Big Sale And Purchase Of Land: French Lego Louisiana To The US In History Today, April 30, 1803

Illustration of the activity of buying and selling land in Louisiana (Source: Commons Wikimedia)

JAKARTA - On April 30, 1803, representatives of the United States (US) and representatives from France, namely Napoleon Bonaparte completed negotiations for the purchase of Louisiana. It was a massive land sale that doubled the size of the then fledgling US.

The Louisiana Territory comprises most of the modern US, which is between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, with the exception of Texas, parts of New Mexico, and other areas already under US control.

Citing History, starting in the 17th century, the French explored the Mississippi River valley and established settlements scattered in the region. By the middle of the 18th century, France controlled more US territory than any other European country. France controls northeast New Orleans to the Great Lakes and Montana.

In 1762, during the French and Indian War, France ceded American territory west of the Mississippi River to Spain. By 1763, most of the remaining North America was owned by Great Britain.

Spain, no longer the dominant European power, did little to develop the Louisiana territory over the next three decades. In 1796, Spain allied itself with France, making Britain use its powerful navy to separate Spain from America.

In 1801, Spain signed a secret agreement with France to return Louisiana to France. The report caused considerable anxiety in the US. Since the late 1780s, Americans moved toward the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys, and these settlers depended heavily on easy access to the Mississippi River and the strategic port of New Orleans.

US officials fear that France, which has revived under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, is trying to dominate the Mississippi River and access to the Gulf of Mexico. President Thomas Jefferson wrote to Robert Livingston, the US minister for France.

Livingston was ordered to negotiate with Charles Maurice de Talleyrand for the purchase of New Orleans. "On the day when the French take control of New Orleans ... We must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation."

Louisiana Purchase

However, France was slow to take control of Louisiana. In 1802, Spanish authorities, apparently acting under French orders, revoked the US-Spanish treaty that gave Americans the right to store goods in New Orleans.

In response, US President Thomas Jefferson sent presidential candidate James Monroe to Paris to assist Livingston with New Orleans purchase talks. On April 11, 1803, the day before Monroe's arrival, Talleyrand asked a shocked Livingston what the US would bring to the whole of Louisiana.

It is believed that France's failure to stop the slave revolution in Haiti, the war with Great Britain and a possible blockade of the French Royal Navy, and financial difficulties may have all driven Napoleon to sell Louisiana to the US.

Negotiations proceeded quickly and in late April the US envoy agreed to pay US $ 11,250,000 and assumed its citizens' claims against France were US $ 3,750,000. In exchange, the US acquired a vast domain in the Louisiana Territory, approximately 828,000 square miles of land.

In October 1803, Congress ratified the purchase and in December 1803 France formally transferred authority over the Louisiana territory to the United States. The cheap Louisiana acquisition was President Thomas Jefferson's most notable achievement as president.

America's westward expansion into new lands began immediately and in 1804 a territorial government was established. On April 30, 1812, exactly nine years after the purchase, Louisiana was entered as the 18th US state.

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