Louisiana Purchase
Government Printing Office, 1912 Map No. 4.
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of more than 529,911,681 acres (827,987 mi² or 2,144,476 km2) of territory from France in 1803, at the cost of about 3¢ per acre (7¢ per hectare); $15 million or 80 million francs in total. (If adjusted for the relative share of GDP, this amount would equal approximately $390 billion in 2003 [1], or about $1800 per hectare.)
The French territory of Louisiana included far more land than just the current U.S. state of Louisiana. The lands purchased contained parts or all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mississippi River, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains, the portions of southern Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan and southern Alberta that drain into the Missouri River, and Louisiana on both sides of the Mississippi River including the city of New Orleans.
The land included in the Purchase comprises 22.3 percent of the territory of the modern United States.
Background
The city of New Orleans controlled the Mississippi River, which was already important for shipping agricultural goods to and from the parts of the US west of the Appalachian Mountains. Through Pinckney's Treaty signed with Spain on October 27, 1795, American merchants had "right of deposit" in New Orleans, meaning they could use the port for their goods.
Napoleon Bonaparte returned Louisiana to French control from Spain in 1800, under the Treaty of San Ildefonso (Louisiana had been a Spanish colony since 1762). However, this treaty was kept secret, and Louisiana would remain under Spanish control until a transfer of power to France that had yet to be organized. It finally took place on November 30, 1803, just three weeks before the cession to the US.
Americans were fearful that they would lose their rights of use to New Orleans. The Jefferson administration decided that the best way to assure long term access to the Mississippi would be to purchase the city of New Orleans and the nearby portions of Louisiana east of the Mississippi. Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston to Paris to negotiate such a purchase.
Negotiation
Jefferson laid the groundwork for the purchase by sending Livingston to Paris, in 1801, after discovering the transfer of Louisiana from Spain to France. Livingston was to pursue a purchase of New Orleans, but he was rebuffed by the French.
In 1802, Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours was enlisted to help negotiate. Du Pont was living in the U.S. at the time ankjk;;k;jd had close ties to Jefferson, as well as to the political powers in France. He engaged in back channel diplomacy with Napoleon, on Jefferson's behalf, during a personal visit to France. He originated the idea of the much larger Louisiana Purchase as a way to defuse potential conflict between the U.S. and Napoleon over North America.
Jefferson disliked the idea; purchasing Louisiana from France would imply that France had a right to be in Louisiana. Jefferson also believed that Presidents did not have the authority to engage in such a deal because it was not specified in the constitution, and doing so would further erode states' rights by increasing Federal executive power. On the other hand, he was aware of the potential threat that a neighbour like France could be for the young nation, and was ready to go to war in case that a strong French presence in the region was implemented. Talleyrand, likewise, was vehemently opposed to selling Louisiana, as it would mean an end to France's secret plans for a takeover of North America.
Throughout this time, Jefferson had up-to-date intelligence on Napoleon's military activities and intentions in North America. Part of his evolving strategy involved giving du Pont information that was withheld from Livingston. He also gave the intentionally conflicting instructions to the two. He next sent Monroe to Paris, in 1803, a clever move, as Monroe had been formally expelled from France on his last diplomatic mission, and the choice to send him again conveyed a sense of seriousness.
Napoleon was faced with the defeat of his armies in Saint-Domingue (present-day Republic of Haiti) where an expeditionary force under his brother-in-law Charles Leclerc was attempting to reassert control of France's most profitable colony.
Political conflicts in Guadeloupe and in Saint-Domingue itself grew with the restoration of slavery on 20 May,1802, and the defection of leading French officers, like the black general Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the mulatto officer Alexandre Pétion in October 1802, within the context of an ongoing guerilla war. The French had successfully deported Toussaint L'Ouverture to France in June 1802, but yellow fever was destroying European soldiers and 'killed' Leclerc himself in November.
Lacking sufficient military forces in America, Napoleon needed peace with Britain to implement the San Ildefonso treaty and take possession of Louisiana. Otherwise, Louisiana would be an easy prey for the British or even for the Americans. Britain had breached her promise to evacuate Malta by September 1802 as stipulated in the peace of Amiens, and in the beginning of the year 1803, war between France and Britain seemed increasingly unavoidable. On 11 March, 1803, Napoleon decided to start building a flotilla of barges to invade Britain.
These circumstances led Bonaparte to abandon his plans to rebuild France's New World empire. On 11 April, 1803, just days before Monroe's arrival, Marquess de Barbé-Marbois, Napoleon's minister of the treasury, offered Livingston all of Louisiana instead of just New Orleans.
The American negotiators were prepared to spend $10 million for New Orleans, but were dumbfounded when the entire region was offered for $15 million. The Louisiana territory was vast, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to Rupert's Land in the north, and from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. Acquiring the territory would double the size of the United States at a cost of less than 3 cents per acre ($7 per square kilometer). Although not authorized to make such a large purchase, Monroe and Livingston recognized the historical significance of the opportunity and accepted Napoleon's offer.
Napoleon saw the sale of his American territory as a goodwill gesture and as a strategic move against the British, who posed a significant military threat despite France's powerful army (at the time the most powerful in Europe). A strong America would be a buffer against Britain when the inevitable showdown came. It is also possible that Napoleon wished to encourage the United States to assist with the Continental policy, an embargo to prevent strategic resources from reaching the British. The plan would, at the least, keep America out of the French conflict with Britain, and France out of North America.
