AHC: Larger Louisiane Purchase

Is there anyway the US can gain the port of San Francisco and achieve gaining northern California above the 37th parallel in 1803?
 
If France or any European power was ever strong enough to control that much of N. America I doubt they'd need to sell it to the Americans.
 
Considering how the US bought Louisiana from France and not from Spain... Very hard unless you were to make Madrid keep that colony and then sell it to the US themselves, with good chunks of California then thrown in for good measure. Otherwise it's not doable.
 
Could a much more successful Spanish campaign cause Napoleon to take all of Spanish North America? Then, after the Haitian Revolution, Napoleon could sell America all the land to the west coast, since it would not be worth keeping. Did Napoleon even want Spanish colonies though? If he did end up taking them then I find it hard to believe that he would want to sell Louisiana in the first place.
 
Nope. For the US to get all that territory at once, it would have to be bought from Spain. And I can't see Spain giving up almost half of their North American territory without a fight.
 
Nope. For the US to get all that territory at once, it would have to be bought from Spain. And I can't see Spain giving up almost half of their North American territory without a fight.

Since it was during the Napoleonic Wars, could the US side with France and have Napoleon more situated in Spain and Napoleon being more friendly to the US allow the US to buy off a Pacific port later?
 
Since it was during the Napoleonic Wars, could the US side with France and have Napoleon more situated in Spain and Napoleon being more friendly to the US allow the US to buy off a Pacific port later?

I don't think so. Napoleon isn't going to have control of any Pacific ports, no matter how well things go for him. And if he takes control of Spain, then the Viceroyalty of New Spain will rebel as in OTL. So buying territory in the Pacific means that the US will have an earlier version of the Mexican-American War on its hands as well as a war with Britain.

EDIT: Unless you mean that France and Spain remain allies? In that case, the decision would be up to the Spanish, not Napoleon. So I don't think the US getting San Francisco in 1803 is really plausible. But it might happen later on. Maybe Ferdinand VIII isn't overthrown by Napoleon, so most of the colonies stay loyal to Spain for just a little longer. Then, 20 or 30 years down the line, as the Spanish Treasury is being bled white trying to contain all those criollo rebellions in South America, the Spanish agree to sell part of Alta California to the US in the hopes of hanging on to the rest of their empire.
 
Last edited:
You could see Spain somehow giving up the supposed Rio Grande (Texas) and Apalachicola (West Florida) borders France and America claimed for Louisiana, but not California at all.
 

Kingpoleon

Banned
It all began in Madrid. Napoleon, seeing the riots from the royal family leaving, let's them stay as "Grand Duke of Spain". In exchange, the Spanish "give" them the North American territories north of the Rio Grande, and a straight line from its end to the Pacific Ocean. Napoleon loses more trade without Spain being directly controlled, so he sells the Americans the North American territory gained and Haiti for $4,500,000.
 
Well, Spain didn't actually settle California until 1769 (although they claimed it before then), so it's perhaps possible that the French could have gotten over there before then and entrenched themselves so that the Spanish would have to recognize their control (similar to what happened in Saint-Domingue). But I'm not certain why they would do this.
 
Top