Episode 41 Napoleon’s Ambitions in the New World

Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon

Dr Suzanne M Desan

Film Review

Louisiana

During Napoleon’s reign, the Louisiana Territory extended from Mississippi to the Rockies. France ceded it to Spain in 1763 after the Seven Years War. In 1800, France regained title to Louisiana by trading it for some Italian territories. Observing Napoleon’s conquests in Italy, President Thomas Jefferson worried that France would form a new state west of the Mississippi with the support of Appalachian settlers wanting access to the Mississippi River for shipping (see French Revolution: The 1798 US War with France).

In 1803 Jefferson bought Louisiana from Napoleon for $11.5 million.*

St Domingue (Haiti)

Under the 1801 St Domingue constitution:

• Revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Ouverture became governor for life.
• Slavery was abolished.
• Hierarchy and inequality were abolished.
• To keep the economy strong, slaves were required to remain on their plantations and work for a wage.

Under L’Ouverture, St Domingue never officially declared independence from France. In 1801, Napoleon sent his brother-in-law General Victor Emmanuel LeClerc with 50 ships and 20,000 solders to reign in the slave revolts. It proved impossible for the French to prevail against Toussaint’s guerilla warfare, especially after one-third of LeClerc’s troops got yellow fever.

Toussaint himself was captured and taken to France, where he died in prison. Jean-Jacques De Salines replaced him as governor.

In 1802, Napoleon repealed the abolition of slavery and reopened France’s slave trade.

After LeClerc, who called for total extermination of St Domingue’s Black population, died of yellow fever in 1803, the French withdrew their remaining 8,000 troops. Losses were twice as high among the former slaves.

In 1804 De Salines renamed St Domingue Haiti and declared an independent military dictatorship.

In 1802, a temporary peace treaty ended (for 14 months) the war between France, Spain and the UK (for 14 months), although British secret agents continued to organize French royalists to violently resist Napoleon.

*In 1805, Jefferson would buy East and West Florida from Spain for $10 million.

Film can be viewed with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/149323/149401