The Louisiana Purchase of 1803

Introduction

Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States at the time of the Louisiana Purchase. His original mission was to buy the port city of New Orleans from the French in order to secure a trade route for American products. He was surprised and pleased to learn that he had purchased a tract of land that doubled the size of the United States in a single night.

The Territory

The French territory known as Louisiana included New Orleans and followed the Missouri river up to what is now the State of Montana. The area consisted of 828,000 square miles.

The Timeline

France’s land possessions in North American ended in 1763 after the French and Indian Wars. The French ceded the Louisiana territory west of the Mississippi to Spain in the 1763 Treaty of Fontainebleau.

In 1783, the United States was an independent nation. It needed unlimited access to the Mississippi River to move goods from the western territories to the eastern cities. The easiest way to do this was to float cargo on flatboats and barges down the Mississippi River into the ports of New Orleans where they were loaded onto eastbound cargo ships. However, Spain controlled both sides of the Mississippi in New Orleans. Though the United States had a treaty with Spain to use the port of New Orleans, Spain considered the entire Louisiana territory a financial drain and wanted to get rid of it.

By 1801, Napoleon Bonaparte of France wanted to re-establish colonies in North America.  Centering his new French empire in the sugar rich Caribbean Islands, he planned to use the fertile soils of the Louisiana territory to produce the foods to feed his island sugar workers. He negotiated a treaty with Spain to trade the territory for some land in Italy. Thus, the port of New Orleans was now owned by France while still under the administration of Spain.

In 1802 Spain announced that it would close the ports of New Orleans to United States commerce, possibly due to abuses by smugglers. President Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert Livingston to see Napoleon with an offer to buy New Orleans for $10 million.

By 1803, Napoleon’s plans to re-establish French colonies were not working out. He turned his attention to waging war in Europe and considered the Louisiana territory burdensome and useless. To fund his European conquests, he asked Monroe and Livingston how much they would pay for the entire territory. Monroe and Livingston only wanted to buy New Orleans, but feared Napoleon might quickly change his mind about selling it, so they offered $15 million for the entire territory. Part of the money they paid was used to pay off debt France owed to the United States. When the deal was done, France received $8,831,250 in cash for 828,000 square miles of real estate.

The Conclusion

When President Jefferson received the terms of the purchase, he was surprised. A strong supporter of moving the country westward, Jefferson convinced his Senate to accept the terms of the deal and in the fall of 1803, they did.

In March of 1804, the United States government officially received transfer of the Louisiana territory. For less than five cents an acre, the Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States overnight. It also led to the settlement of lands all the way to the Pacific Coast.

The Louisiana Purchase is considered one of the greatest contributions to the country by Thomas Jefferson’s presidency.

References:

The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial

http://www.nps.gov/archive/jeff/lewisclark2/circa1804/heritage/louisianapurchase/louisianapurchase.htm

Louisiana State University: The Louisiana Purchase

http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/purchase/history.html