What is the trajectory of Spanish Louisiana (& Florida) without Napoleonic France taking it back?

[raharris1973]

What is the trajectory of Spanish Louisiana (& Florida) without Napoleonic France taking it back?

France arranged for Spain to restore western Louisiana to French control after a lapse of 37 years of Spanish rule, by the secret treaty of San Ildefonso of 1800.

The idea that Talleyrand and Napoleon had for restored Louisiana was that it would be the 'breadbasket' and food surplus provider for the Saint-Domingue colony on the island of Hispaniola once French forces fully established order there, reestablished slavery and plantation production operations.

But as the Haiti campaign failed in the face of Haitian resistance and tropical disease, Napoleon had buyer's (or acquirer's) remorse, and decided to sell the now relatively worthless and soon to be endangered [with war with Britain imminently expected] colony to the USA.

Napoleon's remorse and last minute decision when his western hemisphere gamble started to crumble to cut his losses and liquidate for cash, only illustrates how dumb his and Talleyrand's decision was to invest diplomatic capital and resources into regaining Louisiana in the first place [they had to provide the Spanish six ships of the line as well as territorial promises in Italy in return]. They should have been sensitive to the vulnerability of the territory to British blockade all along. They were at war with Britain and had been for nearly a decade in 1800 when they pressed for the retrocession of Louisiana, and British naval superiority had already spoil major French operations in Egypt by destroying the French fleet at Aboukir Bay, and by preventing any scaled French landings in Ireland in support of the risings of 98.

Furthermore, the Haiti operation failed, and not surprisingly, the restoration of slavery failed too. But even if it hadn't, nothing suggest that Louisiana was a vital adjunct to Haiti/Saint-Domingue. France ruled and profited from Saint-Domingue handsomely in all the years from 1763 to 1792. If Haiti needed to further specialize in sugar and coffee and import more of its food to let that happen, Yankee traders would be more than happy to sell American grain and meat to plantations on the island. The most dangerous place to be is standing between a Yank and his profit opportunity. Likewise, Mexican hacienda owners and merchants would be happy to sell Mexican corn and beans to feed Haitian plantations for coffee and sugar.

So - The French don't bother. And thus the imperative, and near-term urgency, for the US to purchase Louisiana in 1803 disappears.

What is likely to happen with Louisiana over the next couple decades after 1803? Spanish America should be ripe for revolution, because nothing written here should spare Spain from the ruin of the peninsular war. America should not have special urgency in the couple years after 1803 to change the status quo because the Spanish authorities would, by precedent, keep observing the right of deposit, at a low cost, to American merchants.

The Napoleonic Wars and Royal Navy impressment should create Anglo-American tensions, overshadowing for the moment any American-Spanish tensions over the Florida border, or New Orleans.

At the time, increasing number of American citizens would surely be moving west of the Mississippi to settle in lands in Luisiana under Spanish jurisdiction, with or without Spanish Crown patents or permission.

Does that mean they will be 'Texas'ing' and rebelling to form independent republics? Maybe, but not inevitably, and we can't know when relations would reach such a breaking point.
Also, Spanish-America's revolutions should be rocking New Spain, adjacent to Luisiana. But would Mexico inherit Luisiana, or would the Spanish fleet support continued Spanish control directly by sea and Cuba through New Orleans?

 

[Analytical Engine]

Even if the US doesn't go all "it's free real estate", Americans are still going to immigrate into the land, just as they did with Texas, California and British North America.

Whether they decide to go all Texas-y depends on how the Spanish authorities treat them. American-Canadians largely remained loyal, 1837 notwithstanding

 

[raharris1973]

I like the idea of the garrison at Nuevo Orleans staying loyal to the Crown. The core of Mexico - i.e. the city of Mexico and the adjecant valleys - is a world away, after all.

Nuevo Orleans/Luisiana, Florida, Cuba and Puerto Rico are the last holdouts of the Spanish Loyalistas, as they lose elsewhere in the Americas through 1823? And, because of its importance to the local economy, the local viceregal authorities get no ideas or approvals to abolish slavery, which would just put a red flag in front of the Americans in the USA, and the American immigrant community in Louisiana, anyway?

Maybe Nuevo Orleans secures the loyalty of nearby Tejas, or beyond, to other provincias internas remote from Mexico City - the key provincias Internas being, Santa Fe De Nuevo Mexico, and Alta California.

You may be wondering, "Geez, it's 1823, why hasn't the United States seized Spanish Luisiana by hook or by crook already?"

Well, the years prior to 1803 require no explanation - that's OTL, Spain governed Luisiana, and the US secured the right of deposit in New Orleans by Pinckney's Treaty of San Lorenzo in 1795.

