Louisiana Purchase

By a treaty signed on Apr. 30, 1803, the United States purchased  from France the Louisiana Territory, more than 2 million sq km  (800,000 sq mi) of land extending from the Mississippi River  to the Rocky Mountains. The price was 60 million francs, about  $15 million; $11,250,000 was to be paid directly, with the  balance to be covered by the assumption by the United States of  French debts to American citizens.In 1762, France had ceded  Louisiana to Spain, but by the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso  (1800) the French had regained the area. Napoleon Bonaparte  (the future Emperor Napoleon I) envisioned a great French empire  in the New World, and he hoped to use the Mississippi Valley as  a food and trade center to supply the island of Hispaniola, which  was to be the heart of this empire. First, however, he had to  restore French control of Hispaniola, where Haitian slaves under  TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE had seized power (1801; see HAITI).  In 1802 a large army sent by Napoleon under his brother-in-law,  Charles Leclerc, arrived on the island to suppress the Haitian  rebellion. Despite some military success, the French lost thousands  of soldiers, mainly to yellow fever, and Napoleon soon realized  that Hispaniola must be abandoned. Without that island he had  little use for Louisiana. Facing renewed war with Great Britain,  he could not spare troops to defend the territory; he  needed funds, moreover, to support his military ventures  in Europe. Accordingly, in April 1803 he offered to sell Louisiana  to the United States. Concerned about French intentions, President Thomas Jefferson  had already sent James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston to Paris to  negotiate the purchase of a tract of land on the lower Mississippi or,  at least, a guarantee of free navigation on the river. Surprised and delighted by the French offer of the whole territory, they  immediately negotiated the treaty. Jefferson was jubilant. At one stroke the United States would double  its size, an enormous tract of land would be open to settlement, and  the free navigation of the Mississippi would be assured. Although  the Constitution did not specifically empower the federal government  to acquire new territory by treaty, Jefferson concluded that the  practical benefits to the nation far outweighed the possible violation  of the Constitution. The Senate concurred with this decision and  voted ratification on Oct. 20, 1803. The Spanish, who had never  given up physical possession of Louisiana to the French, did so in a  ceremony at New Orleans on Nov. 30, 1803. In a second ceremony,  on Dec. 20, 1803, the French turned Louisiana over to the United States. Click Map For Larger More Detailed View Bibliography: Barry, James P., The Louisiana Purchase, April 1 803 (1973);  Chidsey, Donald B., The Louisiana Purchase (1972); DeConde,  Alexander, This Affair of Louisiana (1976); Lyon, Elijah Wilson,  Louisiana in French Diplomacy (1934); Sprague, Marshall,  So Vast So Beautiful a Land: Louisiana and the Purchase (1974);  Whitaker, Arthur P., The Mississippi Question, 1795-1803 (1934; repr. 1962)