Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was a land purchase made by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803. He bought the Louisiana territory from France, which was being led by Napoleon Bonaparte at the time, for 15,000,000 USD (about $320,000,000 in 2020 dollars). First, the men sent to France were allowed to spend up to 10 million USD in order to buy New Orleans and, if possible, the west bank of the Mississippi River. But then the French government said that for 5 million more dollars they would sell all of the Louisiana territory. Thomas Jefferson approved the deal and used his constitutional power to sign treaties to buy the land. The constitution does not say the president has the power to buy land from other countries, but he had the power to make treaties, so that is what he used.
Napoleon Bonaparte sold the land because he needed money for the Great French War. The British had re-entered the war and France was losing the Haitian Revolution and could not defend Louisiana. Thomas Jefferson took the French offer as an opportunity to make America larger, even if it meant going against his Republican principles of small government (some would say he exceeded his constitutional power by accepting the deal on his own).
The purchase added 828,394 square miles and doubled the size of the U.S.. This included all of the modern states of Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, and part of the states of Louisiana, Texas, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. It also included a small piece of land that is now part of Canada.
The Louisiana Purchase gave the U.S. control of the Mississippi River and the port city of New Orleans, both of which were used by farmers to ship their crops and get paid. It also ensured that France and other European countries would not try to take the land. France only controlled small bits of the territory. Because of that, the United States had to make other agreements with and payments to other governments and groups. The total amount paid for the Louisiana Purchase and all of these other agreements was about 2.6 billion USD.
The Lewis and Clark expedition explored the Louisiana Purchase and the Oregon Territory. They started from St. Louis. Their route traced the Missouri River.
Louisiana Purchase Media
1804 map of "Louisiana", bounded on the west by the Rocky Mountains
The future president James Monroe as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to France helped Robert R. Livingston in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase
The original treaty of the Louisiana Purchase
Transfer of Louisiana by Ford P. Kaiser for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904)
Flag raising in the Place d'Armes of New Orleans, marking the transfer of sovereignty over French Louisiana to the United States, December 20, 1803, as depicted by Thure de Thulstrup in 1902.
Share issued by Hope & Co. in 1804 to finance the Louisiana Purchase.
Plan of Fort Madison, built in 1808 to establish U.S. control over the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase, drawn 1810
Louisiana Purchase territory shown as American Indian land in Gratiot's map of the defenses of the western & north-western frontier, 1837.
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