Louisiana Purchase

In 1803, the United States purchased 828,000,000 miles of territory from France. The land sale doubled the size of the young republic and is one of the highlights of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency. The territory was known as the Louisana territory, and in modern times includes lands that forms; Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska: the portion of Minnesota west of the Mississippi River: A large portion Of North Dakota; a large portion of South Dakota; the northeastern section of New Mexico; the northern portion of Texas; the area of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide; Louisiana west of the Mississippi River (plus New Orleans) and small portions of land within the present-day Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. A shit ton of land basically and what did the US pay France for all this land? $ 11, 250,000 and the cancellation of $ 3,750,000 debts owed by France to the US, for a grand total of $ 15 million ( modern-day equivalent to about $ 600 billion.) The math works out to about 3 cents per acre…yeah that’s right 3 cents per acre. On a side note, the US stays winning when it comes to land acquisition right? they bully and finesse the Native Americans out of  land, gank and bully the Mexicans out of land and now swindle Napolean and France out of valuable land. In this situation, however, it was the French who approached the US with the offer. Why would the French want to sell such a massive amount of land for pennies on the dollar? Stay tuned to find out.

The Louisiana territory was a moving pawn in the many European wars of the 18th century. in 1762 France ceded the territory to Spain in the Treaty of Fontainebleau. The Spanish allowed the US to use the port of New Orleans until 1798 when the Spanish revoked this right. in 1800 Spain ceded the Louisiana Territory back to France as part of the secret Third Treaty of San Ildefonso. President Jefferson instructed future President James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston, to travel to Paris to negotiate the purchase of the city of New Orleans in 1803 so that the US could have free use of the port again. The mission was only to purchase the city of New Orleans, the Americans did not anticipate the much larger acquisition that would ensue. Another factor in the US wanting to buy New Orleans was that Southern Americans feared that Napolean would free all the slaves in Louisiana and that would trigger slave uprisings everywhere. Yeah, it always resorts back to slavery during this time period huh? smh.

During this Time period, France lost what is modern day Haiti to a slave revolution (Yea Haiti!) and war between it and the UK was imminent. With the loss of Haiti and more importantly the sugar colonies in the Caribbean, the Louisana territory had little value to Napolean. Spain also dragged its feet on the transfer of the territory to France. To help fund this imminent war between France and the UK and out of anger towards Spain and the ability to also sell something that was useless to him and also not completely his yet, Napolean agreed to sell the entire Louisiana Territory to the US.

When the American convoy got to France they were prepared to offer $ 10 million dollars to France for the city of New Orleans, they were completely caught off guard when France offered the whole Louisana territory to the US for the low low price of $ 15 million. Livingston was only authorized to buy New Orleans but that offer, was……. well an offer he couldn’t refuse and he agreed to it knowing his superiors would approve of it. The US was so scared that Napolean would withdraw his offer at any time that the quickly wrote up and signed the Louisiana purchase treaty. Believe it or not some Americans were against the Louisiana purchase because they said the act of the purchase was not in Jeffersons powers as President to make such a purchase under the Consitution.

Mistakes were made:
There is a saying that “the map is not the terrain” meaning though you may have a map of something you still need to check the area out for things that cannot and would not be on a map, and not just rely on the map to make decisions. I believe Napolean didn’t follow this saying in his actions. Whether too preoccupied with looming war between France and the Uk or frustrated by the loss of its Caribbean colonies, Napolean made a hasty decision to sell the Louisiana territory to the US because he thought the land was worthless. Why did Napolean assume that? Was there ever any expedition to survey the land? No, the fact that the US was willing to just purchase New Orleans from France should have set off some alarms that the land was sort of valuable right? At the very least it should have made Napolean go back and offer market value for the land. The Louisana purchase doubled the size of the US and ultimately led to Manifest Destiny and the US becoming the size it is today.