Part 1 (British Louisiana)

Sick Men at El Morro
Fighting wars in the Caribbean is usually a road to disaster, and the English has learnt this the hard way several times. This time was not an exception. There was no way they had expected to capture Havana and Cuba without having taken El Morro fortification, but this task has proven to be far more difficult than expected. Malaria and other nasty diseases have proved to be more effective than the Spaniards in protecting their fortress.

Probably nobody remember this failed campaign. After all Britain won the war, France lost, and Spain's only lost, the Philippines, was returned in exchange of freeing Portugal back. Probably this has been the most extended of the colonial wars so ever and in this sense France has ceased to exist as a first class colonial Empire.

France was forced to leave the North American continent and India. They could keep a few Islands in the Caribbean or outside Africa, as well as French Guyana, but that was all. Britain demanded all French territory, but Spain pretended to get something more in exchange for freeing Portugal. The discussed territory was Louisiana, but Britain would not accept the Gulf of Mexico to be converted in an interior sea for the Spanish Empire. Finally an agreement was reached: Spanish complete control on La Hispaniola and control of some southern colonies of Portuguese America.

Britain lost no time in taking control of the new territories. Set a governor in New Orleans and sent expeditions to explore the new land. Over time several plantations were founded in Louisiana for tobacco and cotton production. The owners, usually British subjects that pretended to do a fortune in the Americas and come back rich to Britain.