DeConde

This Affair of Louisiana. By Alexander DeConde. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976. 255 pp.

This Affair of Louisiana is an interesting book regarding the territory of Louisiana and its place in the imperial history of the United States, Spain, France, and, to a lesser degree, England. Author Alexander DeConde seeks to no just tell the story of Louisiana, but to situate it in the context of the theme of American expansion. He argues that the tradition of expansion, running throughout American history, was particularly prominent in the Jeffersonian era and that the American acquisition of Louisiana was a direct result of this practice, not a mere stroke of luck. In order to be clear on the exact meanings of some frequently used terms in his work, DeConde gives helpful definitions of imperialism, its synonym, expansion, and empire in his preface.

DeConde begins his narrative with the first European occupation of Louisiana by the French in the 1630s and continues his study through the years of boundary disputes immediately following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. He gives a brief account of the early Spanish and French explorers and the difficulties of penetrating and settling the broad area known as Louisiana. He then goes on to describe the French occupation and then the transfer of the territory to Spain as a result of the Treaty of Paris ending the Seven Years War in Europe in 1760. He also thoroughly outlines the diplomacy of the era, both European and New World, including the complicated cession of Louisiana back into the hands of the French and Napoleon who would go on to sell it after much deliberation to the United States, an act of questionable legality.

Throughout this time, DeConde points out, France, Spain, and England were very much aware of the American desire for expansion. The area of Louisiana, including New Orleans and the crucial Mississippi River, as the western border of the states was the next logical conquest. They knew that eventually the Unites States would take control of Louisiana, one way or another. The United States already asserted economic control of much of the territory, especially New Orleans, through trade and contributed a significant American population to the area. Although it may appear inevitable in retrospect, President Jefferson, his diplomats and officials, and even the American people all contributed to the acquisition. Years of political maneuvering and negotiating along with the mindset that it was the right of America to expand to the western coast of North America led to this event. Therefore, DeConde sees the Louisiana Purchase as the result of conscious and deliberate action rather than a fortuitous accident.

In the text of the book, DeConde makes use of a wide array of primary sources, including the personal papers and correspondence of key figures and government documents, to support his thesis. Though he includes notes only when he uses direct quotation, he does add a bibliographic essay at the end of his work outlining all of the sources he used indirectly, broken down by general sources and specific chapter, and where to find them as well as extensive suggestions for further reading on the subject of Louisiana.

In conclusion, I enjoyed the book a great deal; I found it easy to follow and well-written. DeConde supplies abundant examples of evidence in support of his argument along with a useful, detailed chronology of the events concerning Louisiana and its journey to becoming American territory. His views on the Louisiana Purchase and American imperialism provide an important contribution to the study of the Louisiana’s complicated past and to the study of U.S. history as a whole.

Colby Bosher

This Affair of Louisiana. By Alexander DeConde. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976. 255 pp.

In his preface to This Affair of Louisiana, author Alexander DeConde immodestly claims that he is the first “serious modern scholar” to produce “an interpretive synthesis” of the Louisiana Purchase based on primary and secondary sources (p. ix). As such, he promises readers “speculative analysis as well as a chronological narrative.” (p. ix.) Dr. DeConde, now professor emeritus of history at the University of California – Santa Barbara, should have stuck with the chronological narrative.

His admittedly “speculative” thesis is also set forth in the preface: “Americans obtained Louisiana because they desired it and worked to get it. Their determination, their rhetoric, and their activity developed logically out of an already old Anglo-American imperial tradition,” (p. x), which he also calls “an expansionist Anglo-American ethos, rooted in the colonial experience.” (p. ix.)

But until the final chapter, DeConde sets his thesis mostly aside, concentrating instead on his “chronological narrative,” which is thorough, informative, and crisply written. Focusing first on the history of the Louisiana Territory, then on events leading up to the Purchase, and, finally, on the Purchase itself and its aftermath, DeConde adroitly describes the convoluted political and diplomatic maneuverings of the British, French, Spanish, and Americans over the Territory without losing his reader. Skillfully weaving quotes from primary sources into his narrative, DeConde recounts how France’s defeat to Britain in the Seven Years’ War (1755-1762) led to the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, in which France ceded control of Louisiana to Spain. In 1800, Spain returned the favor by ceding Louisiana back to France in the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso but only after Napoleon promised never to sell the Territory to a third party. Honoring that promise in the breach, Napoleon sold Louisiana to America in 1803 for $15 million and used the proceeds to wage war on England. The Purchase was a “steal” for President Thomas Jefferson’s administration, which had doubled the size of the country without shedding a drop of blood.

Helpfully, DeConde pauses his narrative at times to discuss competing schools of historical thought on controversial matters. For example, he notes that historians generally split into two groups regarding Napoleon’s decision to sell Louisiana to America: “[T]those who place the causes for the decision mainly in Europe and those who see the developments in North America as being more important.” (pp. 154-155.) Not surprisingly, given his thesis, DeConde falls into the latter camp, concluding that Napoleon simply recognized that neither he nor “the decaying Spanish monarchy” could “stop the westward tide of American expansion.” (p. 159.) As DeConde points out, the issue for Napoleon was not money; Spain would have paid far more than $15 million to keep Louisiana from the Americans. But Napoleon realized that Spain was too weak to defend the Territory from either Great Britain or the United States and he preferred to keep the latter neutral in his imminent war against the former. Hence, as DeConde would put it, Anglo-American expansionism had triumphed.

