The Purchase of all of Louisiana in 1803 brought the new American nation into contact with the French Creole population of the Lower Mississippi Basin. The Spanish called it Baja Luisiana. While the settlement in and around the city of New Orleans (the capital of the province when it was ruled by Spain) was not large, it had well established governmental and legal institutions. Which system of law would prevail in this volatile corner of the North American continent, a region that was distant and strategically vulnerable to rival European powers -- Spain, France and Great Britain - who still coveted the vast empire that was Louisiana? This was one of the most vexing problems that confronted the Administration of Thomas Jefferson. Reflecting contemporary American opinion, Jefferson did not believe that the United States would be able to incorporate Lower Louisiana into the Union on a basis of equality as a separate and independent state until the very character of its people and the...