Posted on 05/07/2026 7:39:36 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Yes, the United States effectively inherited the existing institution of slavery in the territory acquired through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France (which had briefly reacquired it from Spain in 1800). The U.S. did not introduce slavery there as a new practice; it was already well-established under prior colonial rule, and the transfer preserved the property rights of slaveholders.
Historical Context of Slavery in the Louisiana Territory
* French origins: France introduced chattel slavery to the Louisiana colony starting in the early 1700s, importing enslaved Africans (beginning around 1710) to support plantation agriculture, alongside some raids on Native American groups for labor. The Code Noir (1685) regulated slavery in French colonies, outlining rules for treatment, manumission, and rights of free people of color.
* Spanish period (1762–1800): Spain continued and expanded the transatlantic slave trade in the territory. By the time of the Purchase, there was a significant population of enslaved Africans, especially in the lower Mississippi Valley (present-day Louisiana), along with free people of color. Spain had banned enslavement of Native Americans in 1769, but some mixed-descent individuals remained in bondage.
* Brief French return (1800–1803): Napoleon reacquired Louisiana from Spain via the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso but never fully reimposed control on a large scale. His broader plans for a New World empire (including using Louisiana to supply Saint-Domingue/Haiti) collapsed due to the successful Haitian Revolution (a massive slave rebellion that led to Haiti's independence in 1804) and disease among French troops. Napoleon restored slavery in other French colonies in 1802 but sold Louisiana before deeply reasserting it there.
At the time of the Purchase, slavery was a functioning economic and social institution in parts of the territory, particularly around New Orleans and agricultural areas. The Purchase doubled the size of the U.S. and brought in a diverse population that included thousands of enslaved people.
The Louisiana Purchase Treaty and Its Provisions
The 1803 treaty (signed April 30, 1803) made no direct mention of slavery or its abolition. Key relevant language came in Article III:
"The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States and admitted as soon as possible according to the principles of the federal Constitution to the enjoyment of all these rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States, and in the mean time they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the Religion which they profess."
In the legal and social context of the era, enslaved people were treated as property under colonial (and later U.S.) law. Protecting "property" rights thus meant the U.S. recognized and upheld existing claims to enslaved individuals. President Thomas Jefferson and Congress had no intention of ending slavery in the acquired lands; they focused on governance, citizenship for free inhabitants (including free people of color in some cases), and eventual statehood.
Early U.S. actions included:
* Temporary restrictions on importing new slaves into the Orleans Territory (except those brought by migrating owners), but these were quickly weakened or removed due to local opposition.
* The territory (later split into the Orleans and Louisiana Districts) adopted laws similar to those in southern U.S. states while incorporating some French/Spanish precedents. Slavery expanded significantly post-Purchase, fueled by the cotton gin, sugar plantations, and the domestic slave trade. New Orleans became a major slave-trading hub.
Broader Impacts
The Purchase did not "create" slavery in the region but integrated an existing slave society into the U.S., exacerbating sectional tensions over whether new states carved from the territory would allow slavery. This contributed to debates leading to the Missouri Compromise (1820), the expansion of the domestic slave trade, and ultimately tensions culminating in the American Civil War. Parts of the territory (e.g., future Missouri) already had some slaveholders; lower Louisiana had many more.
In short: The U.S. acquired a territory where slavery was a longstanding colonial practice under France (and Spain). By guaranteeing property rights and incorporating the inhabitants without disrupting the institution, the U.S. inherited and then expanded slavery there under American law and governance. The Haitian Revolution indirectly enabled the sale by derailing Napoleon's plans, creating an ironic link between the end of slavery in one former French colony and its reinforcement in another.
I agree. The first slavery in America was indentured servitude. A ships captain would transport people and auction them off to recover the cost of transport. The person who paid the fair basically had a slave for a given time. The indentured servant was often brutally treated and many died. The first slave rebellion was a multi race effort. The Quakers developed the abolitionists theology that Wilberforce used in England.
I say that in 1802 prior to the Louisiana Purchase, slavery in French controlled territory was France's fault.
How does this lead to blame of conservatives? I do not understand. Who else should I be blaming besides France?
"But going that route leaves one with us conservatives being somehow "guilty" for the idiocies of Democrats, for which I as an American do not apologize nor do I believe the "Obama-Biden" version of America is something for which I accept "guilt." Nor do I accept the "guilt" as peddled by the NYT's 1619 bullshit."
How does an open admission that French slavery in French territory is France's fault, lead to conservatives are guilty?
I am clearly missing something. How does this even track?
The transatlantic period is well, well documented. There's no need to create a hoax as if I invented something new today in this instant.
It is not the fault of the Colonies that they have among them so many of these unhappy people. They have made laws to prohibit the importation of them; but these laws have always had a negative put upon them here, because of their tendency to hurt our Negro trade. - Richard Price, "Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America" page 42
To those of you willing to listen, this is actionable history.
True it's written from the British and not French perspective but the end result really is not all that different.
The colony is the parent country's responsibility and the parent country's guilt and in this instance, Louisiana was of France. That is where the pre-purchase guilt resides.
If you keep people enslaved, you are guilty of that.
And again, there was slavery here before and beyond the LP.
