A depiction of the cities of the Republics of California and Orejón in the year 1906, in my continuing alternate history series following the Louisiana Purchase being granted independence.

After Napoleon reacquired the Louisiana Territory from the Spanish, he had a change of heart (thinking he didn't need the extra money for his European campaign) and decided not to sell the territory to Thomas Jefferson and the Americans afterwards. As a result, a few years later in 1806, the French and Napoleon were heavily defeated, and as a part of the peace negotiations, the Louisiana Territory was decided to be relinquished from all European ownership and made into an independent state.

Because of the La Louisiane, the United States never had the compulsion for Manifest Destiny. La Louisiane wrote and conducted a republic largely reflecting that of their American neighbors. Thomas Jefferson, who had a great relationship with the French, helped the new nation and its leaders draft their constitution, as well as establish great relations with the United States. Marquis de Lafayette, who was also a great ally of the Americans, was invited to be the country's first president from France and accepted so graciously.

This is important because Louisiane and the United States would be pretty instrumental in the independence for California and Orejon. After the Mexicans won their war for independence in 1810, the Spanish began to lose their grip over their North American possessions as it simultaneously fell in South America. The United States and La Louisiane, both wanting the North American continent to be free of empirical European influence, began to pressure the Spanish to release their colonial holdings in the west, and as more South American countries began to war for independence, the people in California and Orejon also began to threaten war with the support of La Louisane and the United States. Fearful of even further fracture, the Spanish granted California their independence in 1821, and later Orejon theirs in 1823.