Dear Joseph,
All eyes are turned, as they should be, to Louisiana as we celebrate
the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase. What better place to live than
in New Orleans -- then and now.
France had never lost hope
of regaining control of Louisiana, even after losing it in the Treaty of
Paris in 1763. Shortly
after
the American Revolution,
since Great Britain no longer seemed to be a threat, France believed that
Spain should return the colony. In fact, many residents of Louisiana had
been petitioning
the French government to reassert control. A petition was sent in 1794, signed
by some 1,500 citizens begging that Louisiana be returned to France from
which it had been "treacherously and shamefully wrenched by the abominable de Choiseul," a
reference to Etienne-Francois, Duc de Choiseul, the minister under Louis
XV.
In 1793, France and Spain had gone to war. But France did not insist on the return of the colony when the treaty was signed in 1795. In 1797, there was a failed attempt to purchase. But success was only a few years away.
Napoleon Bonaparte, the first
consul of France, had dreams of building a new French empire in the Americas.
In the summer
of
1800, he ordered his foreign
minister, Talleyrand, to begin negotiations with the chief minister in charge
of Spanish affairs. Because refusal to give up Louisiana might mean a war
with both the United States and France, Spain agreed. Besides, the colony
was pretty
expensive, costing Spain over a quarter of a million dollars yearly in deficits. "Frankly," wrote the chief minister to the Spanish ambassador in Paris, "it costs us more than it is worth." He
added that the colony would be safe in the hands of France and serve as a
barrier against American plans of colonization.
The Treaty of San Ildefonso
was signed on Oct. 1, 1800. Talleyrand wrote, "Let the Court of Madrid cede these districts to France, and from that moment the power of America is bounded by the limit which it may suit the interests and the tranquility of France and Spain to assign here. The French Republic ... will be the wall of brass forever impenetrable to the combined efforts of England and America." Spain
was compensated by the creation in Tuscany of the kingdom of Etruria, which
was given to the duke of Parma, son-in-law of Charles IV of Spain.
As we know, Napoleon decided
that he, too, would unload Louisiana, and on May 2, 1803, the Louisiana Purchase
Treaty
was signed in
Paris. Although the
exact boundaries were not specified, the United States always insisted that
the purchase included West Florida. However, Spain, which had regained possession
of Florida from the British during the American Revolution, considered the
province to extend to the Mississippi River. So the answer to your question
is the United States took possession of West Florida -- what Louisianians
now call "the Florida parishes" -- because it believed it already owned it.
When the Americans who settled in West Florida revolted against Spain, established the republic and adopted a constitution, their newly elected president, Fulwar Skipwith, wrote in December 1810 to President James Madison, suggesting that the United States annex the area. But Madison had beaten him to the punch. When Madison first heard of the revolt, he issued a proclamation in October ordering Gov. William C.C. Claiborne to take possession of West Florida, which he did, creating the county of Feliciana and dividing it into the parishes of Feliciana, Baton Rouge, St. Helena and St. Tammany.
In 1812, when Louisiana entered the Union, the eastern boundary was set at the Pearl River.
