The Catholic Church has had a presence in New Orleans since the founding of the city by the French in 1718.

New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana west of the Mississippi had been surrendered to the Spanish in 1763.

From then until 1783 the two Floridas had been under British control, but as part of the Peace of Paris (1783) the two Florida colonies had been regained from Great Britain.

Thus, the pioneer parishes of New Orleans and Louisiana are incorporated into the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas when it is established by Pope Pius VI on April 25, 1793.

The diocese originally encompasses the entire Louisiana Purchase, from the Gulf of Mexico to British North America, as well as the Florida peninsula and the Gulf Coast.

The date of its establishment makes it the second-oldest diocese in the present-day United States: the Diocese of Baltimore had been established on November 6, 1789.

At the time of its establishment, the territory of the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas is part of the Archdiocese of San Cristobal de la Habana, based in Havana, Cuba.

Jackson is looking for a way to salvage his reputation after the Sevier affair and the duel.

He chooses to align himself with former Vice President Aaron Burr, who after leaving office in 1805 had gone on a tour of the western United States.

Burr is extremely well received by the people of Tennessee, and stays for five days at the Hermitage.

Burr's true intentions are not known with certainty.

He seems to have been planning a military operation to conquer Spanish Florida and drive the Spanish from Texas.

To many westerners like Jackson, the promise seems enticing.

Western American settlers have long held bitter feelings towards the Spanish due to territorial disputes and the persistent failure of the Spanish to keep natives living on their lands from raiding American settlements.

On October 4, 1806, Jackson addresses the Tennessee militia, declaring that the men should be "at a moment's warning ready to march."

On the same day, he writes to James Winchester, proclaiming that the United States "can conquer not only the Floridas [At this time there is an East Florida and a West Florida.], but all Spanish North America."

He continues:

    I have a hope (Should their be a call) that at least, two thousand Volunteers can be lead into the field at a short notice—That number commanded by firm officers and men of enterprise—I think could look into Santafee and Maxico—give freedom and commerce to those provinces and establish peace, and a permanent barier against the inroads and attacks of forreign powers on our interior—which will be the case so long as Spain holds that large country on our borders.

Jackson has agreed to provide boats and other provisions for the Burr expedition.

However, on November 10, he learns from a military captain that Burr's plans apparently include seizure of New Orleans, at this time part of the Louisiana Territory of the United States, and incorporating it, along with lands won from the Spanish, into a new empire.

He is further outraged when he learns from the same man of the involvement of Brigadier General James Wilkinson, whom he deeply dislikes, in the plan.

Jackson acts cautiously at first, but writes letters to public officials, including President Thomas Jefferson, vaguely warning them about the scheme.

Wilkinson had vowed to supply troops at New Orleans, but, after a near-incident with Spanish forces at Natchitoches, he has concluded that the conspiracy is bound to fail and, rather than providing troops, Wilkinson decides he can best serve his conflicting interests by revealing Burr’s plan to President Jefferson and to his Spanish paymasters.

Jefferson and his cabinet had by mid-1806 begun to take more notice of reports of political instability in the West.

Their suspicions are confirmed when Wilkinson sends the president correspondence which he had received from Burr.

In an attempt to preserve his innocence and career, Wilkinson has edited the letters.

They had been sent to him in cypher, and he has altered the letter to prove both his "innocence" and Burr's guilt.

He warns Jefferson that Burr is “meditating the overthrow of [his] administration” and “conspiring against the State.”

Jefferson alerts Congress of the plan, and orders the arrest of anyone who conspires to attack Spanish territory.

He warns authorities in the West to be aware of suspicious activities.

Jefferson, a political opponent of Burr, issues an order in December for Burr's arrest, declaring that a treasonous plot is underway in the West and calling for the arrest of the perpetrators.

Aaron Burr had continued his excursion down the Mississippi with Harman Blennerhasset and the small army of men that they had recruited in Ohio.

They intend to reach New Orleans, but in Bayou Pierre, thirty miles north of New Orleans, they learn Jefferson had issued an order for Burr's arrest, declaring him a traitor before any indictment.

Burr reads this in a newspaper in the Territory of Orleans on January 10, 1807.

Jefferson's warrant put Federal agents on his trail.

Burr and his men surrender at Bayou Pierre, and Burr is taken into custody.

Charges are brought against him in the Louisiana Territory, but Burr escapes toward Spanish Florida.

The French invasion of Spain in 1808 had led to the collapse of the Spanish Monarchy.

Most subjects of Spain do not accept the government of Joseph Bonaparte, placed on the Spanish throne by his brother, Emperor Napoleon of France.

At the same time, the process of creating a stable government in Spain, which will be widely recognized throughout the empire, has taken two years.

This has created a power vacuum in the Spanish possessions in America, which creates further political uncertainty.

Aaron Burr had remained abroad for four years, lived in self-imposed exile from 1808 to 1812, passing most of this period in England, where he occupied a house on Craven Street in London.

He has become a good friend, even confidant, of the English Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, and on occasion has lived at Bentham's home.

He has also spent time in Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and France.

Living in his customary indebtedness but ever hopeful, he had solicited funding for renewing his plans for a conquest of Mexico, but had been rebuffed.

He had been ordered out of England and Napoleon Bonaparte had refused to receive him, although one of his ministers had held an interview concerning Burr's goals for Spanish Florida or the British possessions in the Caribbean.

With help from old friends Samuel Swartwout and Matthew L. Davis, Burr returns to New York and his law practice in 1812, using the surname "Edwards", his mother's maiden name, for a while to avoid creditors.

The militancy of the "Red Stick" Creeks is a response to the increasing United States cultural and territorial encroachment into their traditional lands, and leads to the Creek War of 1813-1814.

