A short-lived transfer of ownership back to France was sabotaged by the difficulties in the Caribbean and Napolean didn't take long to decide that the colony was more trouble than it was worth and sell the whole lot to the United States under the terms of the Louisiana Purchase. Shortly after, the Purchase Pact brought to an end the Sabbat Civil War, officially reunited the Acadians and Vicario in defense of the city against the Camarilla. However, it could do little to mend the distrust sowed during the conflict. Unwilling to place too much reliance on the Acadians' support, Vicario began looking for other means to build up his control of the city. Discrete ghouling of several well-placed Americans allowed him to keep a handle on New Orleans economics after the colony achieved statehood, followed quickly by the embrace of Paul Delacroix, a businessman born of a well-placed American father and the favored daughter of one of the old Creole aristocratic families.
Orlando had not given up his ambitions for the city, however, and with the outbreak of the War of 1812, looked for a means to turn it to his advantage. Using agents to slow word of the end of the war, he was able to allow the Battle of New Orleans to take place, using it as a cover to send his own agents in to try and take the city. The effort was a distinct failure on both fronts, with Jean Lafitte's assistance turning the battle into a stunning victory against the British and a fierce battle between Brujah and Acadian Gangrel ending in an equally one-sided victory for the latter. The idealist elder was forced to pull back to recover from his losses while Vicario continued to expand his control and build up his defenses. Impressed by the intelligence and ferocity of the pirate Lafitte, Vicario set about watching the man and learning what he needed to sway him to his cause. When he once again fell out of favor with the authorities, Vicario approached him at his camp at Galveston in 1821 and made his move. Lafitte, troubled and angered at his rejection at the hands of New Orleans' citizens, accepted the Embrace, setting his camp ablaze and taking with him only his most trusted men.
Legba, meanwhile, had become disillusioned with his candidate for the embrace as Doctor John showed a failure to live up to his perceived potential. So, the Serpent began to look into other options. A long time ghoul and loyal servant from Santo Domingo by the name of Jacques Paris brought to his attention a woman with remarkable power named Marie Laveau. A Catholic with no interest in the occult, she was quickly seduced and corrupted by the Serpent and his ghoul. Under the tutelage of Doctor John, she began to pursue the same course of blackmail, intrigue, and magical extortion, but her charisma gave her a much broader following. Paris received the embrace as his reward for finding her and masqueraded as her husband for twenty years, first as Jacques Paris, and then as Louis Glapion (a pseudonym he'd used during the War of 1812).
The next three decades saw massive growth in the city's population and wealth as the boom in cotton in the south made New Orleans one of the most important ports in the Americas. Meanwhile, under the Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau, the Serpents influence began to approach that of Vicario, even given the stranglehold he had on Gulf shipping with Lafitte's assistance. The kindred population of the city kept pace, seeing the arrival of half a dozen vampires unaligned to either faction within the city, who soon became pieces in an elaborate game of chess between Legba and Vicario. Frequent outbreaks of cholera and yellow fever helped to provide cover for the feeding of these newcomers, but accidents still occured and were quickly recognized by the more superstitious citizens, particularly the voodoo practitioners, and reports of such made it back to Legba to be used for leverage.
The tense situation was not helped by the fractured state of local politics. After the failure of the troika of municipalities established in 1836, a united city government was put into its place but was still torn between the American and Creole centers of the city. The friction allowed both vampires more leeway to manipulate mortal politics. Both elders played both sides of the conflict to their own advantage. However, the diversity of interests also allowed many of the newcomers and the childer of the two to achieve some modicum of power for themselves, though they often fell to conflict over particularly useful areas. One of the more notable struggles was between Marie Laveau and Toreador Ange Poncelet over control of the gens de couleur, the free blacks being pivotal to both of their means of control of the upper class.
Plays for power aside, however, the ante-bellum years were one of general cooperation among the Sabbat in New Orleans and peace from the incursions and mechanitions of Baton Rouge's Camarilla. One struggle which Vicario did lose to Orlando during this period was pressure to move the capital out of New Orleans, to Baton Rouge, which took place in 1849. Two events, however, were to foreshadow troubled times ahead. The first was the sparked interest of Vicario's dame, an elder Albigensian called Malena of Aragon, who took up residence in the area, along with members of her cult. The second was the growing dissatisfaction of Jean Lafitte over his place in the New Orleans hierarchy. Feeling like little more than a lackey to the older Lasombra, he began to make subtle plans for his own independant bid for power. Through a spark of luck or prescience it was shortly after this, at the start of the 1860s, when talk of succession was whispered across the South, that a Brujah agent of Orlando's approached the former pirate and offered him a deal. The withdrawl of his support at a key moment in the upcoming war would gain him a place of status within the Camarilla and the opportunity to take the city for himself.