1803-1808 without the retrocession of the territory to the stronger, more vigorous France of Napoleon, the relatively laissez-faire, low tax, low military/naval spending Jefferson administration was reasonably content with the status quo vis-a-vis Spain. This was particular the case as French and British harassment of US maritime trade led to the US embargo policy.

1809-1812 Maritime questions, impressment, and infringements on the northwest frontier dominated President Madison's foreign policy concerns. In the meantime, although Americans continued to migrate into Spanish west Florida and Luisiana, Spanish officials, consumed with keeping basic order and supporting the struggle for the liberation of the homeland, governed immigrants with a light and lenient hand. Where Americans were established, they won tolerance to set up local slave-catching patrols. Slavery was legal in these Spanish-ruled jurisdictions, and quite common in lower Louisiana.

In 1812-1815 the USA is preoccupied in war with Britain. The outcome is a draw, with no territory changing hands. A principal difference is there is no battle of New Orleans, with no New Orleans campaign, because that whole region is uncontested Spanish territory throughout the war.

Post 1815 - Although this is an 'Era of Good Feeling' and national party unity after the war is rewritten as a victory, it is a time for economic recovery and especially international trade and commercial recovery, during which a war with Spain is not sought, even though Spain is visibly weakened by its Napoleonic War experience, and revolts throughout South America and Mexico proper. None of these revolts are afflicting the provinces closest to the USA, like Cuba, Florida, Luisiana, Texas.

The US is still raising its northwest and Mississippi territories into states.

Meanwhile, these northern Spanish provinces in the Americas are like the Spanish 'Canada', some of the least rebellious and least embattled in the hemisphere. Their hispanosphone populations are augmented by Crown loyalists fleeing colonies elsewhere in the Americas where pro-independence rebels win, and its Anglophone population is increasing through overland migration. Meanwhile, its Francophone population, in Louisiana in particular, is increasing with the end of war and postwar demobilization and occupation in France, which reduces economic opportunity for veterans at home.

The conservative, laissez-faire, don't rock the boat Spanish administrations in Louisiana and Florida are non-provocative to the growing Anglophone, USA-born community, ignoring their practices of plantation slavery and their non-Catholic 'house and farm' churches. Any American filibustering into the Floridas or Louisiana is generally left unsupported by the Madison and Monroe Administrations, and the Democratic-Republican Administrations in Washington, and Anglo-Americans in adjacent Spanish-America look askance at the spread of more radical, French Revolution inflected ideologies and Bolivarianism - often associated locally with emancipation of slaves - from South America to North America. This is even while, for trade reasons, the US looks with favor on the independence of South and Central America and Mexico and opposes Holy Alliance plans to restore Spanish rule.

Despite some dissatisfactions with administration from Madrid, Hispanophone creoles of Florida and Louisiana are hardly a rebellious lot against Spain, nor are they inclined to rise in sympathy with the rebels of South America and central Mexico. This is primarily because they see their still thin outpost civilization as vulnerable to Amerindians, slave risings, and wholesale swallowing by the United States, none of which are desired, so the Creoles do not have the confidence to believe they can run and control independent republicans they can dominate. In lower Louisiana, there is worry that revolutionary republicanism could be accompanied with emancipationist ideas bad for the economy and white supremacy [which exists, even if not so starkly 'one-drop' bifurcated as in the USA].

The Hispanophone and Francophone Louisiana and Florida Creoles general sentiments and instincts are correct.

The *southern* United States *like* slavery in neighboring countries, and consider emancipation, abolition, or a habit of harboring fugitives a cause to invade. If a neighboring country keeps slavery legal and returns fugitives and buys excess slaves, well that just might be a reason to *not* invade it today or this week.

Southern states could eventually get greedy and want to annex the land for more business and political opportunities to expand the number of slave states under American law and pro-business regulation. But if America waits long enough, up to like 1820, there are sectional divisions of opinion, and now northern states may have some objections about southern power growing too much with the annexation of land likely to turn into slave states. It could take a lot of internal sectional negotiation among the Americans to reach agreement on any expansion and how much and where America will expand, and whether it is worth a war to do it.

By the time of 1825, and a hypothetical John Quincy Adams administration, any war-weariness and budget hangovers from the War of 1812 may be long gone, but the northern 'free' states may now want to strongly put the brakes on acquisition of any territory from Spanish Florida or Lower Luisiana that they think likely too increase the number of slave states in the Union.

The national political prominence of Andrew Jackson in the meantime, might be butterflied away, from the lack of a Battle of New Orleans in this timeline.

