The new French leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, had been unsuccessful in retaking the Caribbean island of Haiti after a slave revolution and knew war with Britain was looming. Future US president James Monroe was dispatched to Paris to try and work out a deal. Suddenly, the US no longer had access to the port of New Orleans, the city at the mouth of the Mississippi River on the Gulf of Mexico. In 1802, the Louisiana Territory, which had been given to Spain by France at the end of the French and Indian War, was suddenly returned to France. American diplomats tried to make agreements with both France and Britain, but the Jay Treaty of 1794 between the US and Britain only increased the hostility from France. Caught between France and Britain when it came to overseas trade, the US was subject to its ships being seized by both nations. By the 1790s, relations with Revolutionary War ally France had begun to cool over trade disputes. Britain still controlled Canada to the north and was the dominant power in the Atlantic Ocean. However, this did not mean friendly relations. The United States had formally won its independence from Britain in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris. The United States & France: 1790s-1803 A map of the United States circa 1810, via the State Historical Society of North Dakota
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