'An apprenticeship to liberty': The incorporation of Louisiana and the struggle for nationhood in the early American republic, 1803--1820

The United States purchased Louisiana from France in 1803, a seemingly straightforward act which instead unleashed a host of problems. This dissertation examines the contentious and occasionally violent contest that followed as people struggled to determine what place Louisiana (both the State of Louisiana and its jurisdictional predecessor, the Territory of Orleans) and its residents would occupy in an expanded United States. This project chronicles how the chaos that abounded in Louisiana in 1803 gave way to regional stability, racial supremacy, and political integration by 1820. In the process of explaining that transformation, this study investigates the meaning of nationhood at a time when that word was the subject of considerable disagreement.; By investigating the perspectives of federal policymakers, white settlers, Indians, slaves, and free people of color, this study shows how a pragmatic, contingent vision of nationhood took form in both Louisiana and the U.S. at large. Settling questions of nationhood involved more than engaging the abstract concepts that remain the focus of so much of the recent scholarship on nationalism and nationbuilding. While people connected nationhood in Louisiana to national identity and imagined communities, they also believed nationhood had political, diplomatic, and legal requirements.; Meanwhile, securing American sovereignty over Louisiana generated interlocking forms of contact and conflict that joined seemingly disconnected people scattered throughout North America. By examining subjects ranging from international diplomacy to racial contact to public administration, this study illuminates the way that even the most powerless and distant residents of the United States influenced national policymaking. The large federal presence that governed the frontier responded not only to internal administrative dynamics but also to the external pressures of Louisiana's residents.; Incorporating Louisiana was a truly national task. Although the cultural landscape of Louisiana remained an anomaly, the Louisiana Purchase nonetheless propelled one of the most fundamental debates of the young republic. As people considered Louisiana's fate, they asked not only what an individual American should be, but considered how (or even if) a nation of Americans could expand to keep pace with its expanding geographic boundaries.