What if the Louisiana purchase included Haiti?

[mightfly]

Napoleon decided to include Haiti/Hispanola/Saint Dominique into the Louisiana purchase to wash French hands of the place. Only adding a $50,000 increase in cost.

The USA was too happy about its main purchase to care.

Does this affect history too much down the road and if so how?

 

[GlobalHumanism]

Haiti was in full rebellion so I don't see how this is possible

 

[thezerech]

You'd probably need to get rid of the Haitian revolution, which you could do by having Napoleon I not restoring slavery in Guadalupe which triggered the Haitian revolution in the first place.

 

[Lusitania]

Haiti was in full rebellion so I don't see how this is possible

You cannot sell what you do not possess in this case Haiti. No country would buy Haiti So ASB. Plus US government was already weary of ortogonal deal and huge price (at that time) no wY they would want a new state in rebellion. If slave owning states wanted to increase their number the new territory on mainland provided sufficient land.

 

[Sevarics]

You cannot sell what you do not possess.

Sure you can. It's called a quit claim deed. It's fraudulent but people do it.

 

[Timaeus]

You cannot sell what you do not possess.

America bought my country from Spain for 2 million pesos back in 1898, so...

 

[Petros >Peter Fergus<]

You cannot sell what you do not possess.

The Louisiana Purchase did take place, though.

 

[Lusitania]

I was talking about Haiti, France only sold Louisiana because it had lost Haiti. The $$$ was in the sugar plantations in Haiti not the empty lands of Louisiana. France had right to sell Louisiana but no country would be interested in buying Haiti which France had lost control of and was in full rebellion by slaves.

 

[Timaeus]

I was talking about Haiti, France only sold Louisiana because it had lost Haiti. The $$$ was in the sugar plantations in Haiti not the empty lands of Louisiana. France had right to sell Louisiana but no country would be interested in buying Haiti which France had lost control of and was in full rebellion by slaves.

My country was also in full rebellion when it was sold to America.

 

[Lusitania]

My country was also in full rebellion when it was sold to America.

What country?

 

[Carp]

You cannot sell what you do not possess

You certainly can, and if anyone should know that it's Napoleon, since that's exactly how the French got Corsica.

 

[Sevarics]

What country?

The Philippines

 

[funnyhat]

Napoleon decided to include Haiti/Hispanola/Saint Dominica into the Louisiana purchase to wash French hands of the place. Only adding a $50,000 increase in cost.

The USA was too happy about its main purchase to care.

Does this affect history too much down the road and if so how?

Its name was Saint-Domingue. No relation to Dominica, which is called Dominique (with a "q") in French.

 

[Lusitania]

The Philippines

Two differences we are talking about 100 years apart. The Americans were at war with Spain and took all their American and Pacigic colonies. They gave Spain a pittance but it was not a purchase like Louisiana purchase.

 

[mightfly]

Lots of debate here on whether the French can sell it in the first place. But not much on what the US would do with it if they got it or what Haitian rebels will do here.

 

[Jasen777]

The U.S. negotiators were surprised with being offered all of Louisiana, but rolled with it. Haiti is on another level than that. Does the U.S. even want Haiti?

 

[profxyz]

I think the French could have definitely sold it: it's not like they acknowledged the legitimacy of the Haitian rebellion. Still, the reasons that Napoleon wanted to hold on to Haiti (plantation economy) would also be reasons for him not to be selling the colony, as opposed to Louisiana where the cost of defense was less justified.

Should a sale even happen, the key would have been whether the US would even accept ownership of a rebellious slave colony at all (with all the ramifications for Southern States). Would there have been an abolitionist case for buying Haiti and turning it into a proto-Liberia?

 

[thezerech]

We can just get rid of the slave revolt issue by having Napoleon sell it before the revolt.

 

[FillyofDelphi]

We can just get rid of the slave revolt issue by having Napoleon sell it before the revolt.

Nappy isen't in power before the Revolution starts, though. By the time the Consulate is established the rebellious slaves already more or less control the island.

 

[thezerech]

Nappy isen't in power before the Revolution starts, though. By the time the Consulate is established the rebellious slaves already more or less control the island.

The actual rebellion that ended in Haitian independence resulted when slavery was reinstituted in Guadalupe IIRC (so if we prevent that then there is no 2nd revolt). While Dessalines and L'Ouverture were in more or less control of the island they were still under enough French control legally for France to sell them. The tricolour and French law still was on the island.

If the U.S buys it then there will definitely be a revolt. The question is, can the United States sustain that sort of campaign? LeClerc and his 30,000 men couldn't do it. Hopefully expierance fighting Indians would come in handy. Either way it totally changes North American politics.