Don’t see many if any stories if white people taken into slavery it doesn’t fit the agenda of the evil white people.
You can fairly blame the U.S. for choosing to keep slavery after independence, and for maintaining it in the Purchase territories after acquisition.
But the people who made all those decisions are long dead anyway, so I don't understand the relevance to today.
That’s 1775 when they were colonies. Then comes 1776. They shook the etch-a-sketch and could make their new country however they wanted. They chose to get rid of royalty. They chose to get rid of state religion. They chose to keep slavery. It might not have been the colonies’ fault. But it was DEFINITELY the COUNTRY’S fault.
You're barking up a wrongly-Grok'd tree.
You do know that France of the Bourbon monarchy is not the same country as the current and FIFTH republic which began in the 1950s..... Or you don't. And that House of Bourbon currently is represented by Madrid-born Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou, who would -- but just plain won't -- be Louis XX if they ever regained the monarchy of France as under the earlier and very long-dead Bourbons.
"Pre-purchase guilt?" Wow. Like "actionable history?" Who you gonna sue?
Here's a thought: use your favorite search engine to find uses of your phrase, "actionable history." It would be interesting. Maybe ask Grok.
People do this right here on Free Republic. People(teachers) do it in the schools and universities. The 1619 Project does it. It is even in the name: The 1619 Project they do not call it the 1776 project.
"But the people who made all those decisions are long dead anyway, so I don't understand the relevance to today."
The answer is two part.
There is no relevance to today, except there is relevance because the progressives have made it relevant and the progressives use their positions in journalism and academia to keep shoving slavery down our throats even though as you said, it was France's fault. No, actually you mentioned Great Britain but it's all the same either way depending on which territory is in question.
Look, we have the universal fact of nature abhors a vacuum to contend with here. As long as we leave a vacuum that progressives can triumph on the topic of slavery, we will have to deal with this forever.
The only way to make it stop is to force it to stop and that's through one single word. Victory.
But as Reagan said you can have peace and you can have peace this very instant. You only have to do one thing.
Surrender.
Those are the choices we are being given by the progressives. Either we win this argument over slavery or we can choose to surrender. I think victory is the better option but every day I receive constant reminders that I am alone, I'm surrounded by people who do not desire victory in this. I can't grasp the concept.
Wow. You said that publicly where people can see it.
The United States Founding Fathers were resolutely against using government as a weapon to entirely re-write society and put everybody into mass graves or gulags who stood against them.
You speak of the Founders as if you view the Founders like they are a bunch of Vladimir Lenins and Hugo Chavezes. It is very saddening to see this line of diseducated thinking on Free Republic.
Yes, very actionable. Since there is no way to blame conservatives for what France was doing(and others have brought up Spain, G. Br.) it is a safe counter-point to The 1619 Project to highlight that slavery was their fault, not our fault.
Simple. True.
Europe is guilty, guilty, guilty. Facts are stubborn things.
Because it’s true. As for your strawman about gulags, well that’s just dumb.
No I speak about the Founders as people who had great ideas, but were flawed human beings and made some mistakes. Probably their single biggest mistake is that the allowed slavery to continue. They had an opportunity to get rid of it. They were making a new country that would only inherit the laws they chose to. And they chose poorly.
There was never such an opportunity to end slavery for the Founders. South Carolina and Georgia, and probably North Carolina too would've re-joined the British Empire given the Empire's pro-slavery stance pre-1800. The king said as much about their slavery favoritism.
There would not be a U.S. without said tolerance.
Britain wanted its 13 slave colonies back and an immediate knock-down of 13 down to 10 would've either ensured the U.S. lost the Revolutionary War outright, or a second Revolutionary War within just a few years of Yorktown.
Yes there absolutely was. It would have been ugly and unpleasant because the slave states were really into it. But doing the right thing is often ugly and unpleasant. Good guys take the hard path. The Founders chickened out. They went the expedient path.
A very sensible outlook on the situation. It is stupid for people to deny the role slavery had in the U.S. economy and how its evils are a stain on our history. But I don’t believe that we have a duty somehow in this present day to make amends for that history. Honesty does not require absolution by cash or kind.
“Facts are stubborn things”
Well you sure don’t seem to have any trouble shoving them aside.
Your sour grapes that you got proven wrong are not my concern when you challenged me to crack open a book and my reply was my own audio recordings of doing that very thing.
America was first in transatlantic abolitionism and there’s nothing you can do to change that fact no matter how hard you stomp your feet.
That fact will always be there. It does not go away. America was in fact first.
Don’t blame me. You are simply incorrect on all counts and you do not know your own history.
That's what you're advocating here. Day 1 suicide.
Without compromises to keep the 13 colonies together, we would become slaves to the British Empire again as we were before. Most likely Washington, Mason, Patrick Henry, and hundreds of others, the entire Continental Congress, every Declaration signer, would be put to death under acts of treason. Made into examples of what happens for disobedience to the crown.
"But doing the right thing is often ugly and unpleasant"
Suicide is not "the right thing". It's ridiculous in your scenario though.
We gotta be able to say that phrase. American Exceptionalism. And we can say it. Because America is in fact exceptional.
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