What happens to New Orleans if that was all Jefferson got from Napoleon?

Assuming that the first purchase only resulted in acquiring New Orleans, would it be attached to Mississippi? Do we see it attached to a state of West Florida?

If the rest of OTL's Louisiana Purchase were acquired later on, what would the development of Louisiana look like without New Orleans dominating it?
 

Philip

Donor
How long does the rest of Louisiana remain in French (or someone else's) hands? Long enough to make the Atchafalaya River a viable alternative to New Orleans?
 
I suspect American settlers will still want all that land, which is, after all, right there.

Obviously Americans will still come to the land but this is a WI where the portion of LA east of the Mississippi is not part of LA due to the timing difference between Jefferson's purchase of NOLA and the Florida Parishes and the rest of the Louisiana Purchase.
 
Obviously Americans will still come to the land but this is a WI where the portion of LA east of the Mississippi is not part of LA due to the timing difference between Jefferson's purchase of NOLA and the Florida Parishes and the rest of the Louisiana Purchase.

Ah, ok.

Well, assuming Jefferson only buys New Orleans and the Mississippi delta (which makes the rest of Louisiana Territory less useful, without its sole significant port), then that very much depends on whether West Florida is made a state (or at least a territory).

If it is, then it is possibly attached to WF (making it more viable). If not, then it likely gets added to the Mississippi Territory (and later state).
 
It's not clear to me if Louisiana absent its metropolis of New Orleans is viable as a colony. Are there any alternative centres?
 
Jefferson asked first for just New Orleans and it was the French who insisted on him taking the entire territory. They knew that the rest of the land would be impossible to defend or administer without New Orleans. Either Napoleon knew more about geography than did Jefferson, or the Americans were trying to make their request seem modest.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Or Napoleon was after a quick buck ... he knew that he will be in a war against the UK sooner than later and would lose Louisiana anyway. That's why he wanted to offload the whole thing.
In this perspective the whole business was an excellent deal - he got the land for free (i.e. in return for Parma which he stole from previous owner) and sold it! Tricksy!
 
There were already American settlers moving into what is today Missouri at the time I believe. I expect a Spanish-American War.

The land may just default to the United States anyway diplomatically once Mexico goes. It’s not viable for Spain to maintain without New Orleans OR Mexican access
 
The land may just default to the United States anyway diplomatically once Mexico goes. It’s not viable for Spain to maintain without New Orleans OR Mexican access


Or would Louisiana become part of Mexico - for a time at least?

Also, of course, if it is either French or Spanish when war resumes, then the northern part may fall into British hands, Could everything north of Kansas finish up in Canada?
 
Or would Louisiana become part of Mexico - for a time at least?

Also, of course, if it is either French or Spanish when war resumes, then the northern part may fall into British hands, Could everything north of Kansas finish up in Canada?

A British-American partition along the Missouri River and 40th parallel would be interesting. The US gets the Arkansas and Platte River basins in their entirety here. The issue is just how funky looking it all is. At the very least the British will demand the area that the iron-rich northeast of Minnesota and the port of Duluth (which was disputed OTL) be British as I can't see them holding that territory without a good port like Duluth. A full on purchase of Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula, and the lands west of the Illinois River may also be in order (likely in conjunction with some kind of positive settlement elsewhere - Arostook dispute at least and the maritimes at the most maybe? Perhaps Bahamas thrown on top for good measure...).
 
An issue to remember is that without the Louisiana Purchase, there is no Manifest Destiny. That means minimal American settlement west of the Mississippi River or in Texas. A Mexican or Spanish-American war would be less likely.
 
Was New Orléans seriously the only viable city on the entirety of the Gulf Coast between what is now Florida and what is now Texas? Seems a bit stupid to send a whole gigantic piece of the map to the dustbin because you lose one city. Even it is THE city.
 
Was New Orléans seriously the only viable city on the entirety of the Gulf Coast between what is now Florida and what is now Texas? Seems a bit stupid to send a whole gigantic piece of the map to the dustbin because you lose one city. Even it is THE city.

NOLA was on the east side of the Mississippi so theoretically the French/Spanish could just build a West NOLA and have that govern what remains of Louisiana until it becomes American too
 
I realized in mid response that I was hazy on some important details about the history of Louisiana Territory between the French and Indian War and the Purchase; reading this expresses some of them pretty clearly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Flags_Day

Basically, Spain was given control of the southern reach of French territory in North America known as Louisiana, with the British taking possession of the lands east of the Mississippi Spain got the lands west of it, in the treaty of Fountainbleu resolving the larger war in Europe. Napoleon took control of it back in the third treaty of San Ildefonso, in 1800. But the treaty and its terms were to be kept secret! Because of this secrecy, the French were slow to act to transfer practical control and in fact the period between the first French prefect taking over actual control of the city of New Orleans from Spain and then surrendering it to the USA per the Purchase was just about one month! Farther north, as the cited article states, this was reduced to a portion of a single day--the Louis and Clark expedition was put on hold due to Spanish authorities refusing to allow Americans admission to Spanish territory, never mind that on paper it was actually French territory and had been since 1800!

This bizarre situation certainly puts the vexed question in a different light. It seems clear that Napoleon's motive in offering the entire vast claim to someone merely inquiring about New Orleans alone was the recognition that as a practical matter France did not control the territory at all, and if they ever woul it would be via the base of New Orleans; if Jefferson's envoy had come asking about the territory upriver but not the city perhaps he might have hung on to the port, but the other way round, with Americans owning the city the claim to own the upriver territory would be practically void anyway, so having decided he was going to sell the city it became his best interest to use his claim to get as much money as he could from the Yankees.

