<P> New Orleans was the administrative capital of the Orleans Territory, and St. Louis was the capital of the Louisiana Territory . </P> <P> A dispute soon arose between Spain and the United States regarding the extent of Louisiana . The territory's boundaries had not been defined in the 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau that ceded it from France to Spain, nor in the 1801 Third Treaty of San Ildefonso ceding it back to France, nor the 1803 Louisiana Purchase agreement ceding it to the United States . </P> <P> The United States claimed Louisiana included the entire western portion of the Mississippi River drainage basin to the crest of the Rocky Mountains and land extending southeast to the Rio Grande and West Florida . Spain insisted that Louisiana comprised no more than the western bank of the Mississippi River and the cities of New Orleans and St. Louis . The dispute was ultimately resolved by the Adams--Onís Treaty of 1819, with the United States gaining most of what it had claimed in the west . </P> <P> The relatively narrow Louisiana of New Spain had been a special province under the jurisdiction of the Captaincy General of Cuba while the vast region to the west was in 1803 still considered part of the Commandancy General of the Provincias Internas . Louisiana had never been considered one of New Spain's internal provinces . </P>

How might have the purchase of louisiana from french have led to the expansion of slavery