And that triumph, DeConde insists in his final chapter, was not an accident of fate. Rather, if Jefferson “and his advisors had not been heirs of an imperial tradition and believers in an expansionist ideology, they probably would not have acted as they did when they did” (p. 250) in making the Purchase. As DeConde notes, by agreeing with his advisors that the Purchase could be effectuated without direct constitutional authorization, Jefferson abandoned his usual “strict constructionism” for a much broader view of executive power. Similarly, Jefferson’s famed democratic impulse went missing in action when he set up an autocratic government in Louisiana and denied Creoles the right to vote. DeConde thus implies that Jefferson would sacrifice whatever principles got in the way of his seemingly innate Anglo-American expansionist urges.

But one could just as easily contrast Jefferson, the author of “All Men are Created Equal” with Jefferson, the Slaveholder. And the original Constitutional approbation of slavery was probably as much politically as racially motivated. As DeConde himself puts it, Jefferson was “an astute politician [who] “realized that diplomacy in a country aspiring to democracy needed popular acquiescence, if not active support.” (p. 135.) In shaping his Louisiana policy, Jefferson took into account public sentiment, economic concerns, and the need to preserve the Union from secessionism. But, truth be told, he also wanted to stay in office and maintain his party in power. Rejecting Napoleon’s offer or failing to get the Purchase promptly ratified would have meant political suicide for Jefferson. Granted, America was hardly a democracy for blacks, women, and Creoles in 1803 but it still appears that American foreign policy was being dictated more by a “democratic thrust” than what DeConde claims was an “imperial thrust.”

This Affair of Louisiana. By Alexander DeConde. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976.

The significance in DeConde’s book, This Affair of Louisiana, is the author’s inclusion of the major events, people, and policies surrounding the history of the Louisiana territory, and specifically, the Louisiana Purchase. The author attaches a theme to his work—namely Manifest Destiny as an actual mission that United States politicians actively pursued through expansionist policies and rhetoric. But this theme, although certainly viable, assumes secondary status to the author’s concise account of the Louisiana Purchase. As such, DeConde contributes a general history best used as a resource rather than a revisionist or standard work.

DeConde’s work on Louisiana extends back to the Age of Exploration and initial European encounters with North America and the Gulf Coast. The author emphasizes the complexities of the foreign encounters within the region, documenting Spanish interest in gold and French interest in land—both of which will set the stage for the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century battles over authority within the region. Unfortunately, DeConde’s account focuses mainly on foreign affairs, leaving out social and cultural history. Even the author’s mention of France and Spain (and, later, Great Britain) work to set the stage for American involvement in the region and the United States’ contests with the European nations over Louisiana. It would have been useful for the author to include in more detail the varying perspectives of the other nations involved in the Louisiana Purchase and the region’s history. Instead, DeConde’s book presents a Louisiana history from a decidedly American perspective. Certainly, DeConde’s overarching theme, Manifest Destiny, necessitates a study focused primarily on United States expansion, but including other perspectives in more detail could have made DeConde’s work more encompassing a study.

The remainder of DeConde’s book relates the history leading up to the Louisiana Purchase, including the multiple treaties, entangling alliances, and United States desire to have access to New Orleans and the Mississippi River. DeConde concludes with an interesting analysis of the United States’ interest in expansion. The author states: So it was that descendants of those who settled Jamestown, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay inherited an imperialist ideology along with their language, politics, religion, and culture” (243). To DeConde, rather than being a distinctly American mission, Manifest Destiny was, instead, “an intrinsic part of their experience” (243). In other words, DeConde seems to be saying that European expansion laid the groundwork for the practice of expanding and acquiring land that the American colonies continued after gaining their independence from Great Britain. This assertion is, perhaps, one of the more intriguing aspects of DeConde’s work. With this statement the author suggests a conscious effort inherent in United States sentiment to expand—an affirmation of the author’s thesis. But DeConde also implies evidence supporting a type of germ theory, or the transplantation of European ideals to North America. In effect, DeConde attempts to link European expansion to the American desire for the Louisiana territory. The author provides a good account of European expansion, but the link DeConde ultimately tries to make proves weak, especially since the author only documents European expansion to the United States while not mentioning the circumstances surrounding the Europeans who settled in other regions of the world including South America. Certainly, the circumstances in South American settlement were different than in North America, but by only focusing on the United States and the Louisiana Purchase, DeConde presents a narrow view of an ideal that supposedly influenced the United Stated into the twentieth century. In this sense, DeConde provides an example of how the extension of European ideals into colonies could work, while leaving the reader to wonder whether, in other cases, this theory is accurate.

