[jcranmer]

> Sort of. The big advantage the US had was OCEANS on both sides and only stone age peoples to the south.

By the time the US became a country, the indigenous peoples had access to firearms, certainly every one the US Army would have been fighting. It's also worth pointing out that the US bordered an English colony to the north and a mestizo former Spanish colony to the south.

[chrisco255]

And the French controlled half the continent too before they gave it up for peanuts.

[jcranmer]

Nominally, yes. In practice, the control in most of that region didn't really extend outside of the presence of a few trading posts. (It should also be noted that Mexican control of Alta California outside of the coastal region was similarly nominal)