Claiborne moved to New Orleans and oversaw the transfer of Louisiana to U.S. control after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Local French and Spanish inhabitants saw it for what it was, a military occupation that they resented and quoted in their
remonstrances and meetings that they were no more than conquered subjects who had not been consulted. He governed what would become the state of
Louisiana, then termed the "
Territory of Orleans", during its period as a
United States territory from 1804 until 1812. Relations with Louisiana's
Créole population were initially rather strained: Claiborne was young, inexperienced, and unsure of himself, and at the time of his arrival spoke no
French. His government was also opposed by an alliance of merchants, of whom
Daniel Clark and
Edward Livingston were the leading voices; Clark at one point called him "that creature, Claiborne" whom Jefferson had appointed "to degrade the American government in the eyes of the inhabitants of Louisiana..." The
white elite were initially alarmed when Claiborne retained the services of
free people of color in the militia, who had served with considerable distinction during the preceding forty-year
Spanish rule. Claiborne bestowed a ceremonial flag and 'colors' on the
battalion, an act which would enmesh him in a
duel three years later. The duel was held in then-
Spanish territory, near the current
Houmas House plantation, with his arch-enemy
Daniel Clark. On June 8, 1807, the Governor was shot through one thigh, with the bullet lodging in the other leg. Claiborne gradually gained the confidence of the French elite and oversaw the taking in of Francophone refugees from the
Haitian Revolution. An event which is now said to have been the largest
slave rebellion in U.S. history, the
1811 German Coast Uprising, occurred while Claiborne was the territorial governor. However, the American government, over which he presided, had little participation in its suppression. The
parish courts, dominated by wealthy
planters, imposed quick death sentences of the enslaved who had survived their fight for freedom. U.S. military personnel arrived too late to capture the victims of enslavement or to prevent what amounted to their massacre at the hands of American militiamen or white planters who lived along the
Mississippi River. Claiborne himself wrote at least twice to parish officials to request that they refer cases to him for executive pardon or
clemency, rather than accept the wholesale
death sentences that were being handed out in
Orleans Parish, as well as in
St. Charles Parish and
St. John the Baptist Parish. The only known beneficiaries of his pardon were two men named Theodore and Henry, but no records exist of Claiborne refusing any other pardon requests related to the rebellion. After the
Republic of West Florida won a short-lived period of independence (
from Spain) in 1810, Claiborne annexed the area to the Orleans Territory on the orders of President
James Madison, who determined to consider it as part of the
Louisiana Purchase. == After Louisiana statehood ==