Ultimately, DeConde’s book provides a useful source for general information on the Louisiana Purchase and the foreign contests that embroiled the region in controversy. The author’s work is meticulously documented with an impressive source base including letters from various officials involved in the Louisiana affair as well as some secondary works. As significant is the author’s 35 page bibliographic essay at the end of his work that documents the major works written on the Louisiana Purchase. In short, DeConde’s book is a useful resource to rely on if studying (or teaching) the Louisiana Purchase.

This Affair of Louisiana. By Alexander DeConde. (New York: Charles Schribner's Sons, 19766. Pp.x, 325, ISBN 0-684-14687-8.)

If interested in a study of motives regarding the Louisiana Purchase, Alexander DeConde's This Affair of Louisiana explores the history, negotiations, acquisition and the aftermath of the attainment of the Louisiana territory. DeConde's book begins not with a gripping battle, but rather starts directly as the history of Louisiana itself started: "At one time or another four nations - Spain, France, England, and the United States - vied for Louisiana or parts of it" (3). This book takes a definitive position with respect to expansionism and the ethicality of it during the Jefferson era . DeConde will submit that Louisiana was not gained rightfully according to the Constitution and that expansionism is not too terribly different from imperialism. DeConde believes Jefferson "established a precedent for use of the Constitution as an instrument sanctioning, even sanctifying, expansionism" (252).

DeConde devotes a rather brief number of pages to the history of the machinations and maneuverings behind the companies given charters to develop Louisiana. Although he names the key players during this time period in terms of military and political history (LaSalle, Iberville, Crozat, John Law, Perier) he leaves out details of difficulties faced with the as yet non-existent separation of church and state powers. This combination of authority no doubt led to easy coercion by those who wielded absolute power: those with the hand of God and politics on their side.

The events highlighted in this book include France ceding Louisiana to Spain with the "secret" Treaty of Ildefonso, France regaining the area, and Napoleon Bonaparte envisioning a great empire in the New World with the use of the Mississippi as a trade center route to supply items to Hispaniola, which was to be the heart of his empire. DeConde also discusses Monroe arriving in France while Robert Livingston was already there working on negotiations, France's many issues with the Haitian insurgents, disease, strained finances and ultimately Napoleon’s realization that without the island, Louisiana would not be as beneficial to France as expected. Needing money to support Bonaparte's military ventures in Europe, Bonaparte considers selling the Louisiana territory. DeConde does not offer any new information in this section which cannot also be retrieved out of a high school text.

The book reads as if DeConde is impatient to get to the point in history he wants to examine - Jefferson's policy in regard to land acquisition. DeConde believes the purchase was a move of conscious expansionism. Although he describes events which no one would doubt and cites resources which no one would question, DeConde's apology for offering a book on Louisiana comes in his thoughts about Jefferson’s actions regarding actual acquisition. When we arrive at the portion of the book which clearly interests DeConde, he asserts America was not in the position of innocent purchaser because France should not have been able to or did not have the right to sell Louisiana. Thomas Jefferson knew this and made the purchase anyway. At issue is the fact that the Constitution did not specifically empower the federal government to acquire new territory by treaty, but Jefferson must have believed the practical benefits (and the increasing pressure from both Federalists and Republicans) outweighed the possible violation of the Constitution. DeConde does not give as much emphasis to factors which aided the United States with this decision, like Europe's own financial and political problems, and DeConde does not contrast this acquisition with other moves of imperialism looking for comparisons and contradictions. DeConde summarizes Jefferson's thoughts on the acquisition, "It fitted comfortably within the nationalistic and expansionist ideology of America's political leaders, regardless of party affiliation, and met the desires of many Americans who felt that sooner or later the entire North American continent must be theirs" (255). This sounds very much like imperialism.

The terms of expansionism and imperialism become problematic in this book. DeConde does not make a clear argument as to the distinction between the two (even though he offers 'working definitions' in his preface). DeConde asserts, "we can also note that the Anglo-Americans brought with them from England an especially compelling imperialist creed" (243). It is unclear when an acquisition is an act of imperialism and when it is an act of expansionism.

DeConde believes Jefferson's intent to populate the area was for defense (133) but this seems to overlook other reasons such as Jefferson's desire for building "character" on the national level, which could be aided by cultural change brought about as a result of populating the area. Clearly, when almost doubling its size, America would need as much cohesion as possible - both political and cultural - and all these factors worked toward Jefferson's ideal of a democracy. DeConde indicates that Jefferson was not entirely justified in acquiring this territory and that Jefferson had a "shift in constitutional principles" (252) and that his "strict-constructionist principles clashed with his imperial concept" (252).

This book, while not complete in its treatment of the entire history of Louisiana, does study in depth the thoughts of Jefferson (as much as we can know from his extant writing and policies) and political considerations in acquiring Louisiana. This book would serve nicely as a complement to other scholarship focusing on the purchase with expansionism defined differently and contrasted differently with imperialism - perhaps examining the motives of all the invested countries. If other countries were manipulative in their desire to win territory, could America not do the same and be secure? Additionally, a further rounding out of this book would have included more emphasis on the differing ethnic, religious and cultural issues Jefferson had to consider when bringing Louisiana into the fold of the United States.