The Louisiana Purchase Agreement called for two conventions to formalize the financial aspects of the purchase. The first (30 April 1803) convention called for the payment of 60 million francs ($11,250,000), while the second resolved claims that U.S. citizens had previously made against France for 20 million francs ($3,750,000). Their ships or shipments had been lost as a result of the action of French privateers during the Quasi-War and France had already promised reparations under the Treaty of Mortefontaine.
Napoleon added the money from the sale of the Louisiana territory to his massive war chest and continued planning to wrest control of the European continent. Between 1805 and 1807, he defeated Austria and Prussia and made himself master of most of Europe.
Domestic opposition
The American purchase of the Louisiana territory was not accomplished without domestic opposition. The Federalists strongly opposed the purchase, favoring close relations with Britain over closer ties to Napoleon. The Federalists argued that the purchase was unconstitutional, and that the U.S. had paid a large sum of money just to declare war on Spain. The Federalists also feared that the political power of the Atlantic seaboard states would be threatened by the new citizens of the west, bringing about a clash of western farmers with the merchants and bankers of New England. A group of Federalists led by Massachusetts Senator Timothy Pickering went so far as to plan a separate northern confederacy, offering Vice-President Aaron Burr the presidency of the proposed new country if he persuaded New York to join. Burr's relationship with Alexander Hamilton, who helped bring an end to the nascent northern secession movement, soured during this period. The animosity between the two men grew during the 1801 election and ended with Hamilton's death in a duel with Burr in 1804.
Treaty signing
On April 30 1803, the Louisiana Purchase Treaty was signed by Robert Livingston, James Monroe, and Barbé Marbois at Paris. Jefferson announced the treaty to the American people on July 4.
The United States Senate ratified the treaty on October 20; on the following day, it authorized President Jefferson to take possession of the territory and establish a temporary military government. In legislation enacted on October 31, Congress made temporary provisions for local civil government to continue as it had under French and Spanish rule and authorized the President to use military forces to maintain order. Plans were also set forth for a mission to explore and chart the territory, which would become the Lewis and Clark expedition.
France then turned New Orleans over to the US on December 20, 1803. On March 10, 1804, a formal ceremony was conducted in St. Louis, to transfer ownership of the territory from France to the United States.
Effective on October 1, 1804, the purchased territory was organized into the Orleans Territory (most of which became the state of Louisiana) and the District of Louisiana, which was temporarily under the control of the Indiana Territory.
Conflict with Spain
The Louisiana Purchase led to a dispute between the United States and Spain over the boundaries of the area the United States had bought. According to the Spanish, Louisiana consisted roughly of the western half of what is now the states of Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri. The United States, on the other hand, claimed that it stretched all the way to the Rio Grande and the Rocky Mountains, a claim unacceptable for Spain, as it would mean the loss of Texas and half of New Mexico, both Spanish colonies. The two nations also disagreed about the ownership of West Florida, a strip of land between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers. The United States claimed this area was part of the purchase; Spain said that it was not, and east of the Mississippi only the city of New Orleans was part of the Louisiana purchase. Spain also held that the entire Louisiana Purchase was illegal, because the Spanish treaty handing Louisiana to the French had stipulated the French were not allowed to hand it over to a third power, and also because Napoleon had not adhered to his part of the treaty (giving a kingdom in Italy to the brother-in-law of King Carlos IV).
In 1810, after a revolt in West Florida, the United States annexed the region between the Mississippi and Pearl rivers (known today as the Florida Parishes of Louisiana). In 1812, the Mobile District was annexed (the region between the Pearl and Perdido Rivers, which now forms the panhandles of Alabama and Mississippi). The matter was not fully settled until the signing of the Adams-Onís Treaty in 1819, in which Spain ceded all of Florida to the U.S. and the boundary between the Louisiana territory and the Spanish colonies was set along the Sabine, Red and Arkansas rivers and the 42nd parallel.
Boundaries
When purchased, the boundaries of "Louisiana" were not defined, and the land itself was generally unknown (which led to the Lewis and Clark expedition). In particular, not wanting to anger Spain, France refused to specify the southern and western boundaries.
Estimates that did exist as to the extent and composition of the purchase were initially based on the explorations of Robert LaSalle.
If the US owned all the tributaries of the Mississippi on its western side, the Purchase extended into Canada. This makes the above map inaccurate, as the purchase originally was found above near the 50th Parallel. However, these lands were ceded to the UK in 1818 in the Red River Cession.
The tributaries of the Mississippi were held as the boundaries.
Northern boundary
The northern reaches extended to the border of equally ill-defined British possessions in the north (what is now Canada). This boundary was not fully settled until the Anglo-American Convention of 1818 split the two countries at the 49th parallel.
Eastern boundary
The eastern boundary of the Louisiana purchase was the Mississippi River, from its source to the 31st parallel; the source of the Mississippi was then unknown, but is now known to be Lake Itasca in Minnesota. The eastern boundary below the 31st parallel was unclear, the U.S. claimed the land as far as the Perdido River. (Today, the 31st parallel is the northern boundary of the western half of the Florida Panhandle, and the Perdido is the boundary between Florida and Alabama.)
Western frontier
The purchase extended westward to the Rocky Mountains.
Southern boundary
The southern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase was initially unclear; the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 began to lay down official dividing lines.
Notes and references
- . ISBN 0841504296.
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