- The land that the United States purchased from France in 1803 included all or part of 15 …
The Louisiana Purchase was the greatest land bargain in U.S. history. In a deal made in 1803, the United States bought from France a huge piece of land known as Louisiana. It stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. The purchase doubled the size of the United States and encouraged the settlement of the West. Historical backgroundIn the 17th and 18th centuries France took control of the Mississippi River and most of the Mississippi Valley through exploration and settlement. Within this territory was the port city of New Orleans, at the mouth of the river. In 1762 France gave up Louisiana west of the Mississippi to Spain. In 1800, however, the powerful French military leader Napoleon forced Spain to return Louisiana to France. U.S. interests and the purchaseThe United States government was concerned about the possible increase in French power. It believed that the nation that controlled New Orleans could control the Mississippi River. The American settlers in the region depended on the river to ship their cattle, grain, and other produce. Spain had allowed them to use the river, but the United States feared that France would not. United States President Thomas Jefferson decided to try to buy New Orleans from France. The United States tried to get France to agree to the deal by threatening to form an alliance with France's rival, Britain. At the time France was preparing for new warfare with Britain. Napoleon had also just experienced some military setbacks. For these reasons he offered in April 1803 to sell all of the Louisiana Territory to the United States for about 15 million dollars. Jefferson's representatives in France, Robert Livingston and James Monroe, had not been given the authority to spend that much money. They agreed to the deal nevertheless. The boundaries of the territory changed slightly in 1819 after negotiations with Spain and Britain. In the end, the Louisiana Purchase added 828,000 square miles (2,144,520 square kilometers) to the United States at a cost of less than three cents per acre. The land's valueThirteen states, either in whole or in part, were eventually carved out of the Louisiana Territory—Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Minnesota. Much of the territory turned out to contain rich wildlife and mineral deposits, fertile soil, valuable grazing land, and forests. The price of the Louisiana Purchase was only a tiny fraction of its value today. |