The alternate designation as the Creek Civil War comes from the divisions within the tribe over cultural, political, economic, and geographic matters.

At the time of the Creek War, the Upper Creeks control the Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Alabama Rivers that lead to Mobile, while the Lower Creeks control the Chattahoochee River, which flows into Apalachicola Bay.

The Lower Creek are trading partners with the United States, and unlike the Upper Creeks have adopted more of their cultural practices.

The Provinces of East and West Florida are governed by the Spanish, and British firms like Panton, Leslie, and Co. provide most of the trade goods into Creek country.

Pensacola and Mobile, in Spanish Florida, control the river mouths of the U.S. Mississippi Territory established in 1798.

Territorial conflicts between France, Spain, Britain, and the United States along the Gulf Coast that had previously helped the Creeks to maintain control over most of the United States' southwestern territory have shifted dramatically due to the Napoleonic Wars, the Florida Rebellion, and the War of 1812.

This has made long-standing Creek trade and political alliances more tenuous than ever.

During and after the Revolution, the United States wished to maintain the Indian Line that had been established by the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

The Indian Line had created a boundary for colonial settlement in order to prevent illegal encroachment on Indian lands, and has also helped the U.S. government maintain control over the Indian trade.

Traders and settlers often violated the terms of the treaties establishing the Indian Line, and frontier settlements by colonials in Indian lands was one of the arguments the United States used to expand its territory.

In the Treaty of New York (1790), Treaty of Colerain (1796), Treaty of Fort Wilkinson (1802), and the Treaty of Fort Washington (1805), the Creek had ceded their Georgia territory east of the Ocmulgee River.

In 1804, the United States had claimed the city of Mobile under the Mobile Act.

The 1805 treaty with the Creek had also allowed the creation of a Federal Road linking Washington to the newly acquired port city of New Orleans, which partially stretches through Creek territories.

These increasing territorial grabs westward into Creek territory (which includes parts of Spanish Florida), coupled with the Louisiana Purchase (which neither the British nor the Spanish had recognized at the time), had compelled the British and Spanish governments to strengthen existing alliances with the Creek.

Following the occupation of Baton Rouge during the West Florida Rebellion, the United States, in 1810, had sent an expeditionary force to occupy Mobile.

As a result, Mobile has been jointly occupied by weak American and Spanish soldiers.

The splintering of the Creek Nation along progressive and nativist lines has roots dating back to the eighteenth century, but had come to a head after 1811.

Red Stick militancy is a response to the economic and cultural crises in Creek society caused by the adoption of Western trade goods and culture.

From the sixteenth century, the Creek had formed successful trade alliances with European empires, but the drastic fall in the price of deerskins from 1783 to 1793 had made it more difficult for individuals to repay their debt, while at the same time the assimilation process had made American goods more necessary.

The Red Sticks particularly resist the civilization programs administered by the U.S. Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins, who has stronger alliances among the towns of the Lower Creek.

Some of the "progressive" Creek had begun to adopt American farming practices as their game disappeared, and as more Anglo settlers assimilated into Creek towns and families.

Leaders of the Lower Creek towns in present-day Georgia include Bird Tail King (Fushatchie Mico) of Cusseta; Little Prince (Tustunnuggee Hopoi) of Broken Arrow, and William McIntosh (Tunstunuggee Hutkee, White Warrior) of Coweta.

Before the Creek War and the War of 1812, most US politicians had seen removal to the West as the only alternative to the assimilation of native peoples into Euro-American culture.

The Creeks, on the other hand, have blended their own culture with adopted trade goods and political terms, and have no intention of abandoning their land.

The Americanization of the Creeks is more prevalent in western Georgia among the Lower Creeks than in Upper Creek Towns, and comes from internal and external processes.

The U.S. government's and Benjamin Hawkins' pressure on the Creeks to assimilate stands in contrast to the more natural blending of cultures that comes from a long tradition of cohabitation and cultural appropriation, beginning with white traders in native country.

Many of the most prominent Creek chiefs at the beginning of the Creek War are "mixed-bloods" like William McGillivray and William McIntosh (who are on opposing sides of the Creek Civil War).

The Shawnee leader Tecumseh, who had united tribes in the Northwest (Ohio and related territories) to fight against U.S, settlers after the American Revolutionary War, had come to the Southeast to encourage the peoples to join his movement to throw the Americans out of native territories.

In 1811, Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa had attended the annual Creek council at Tukabatche, one of the four mother towns of the Muscogee Creek confederacy.

Tecumseh had delivered an hour-long speech to an audience of five thousand Creeks as well as an American delegation including Hawkins.

Although the Americans had dismissed Tecumseh as non-threatening, his message of resistance to White encroachment had been well received among Creek and Seminole, particularly among more conservative, traditionally-minded elders and young men.

Mobilization of recruits to Tecumseh's cause had been bolstered by the Great Comet of 1811 and the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–12, which had been taken as evidence of Tecumseh's supernatural powers.

The war party had rallied around prophets who had traveled with Tecumseh, and remained in the Creek nation, as well as newly converted Creek religious leaders.

Peter McQueen of Talisi (now Tallassee, Alabama); Josiah Francis (Hillis Hadjo) (Francis the Prophet) of Autaga, a Koasati town; and High-head Jim (Cusseta Tustunnuggee) and Paddy Walsh, both Alabamas, are among the spiritual leaders responding to rising concerns and the prophetic message.

The militant faction of Creek stands in opposition of the Creek National Council's official policies, particularly in regard to foreign relations with the United States.

The rising war party had begun to be called Red Sticks at this time (in Creek culture red 'sticks' or war clubs symbolize war while white sticks represent peace).