The Influence of First Consul Bonaparte’s Supposed Plans for
North America on the United States’ Foreign Policy, 1799-1804.
Part III: Napoleon's Designs on North America By Matthew
Zarzecny, FINS Recent articles, such as Thomas Fleming’s
“Napoléon’s Invasion of North America: Aedes aegypti takes a
holiday, 1802” in What If? 2: Eminent Historians Imagine What
Might Have Been, remind historians of the rarely referenced, but
nonetheless grandiose, designs the then First Consul of France
had on North America. Bonaparte’s extensive plans for North
America went beyond anything the previous French regimes ever
contemplated, aside from perhaps that of Louis XIV the Great,
nearly a century earlier. Inspired by Josephine Bonaparte, his
Creole wife from Martinique, Bonaparte first hoped to create a
Caribbean Empire and throughout his time as First Consul, Saint
Domingue played a more important strategic role to Bonaparte
than Louisiana. France already controlled various islands in the
Caribbean, such as Guadeloupe, Mart