What if: France had not sold the Louisiana territories to the U.S.?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by BeBro
What if there were no what-if-threads anymore

Then the world would be a little more of a happier place.

[Lancer]

The people of New Orleans would be *****ing about the French president.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Saras
Trivia: Did you know that, legally, the Louisiana territory was owned, if but for a few days, by a consortium of Baring Brothers of London and Hope & Co of Amsterdam, who later exchanged them for US bonds.

I was wondering about the logisitics of paying for it.

I mean, we couldn't just write a check or do an electronic transfer. I had supposed that either we or the French had used a convoy of ships to transfer gold -- what was it -- $3 million. Ooooh, what a tempting target that would have been.

[Whoha]

Re: What if: France had not sold the Louisiana territories to the U.S.?

Originally posted by Dis
Or what if Spain had rettained control (not losing it to France) and never sold it to the U.S.?

In order for Spain to have retained control they would have had to not lose their empire,and the implications of that are quite interesting.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Dracon II


IMO buying Manhatten for a few beads and trinkets was probably better. But I don't know how much Louisiana cost.

15 million.

[Zkribbler]

Arrrg. Blackheart Zkribbler, captain of the pirate ship Apolyton's Revenge, waits off the coast of Mingapulco, ready to swoop down on the doomed ship which is taking $15 million dollars in bearer bonds to pay for the Louisana Purchase.

[Barinthus]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
It makes sense to me that the British would try to add New Orleans onto a Caribbean campaign.

Wouldn't NO be a bit out of the way for Caribbean related matters? The only viable use of NO that I could see would be using it as a supplying base and that's only if the British have generous trading terms for the Americans because otherwise they'd find a way to take the place for themselves.

The British had plenty of other places closer to the Caribbean region to use as bases.

[Barnabas]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove

Something else to consider is that after 1808, when Napoleon installed his brother on the thronw of Spain the British severed Spain's links with her colonies. They began to revolt and the British took the opportunity to attempt to add a couple of them to the British empire. They were largely unsuccessful because they didn't have enough troops in the New World to adequately occupy any of the major Spanish colonies. More than likely the Americans would have felt obligated to seize Louisiana anyway, but if Louisiana had been a Spanish colony at the time who knows how the US would have gauged the boundaries of the colony.

Well, the english during the Jenkins ear war sent almost 25000 men to attack Cartagena in Colombia, and were expelled with heavy casualties, during the napoleonic wars they also invaded Buenos Aires twice with the same result.

Unless they fight bushmen with spears or indians on war elephants the brits kinds suck fighting on land, their navy was great though.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DanS
That is, of course, leaving aside the fact that the land was in many ways stolen from the Indians.

I didn't leave it aside, but your comment about Alaska is apropo. That is the only territory we didn't seize from someone. Everything else we took from someone, even if we made it look legitimate buy buying it from a third party.