Potentially, the US sectional balance and politics may 'settle' and stagnate as all the land within the boundaries of the 1783 United States is parceled out between an even number of Free States and Slaves States - this would require more consolidated upper Midwest states - possibly Michigan-Wisconsin-northeast Minnesota all as one, or at a minimum, Wisconsin and Minnesota combined as one; and the south more subdivided - Mississippi and Alabama split into additional states, perhaps additional Appalachian states split off.

This could hold off secession, Civil War, and radical change in the slavery status quo for two generations and delay reckoning until the 20th century.

Alternatively, the late 1820s and then 1830s might see a trend of Upper South gradual emancipation beginning, and the 'export' of slavery to rump Spanish America through the operation of the 'diffusionist' theory.

As emancipation sets in, in the upper south, those slaveowners who do not simply emancipate or liquidate their stake in the business may move deeper into the south, or into the Spanish side of the lower Mississippi Valley where the soil is less worn and the laws are more static. Or they may sell their depreciating field hands to those markets.

As this process unfolds, upper south states in the tidewater region become as competitive 'Whiggish' territory as the northeast, and Congress and Administrations become yet more unfriendly to slavery by the 1850s. The process then begins to repeat itself in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, as people sell field-hands and diehards sticking to the old ways move across the international border to Spanish Florida, Louisiana, Texas, the Rio Grande Valley, and Southern California, and California's Central Valley.

 

[Hastings]

Probably ceded after Napoleonic Wars? I think raharris is overestimating difference it makes. Spanish were well aware they had more important things on hand then a potential conflict with the US. There won't be a Battle of New Orleans, but Jackson adventures in Florida are likely to still happen since fundamental issue Seminole will suck US in and Spain almost no presence. For OTL Adams-Onis Treaty we know Spain was willing to cede much of Texas, but US didn't push hard enough. The US *will* push hard for New Orleans and Spain will probably consider that a price worth paying. 18 more years under Latin control though will make Louisiana even more distinct than OTL.

 

[Hastings]

As for interior? Could easily see chunks carved off/sold even before 1821. Presence north of modern Louisiana was very thin. And by thin I mean 24 soldiers to guard the Missouri settlements in 1780. They will get US settlement, no real way to stop it, limited ability to regulate it, given how weak control was even near rivers. British were much stronger and more culturally similar so easier for them in Canada.

 

[water123]

The United States basically needs New Orleans to function. Unless you can completely crush the US--and even then--the US is going to be coming for it. That's not as big of an obstacle as it sounds (iirc there were very real fears at the time that if the US and Spain got into a war over Florida, the US may very well have lost that war) but it is still an obstacle.

 

[unprincipled peter]

The Spanish had played games with the right of transit, but ultimately backed down. The USA blustered about taking it by force, but IF Spain plays nice, there is no urgency for USA to start a war of aggression. The idea of status quo for a couple of decades is reasonable.

The loss of West Florida in 1810/11 should be butterflied. New Orleans as a beacon for USAmerican possession put West Florida ripe for inundation by USAmericans.

As times rolls on, the OTL slave owning plantation migrations still happens. Sons of eastern plantations, seeing the soil wane, will migrate to Spanish Louisiana. OTL, Spain welcomed migration prior to the Purchase. As long as the USAmerican migrants accept the Spanish flag, Spain will allow moderated migration. Spain allowed slavery in Cuba til late 19th century. Hope they have a firm control of Louisiana, because I'm guessing the anglo slave owners might be open to forming their own state, ala OTL Texas (which is butterflied as we know it).

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

The experience of getting Texas’d in Louisiana though might well put Mexico on their guard, preventing loss of that particular area.

 

[unprincipled peter]

This also impacts the Native American expulsion (Trail of Tears). That option is no longer available to USA, as long as Louisiana is not in US hands. Without these lands being available to the slavocracy, the need to migrate to Spanish Louisiana may intensify. The Natives are still going to lose their lands, in part, or whole, but without Oklahoma being available to relocate them to, the manner in which they lose their land is going to be longer, and possibly bloodier.

 

[unprincipled peter]

But would Mexico inherit Luisiana, or would the Spanish fleet support continued Spanish control directly by sea and Cuba through New Orleans?

I would think that Louisiana doesn't have enough in common with Mexico to rise up with them. For all the reasons you mentioned, I think Louisiana stays with Spain.

From there, Texas is in contention. Spain will attempt to retain as much of northern Mexico as possible. Northern Mexico wasn't simpatico with the Southern part, is remote, and thus may be retained by Spain, being joined with Louisiana. As the years roll by, Spain may sieze any opportunity to pressure Mexico. I can see Texas being part of Louisiana from an early stage. New Mexico/Arizona/California is all up to what the sparse local residents want. Neither Mexico, or Spain, can really project power that far, so whichever side the locals want to join will get them.