While early American history emphasizes the English Protestant colonies of the East Coast, New Orleans was a French colony for 60 years and a Spanish colony for 40 years and all the while Catholic. The culture was Mediterranean, Caribbean, and most of all, African (the city continues to be 2/3 black). After losing Haiti and the French Caribbean, Napoleon gets us back from the Spanish and sells us to the Americans so he can have money to fight the British. But Napoleon doesn't have the authority to sell us, Thomas Jefferson doesn't have the authority to buy us, and neither knows what they are buying or selling until Lewis and Clark are dispatched the following year. A few years later, the Second War of American Independence breaks out. During the War of 1812, the British burned the White House and Washington DC, the Star-Spangled Banner is composed, and the hero of the final battle, at New Orleans, is elected President in 1828. History gets re-written and re-interpreted.
What about that treaty? What is true? What is valid?
You be the judge...