THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE:

April 30, 1803

On April 30, 1803, representatives of the United States and Napoleonic France
conclude negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase, a massive land sale that
doubles the size of the young American republic. What was known as Louisiana
Territory comprised most of modern-day United States between the Mississippi and
the Rocky Mountains, with the exceptions of Texas, parts of New Mexico, and
other pockets of land already controlled by the United States. A formal treaty
for the Louisiana Purchase, antedated to April 30, was signed two days
later.Beginning in the 17th century, France explored the Mississippi River
valley and established scattered settlements in the region. By the middle of the
18th century, France controlled more of the modern United States than any other
European power: from New Orleans northeast to the Great Lakes and northwest to
modern-day Montana. In 1762, during the French and Indian War, France ceded its
America territory west of the Mississippi River to Spain and in 1763 transferred
nearly all of its remaining North American holdings to Great Britain. Spain, no
longer a dominant European power, did little to develop Louisiana Territory
during the next three decades. In 1796, Spain allied itself with France, leading
Britain to use its powerful navy to cut off Spain from America.In 1801, Spain
signed a secret treaty with France to return Louisiana Territory to France.
Reports of the retrocession caused considerable uneasiness in the United States.
Since the late 1780s, Americans had been moving westward into the Ohio and
Tennessee River valleys, and these settlers were highly dependent on free access
to the Mississippi River and the strategic port of New Orleans. U.S. officials
feared that France, resurgent under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, would
soon seek to dominate the Mississippi River and access to the Gulf of Mexico. In
a letter to Robert Livingston, the U.S. minister to France, President Thomas
Jefferson stated, "The day that France takes possession of New Orleans...we must
marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation." Livingston was ordered to
negotiate with French minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand for the purchase of
New Orleans.France was slow in taking control of Louisiana, but in 1802 Spanish
authorities, apparently acting under French orders, revoked a U.S.-Spanish
treaty that granted Americans the right to store goods in New Orleans. In
response, President Jefferson sent future president James Monroe to Paris to aid
Livingston in the New Orleans purchase talks. On April 11, 1803, the day before
Monroe's arrival, Talleyrand asked a surprised Livingston what the United States
would give for all of Louisiana Territory. It is believed that the failure of
France to put down a slave revolution in Haiti, the impending war with Great
Britain and probable Royal Navy blockade of France, and financial difficulties
may all have prompted Napoleon to offer Louisiana for sale to the United
States.Negotiations moved swiftly, and at the end of April the U.S. envoys
agreed to pay $11,250,000 and assumed claims of its citizens against France in
the amount of $3,750,000. In exchange, the United States acquired the vast
domain of Louisiana Territory, some 828,000 square miles of land. In October,
Congress ratified the purchase, and in December 1803 France formally transferred
authority over the region to the United States. The acquisition of the Louisiana
Territory for the bargain price of less than three cents an acre was Thomas
Jefferson's most notable achievement as president. American expansion westward
into the new lands began immediately, and in 1804 a territorial government was
established. On April 30, 1812, exactly nine years after the Louisiana Purchase
agreement was made, the first of 13 states to be carved from the
territory--Louisiana--was admitted into the Union as the 18th U.S. state.