Was paying debnts the only reason Americans went through with the Louisiana Purchase...

Was paying debnts the only reason Americans went through with the Louisiana Purchase? Seems like an awful lot of land on the cheap.

Napoleon couldn't afford to hold onto the land, and he figured giving the Americans some extra land would eventually emasculate Britain.

Too hard to control this shit for France, I believe.

That gets me thinking.

Suppose that Jefferson decided "Fuck negotiating with Napoleon, we can just take this shit", mobilized some militia, stomped through, and declared that the U.S. was annexing Louisiana.

What repercussions, both short and long term, do you think this would have had?

Napoleon and France at the time, had no interest in colonies. The Haitian Slave Revolt was still going on too.

Spain and later Mexico would try to make claim to it.

On what basis?

And could they really be able to make such claims stick? I mean, Mexico had a tough enough time with breakaway texas, and got the shit kicked out of them in the war with the U.S.

I was more thinking along the lines of, in my amateurish way:

>What effects, if any, would it have on the American political establishment, given that they just gobbled up a huge chunk of land with relative ease.
>Long term repercussions with France, who might be mad.
>Long term repercussions with Britain, who just saw America take a rather decisive step at a time when the Napoleonic wars are raging.

bump

>On what basis?
On the basis that Louisiana was Spanish/Mexican before, giving them more "legitimate" claim to the land than Americans just invading.

>And could they really be able to make such claims stick?
Well they'd piss off Spain, France, and Britain wouldn't be happy about it. I don't think fighting three of the major powers of the world at the same time is a great idea.

>Mexico had a tough enough time with breakaway texas
That was generations later, and with a much stronger and more stable America.

The Louisiana territory was primarily used to feed their profitable colony in Haiti where they had massive sugar plantations. When they lost that Louisiana became more trouble than it was worth.

France had no real way to control it, there was an anti-colonial sentiment going around and since they were on fairly good terms with the US it seemed unlikely that it would come back to bite them in the ass.

And while we're on the subject, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was the best thing to ever happen to Mexico.

>carving natural borders up into soulless squares
Only americans would do that

Yes, only Americans

I don't see too many square like objects there. Check, m8

I assumed American would care more about their own land than the colonial powers cared about Africa

Should have based the state borders (and county borders) on river drainage basins.

Implying straight lines through the desert are bad

The west were pretty much colonies at the time

Does anyone else think pre-Louisiana purchase US borders are the best? It would have been cool if a French-speaking had been established there instead.

Napoleón didn't give a shit about extra-european clay but needed moneys to fund his european military campaigns. At the time Spain, although theoretically neutral, was basically a puppet state of the French.

In a treaty, Spain ceded Lousiana to France (btw, the US were by then only interested in purchasing New Orleans but Napopoo quickly offered the entire Louisana for sale) , plus six 74 guns Spanish warships in exchange for the duchy of Parma going to some cuck relative of the super cuck king of Spain, and a clause that France wouldn't cede/sell/whatever the Louisiana to any other country.

France, as per usual, didn't honour a single word of the treaty. But kept the moneys and the warships ofc.

>literally Crying Wojak Spain and Smug Pepe France

fucking Based Nappy

If you notice, the eastern states are less square and have more natural borders. The western states were more square because as time went by, natural barriers became easier to overcome, so they become less of a concern in border creation.

Napoleon DIDN'T hold on to the land. He sold the French CLAIM to the land. It would be like if Taiwan sold Mongolia to Russia.

Pre-Louisiana borders+Florida is the most aesthetic.

This. The French could never have held it. Selling was not really a choice.

So how much did the people who lived there get paid?

Don't start

I heard somewhere that Jefferson did the purchase because he thought it would prevent the industrialization of america do to all the new farmland.

'Why would somebody be a faggy unamerican wage-cuck when they can be real men and be free farmers?'- was his reasoning.

That's a load of horseshit.

Thomas Jefferson had plans on acquiring New Orleans from the moment he assumed office. He thought that acquiring the port city at the mouth of the Mississippi would be a massive boon to the economy, and came at France twice with a price hoping to annex it. Desperate for cash, the French threw in the entire Louisiana territory for pennies on the acre and it turned into the sweetheart deal of a lifetime, and one of the most prudent investments America ever made.

Never mind the people who lived on that land.

this is true

He could, but he decided to be polite.

Notice all the straight line borders are either in the sahara or the namib deserts. Everywhere else looks like a fucking jigsaw puzzle