Even with Napoleon more willing to sell the whole thing than Jefferson had guessed, I think maybe the legal deal might have fallen through due to American inflexibility; if so, I suppose he'd go through with selling just New Orleans, getting money from that anyway, and try to use his paper claim to extort more money from the USA--but every hour the Americans spent in New Orleans, the clearer it would become that he had zero control north of it and so Napoleon's asking price would plummet, but he could always threaten to return the land back to Spain. That gains him nothing either but negotiation pressure on getting a few more dollars. His price might be really low!

Even with a later agreement with Napoleon, if the USA takes possession of the city but not anything north of it, Spanish administrators and clergy (the treaties with Spain specified Spanish churchmen would remain in place despite French rule) would have their own line of communication cut. It is not clear to me whether the Spanish authorities in St. Louis who denied Lewis and Clark entry into "Spanish" Territory even as late as 1803 were aware the land had been ceded to France but stubbornly standing on fine details of protocol to the last, or simply had not seen or heard any credible confirmation beyond American say so that the two deals had gone through and they were now legally on US soil. Certainly in both New Orleans and St. Louis the Spanish themselves never transferred possession to the USA directly; in each case, they surrendered it to the French first, and then the French to the Americans.

So the transfer would be more awkward if only New Orleans goes and the rest is sold later. I don't think Napoleon would change his mind and decide he has an interest and right to keep the territory which was too far to invest in with New Orleans in hand, and now would have to be run with American kind permission of passage. He gains little by ceding it back to Spain or to Mexico, and Mexico, being out of communications with deals between Napoleon and his various client rulers as much as the bishop in St. Louis was, might have nothing confirming it was ever French again anyway. Again though without New Orleans overland communications between St Louis and the rest of New Spain/Mexico would be difficult and the done deal in the city does give American claims a little more credibility, as might of course envoys from both the Spanish king and Napoleon bearing the right documents.

Documents or no documents, rival great powers have little to lose by simply ignoring any treaties between the USA and Napoleon, if they are willing to risk war with the USA, which of course broke out OTL on American initiative anyway before Napoleon was finally toppled.

Basically, the faster the Americans realize their mistake in not accepting Napoleon's larger offer for more money right away, the closer outcomes will be to OTL. They'd be fools not to realize the opportunity, while Napoleon has nothing to gain from the claim but American money if he does sell New Orleans per initial American request. So he probably will not jack up the price. The question is how much delay there might be; the main reason for delay was uncertainty in both Jefferson's own mind and in his envoys about how much power and discretion American executives had under the Constitution to take advantage over such opportunities without prior authorization from Congress, and on the whole I think Congress would be wowed by the opportunity and quickly approve. It is possible that Federalists will dither and delay out of a mix of apprehension of further expansion of future slave state territory (though this being a major issue would be a bit premature I think) and sheer partisan spite against the Democrat-Republicans, but I believe the latter held the balance of power and even Federalists would be tempted by the vast scope of the Purchase offered at a very low price. So I think if Jefferson dithers instead of taking the risk of being called a hypocrite for denouncing alleged Federalist liberties with Presidential power abuses only to do something so out of bounds himself, and takes time to run it by Congress, the deal as a whole might be delayed but not stopped, or if he temporizes with the smaller purchase that was sought going forward while he tells Napoleon we'd get back to him, the delay will not be a terribly long one. I don't think Britain would go to war over a two-stage purchase if the two steps happen fast enough and that it will still be Spanish authorities in Saint Louis who have to accept suitable documents presented to them just as I suppose they did OTL.

Now if someone can present some reason for Napoleon to change his mind or jack up his price or the New World Spanish to defy and repudiate actions of their captive monarchs overseas and force the Americans to pay a higher price to overcome their opposition, that would be a game changer.

At any rate, the only reason for Americans to dither would be Constitutional qualms and none of those would stand in the way of purchasing at least the city; after that it would require a special initiative of the Spanish or Mexicans, allied with the British, to oppose eventual American takeover anyway. If Americans procrastinate too long the opportunity may slip away, but we'd have few reasons to do that and Napoleon would have none I can think of to rescind the offer.
 
NOLA was on the east side of the Mississippi so theoretically the French/Spanish could just build a West NOLA and have that govern what remains of Louisiana until it becomes American too
West Florida was under severe pressure from American filibusters. There is an ATL by @CivoLee about a Florida under another name that the British never offered to give back to Spain, retaining control despite the American Revolution and facing down the Americans; there even Britain does wind up ceding West Florida because holding it is just too difficult--the western boundary of British "Palmera" winds up being the Appalachicola river, which is at the same longitude as the Georiga/Alabama border of OTL. This might have been an outcome of the War of 1812, I forget frankly. Anyway the point is that even Britain despite tripwire defenses finds it difficult to resist USA depradations so far west. Despite the obvious rapacity and lack of legal standing of the American intruders, Spain did not go to war with the USA OTL while treaty after treaty ate away at their legal claim which originally included the entire southern halves of both Mississippi and Alabama states.

So, Spanish authorities are unlikely to make vigorous efforts to work around American blockades, especially since it would become the obvious next priority of the Americans to link the small "island" of US possession of the city itself to the USA contiguously somehow or other--the short and minimal route would be US annexation of West Florida. Spanish authorities are also effectively decapitated with Napoleon having control of Spain itself, and French initiatives do not benefit from any French claim on West Florida, nor is there any reason to think regional French viceroys would estimate superior value to developing and exploiting the uplands versus OTL estimates that led Napoleon to decide to unload it for cash.
 
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