Almost no one white above the Missouri River, and St. Louis itself was anglicized within a decade or so of its OTL annexation.

Perhaps sold off to America in return for guaranteed help fighting off France or something, who knows. Especially if butterflies flap and America ties itself to Britain due to the lack of getting the Louisiana Purchase to happen and so avoid the War of 1812.
 
So even an Independent Louisiana (or simple French Louisiana) would wind up with similar/the same borders as RL. Ok that makes sense.

Now playing with that, I could see it trying to get cozy with Mexico (once it gains independence) as a way to play it off against the US, the same with Texas (if/when it breaks away) and try to convince Texas to stay independent as well.

Thinking things through I really can't imagine Louisiana being a monarchy unless Napoleon (or perhaps a fleeing Bourbon) went into exile there and set themselves up as Emperor/King of Louisiana. So I'm not picturing a Republic, most likely cobbled together from bits of the US Govt. and the First French Republic.

Ironically enough I'm certain that Louisiana would be the place a lot of runaway slaves would head to, no doubt causing friction between the Southern US and Louisiana, especially during the Civil War.

Now since the POV is the Haitian Slave revolt failing, would Haiti (and the rest of Dominica) wind up in Louisianan hands?
 

Deleted member 67076

Rest of Hispaniola? No. Haiti did not have the rest of the island until 1803 or so, well after the revolt started. Haiti under Louisianan control strikes me as unlikely unless the government in Louisiana is willing to treat the former slaves with the same rights as white settlers and allow them to settle the land ( which would be a nice way of settling; there were 800k Haitians in 1800, enough to counterbalance what the US can send).

That said I have my doubt's on whether an independent Louisiana is viable with a POD that late. Too few people to hold the land in most places.
 
@Soverihn So it would have to be earlier, and I'm assuming there'd have to be at least one extra large wave of French settlers. Would it have to be pushed back further than the French Revolution?
 

Deleted member 67076

Well, at the time of the French Revolution Louisiana (sans New Orleans and the surrounding area) was under Spanish control. Had been that way since the 7 Years War. So you need to find a way to get France to recontrol the territory earlier and extensively settle it by then. And for Haiti to go along with the union you need to end slavery which would be... problematic.

However, perhaps there's a way to flood the place with French settlers that allows for cheap labor. Let's have a huge influx of poor whites to work the sugar fields. The value of slaves would decrease and thus abolition would be easier.
 
An independent Louisiana seems to have a good chance of abolishing slavery.

Thing is the US is likely to want Louisiana eventually due to the Mississippi River. An independent Louisiana will in theory include all the OTL Louisiana Purchase, but won't really control anything north of St. Louis, and will probably cede northern areas to the US by necessity very quickly. Then the US will want Louisiana proper due to the Mississippi and New Orleans, and probably has the military means to forcibly annex it, so Louisiana because part of the US anyway.

BUT, this Louisiana, with a larger pre-American population, likely becomes a free state rather than a slave state, which will seriously ignite sectional conflict in the US. Southern slaveholding planters would resent the existence of a free state in prime land for plantation agriculture that's an easy nearby haven for runaway slaves. This potentially triggers an earlier civil war in the US.
 

Deleted member 67076

An independent Louisiana seems to have a good chance of abolishing slavery.

Thing is the US is likely to want Louisiana eventually due to the Mississippi River. An independent Louisiana will in theory include all the OTL Louisiana Purchase, but won't really control anything north of St. Louis, and will probably cede northern areas to the US by necessity very quickly. Then the US will want Louisiana proper due to the Mississippi and New Orleans, and probably has the military means to forcibly annex it, so Louisiana because part of the US anyway.

BUT, this Louisiana, with a larger pre-American population, likely becomes a free state rather than a slave state, which will seriously ignite sectional conflict in the US. Southern slaveholding planters would resent the existence of a free state in prime land for plantation agriculture that's an easy nearby haven for runaway slaves. This potentially triggers an earlier civil war in the US.
Do you think this could butterfly away the Missouri Compromise?
 
Well, at the time of the French Revolution Louisiana (sans New Orleans and the surrounding area) was under Spanish control. Had been that way since the 7 Years War. So you need to find a way to get France to recontrol the territory earlier and extensively settle it by then. And for Haiti to go along with the union you need to end slavery which would be... problematic.

The bolded part can be done pretty easily. The official justification for France's ceding of Louisiana to Spain in 1763 was that it was done as compensation for Spain's loss of Florida. When Spain regained Florida 20 years later, France could have asked for Louisiana back.
 
The bolded part can be done pretty easily. The official justification for France's ceding of Louisiana to Spain in 1763 was that it was done as compensation for Spain's loss of Florida. When Spain regained Florida 20 years later, France could have asked for Louisiana back.
The bolded part can NOT be done easily.

Getting settlers to settle any part of New France was like pulling teeth.
 
An independent Louisiana seems to have a good chance of abolishing slavery.

Thing is the US is likely to want Louisiana eventually due to the Mississippi River. An independent Louisiana will in theory include all the OTL Louisiana Purchase, but won't really control anything north of St. Louis, and will probably cede northern areas to the US by necessity very quickly. Then the US will want Louisiana proper due to the Mississippi and New Orleans, and probably has the military means to forcibly annex it, so Louisiana because part of the US anyway.

BUT, this Louisiana, with a larger pre-American population, likely becomes a free state rather than a slave state, which will seriously ignite sectional conflict in the US. Southern slaveholding planters would resent the existence of a free state in prime land for plantation agriculture that's an easy nearby haven for runaway slaves. This potentially triggers an earlier civil war in the US.

from what I've read, the US really wanted New Orleans, and not so much the rest of the vast territory, regarding the great plains as a vast desert. One weird POD would be a USA that gets what it originally wanted (basically, New Orleans and all the land east to the Mississippi River). What next? Will the USA eventually start craving that 'vast desert'? In OTL, the LA Purchase led quickly to an interest in the Oregon region and then Texas and then the northern Mexican lands. Without that purchase.... ???
 
The bolded part can NOT be done easily.

Getting settlers to settle any part of New France was like pulling teeth.

Well, if France controls Louisiana at the outset of the Revolution, why not have Louisiana remain loyal to the ancien régime and become a haven for the émigrés? With the royalists on the side of the British, crossing the Atlantic shouldn't be a problem.
 
Well, if France controls Louisiana at the outset of the Revolution, why not have Louisiana remain loyal to the ancien régime and become a haven for the émigrés? With the royalists on the side of the British, crossing the Atlantic shouldn't be a problem.

In that case it would make sense that Louisiana would develop a desire to stay out of the United States, even years later.

But after the Revolution there could be a wave of immigrants fleeing the rise of Napoleon, not to mention either of the Bourbon Princes.

Or perhaps Louis Philippe d'Orléans (OTL's Louis Philippe I) fled France and set up a government, later squeezing recognition from Louis XVIII for a Kingdom of Louisiana of his very own.
 
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