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Having lost Canada (New France), King Louis XV of France proposed to King Charles III of Spain that France should give Spain "the country known as Louisiana, as well as New Orleans and the island in which the city is situated." [1] Charles ratified the treaty on November 13 and Louis ratified it on November 23, 1762.
To balance Spain's loss of the Floridas, it gained most of what had been French Louisiana (Upper French Louisiana was split with Britain at the Mississippi River, with the west going to Spain). In the same Treaty of Paris of 1763, France handed over New France (Quebec and Acadia, today Canada) and the eastern Illinois Country to Great Britain.
The treaty ceded Spain's claims to Oregon Country to the United States and American claims to Texas to Spain; moved portions of present-day Colorado, Oklahoma, and Wyoming, and all of New Mexico and Texas, to New Spain; and all of Spanish Florida as well as a small portion of modern-day Colorado to the United States. [30]
In 1800, under duress from Napoleon of France, Spain ceded Louisiana and the island of New Orleans back to France, which promised to return them to Spain should France ever relinquish them. This cession did not include West Florida. In 1803, France then sold Louisiana and New Orleans to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. [3]
According to Monroe, France never dismembered Louisiana while it was in her possession (as he regarded November 3, 1762, as the termination date of French possession). After 1783 Spain reunited West Florida to Louisiana, thus completing the province as France possessed it, with the exception of those portions controlled by the United States.
In 1800, France's Napoleon Bonaparte reacquired Louisiana from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso, an arrangement kept secret for some two years. Documents have revealed that he harbored secret ambitions to reconstruct a large colonial empire in the Americas .
France also ceded the eastern half of French Louisiana to Britain; that is, the area from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mountains. [8] France had already secretly given Louisiana to Spain three months earlier in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, but Spain did not take possession until 1769. Spain ceded Florida to Britain. [6]
In December 1801, 30,000 veteran French troops landed on Saint-Domingue; shortly after, Spain confirmed the transfer of Louisiana to France. [ 13 ] The presence of French troops in the Caribbean caused great concern in the US, but by October 1802, it was clear the expedition was a catastrophic failure; its leader, General Charles Leclerc died ...