Napoleon Bonaparte sold the land because he needed money for the Great French War. Southern Quarterlynotes, "What is often remembered as a remarkably 'peaceful' transfer of land was in fact predicated on events of enormous violence that took place in the Caribbean.". In a letter, Thomas Jefferson wrote that France's repossession of the territory "is the embryo of a tornado which will burst on the countries on both shores of the Atlantic and involve in it's effects their highest destinies.". Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin added that since the power to negotiate treaties was specifically granted to the president, the only way extending the country's territory by treaty could not be a presidential power would be if it were specifically excluded by the Constitution (which it was not). What kind of world were Jefferson and Napolon living and working in? [8] In 1801, Jefferson supported France in its plan to take back Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), which was then under control of Toussaint Louverture after a slave rebellion. It is not only New Orleans that I will cede, it is the whole colony without reservation. As described by Louisiana State University, France even went so far as to send convicts from debtors' prisons to the colony in 1717 in order to increase its settlement. Spain procrastinated until late 1802 in executing the treaty to transfer Louisiana to France, which allowed American hostility to build. With the colony in danger of being lost, the territory was less useful. And St. Domingue, which is now known as Haiti, was one of the great sugar capitals of the world. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. The treaty called for the return of the vast territory to France in exchange for the small kingdom of Etruria in northern Italy, which Charles wanted for his daughter Louisetta. by force of arms. As Secretary of State James Madison explained, The Mississippi is to them everything. Jefferson considered a constitutional amendment to justify the purchase; however, his cabinet convinced him otherwise. Jefferson soon commissioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, to explore the territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. What we wanted to do was enrich peoples understanding of the significance of this moment, says Gail Feigenbaum, lead curator of the show. In exchange, the United States acquired the vast domain of Louisiana Territory, some 828,000 square miles of land. Jefferson ultimately came to the conclusion before the ratification of the treaty that the purchase was to protect the citizens of the United States therefore making it constitutional. [6] The territory nominally remained under Spanish control, until a transfer of power to France on November 30, 1803, just three weeks before the formal cession of the territory to the United States on December 20, 1803.[7]. The prospect had been all the more pleasing because the territorys capital, New Orleans, he had noted with approval, was a city with a great deal of social life, elegance and goodbreeding. He also had liked the fact that the city had all sorts of mastersdancing, music, art, and fencing, and that even though there were no book shops or libraries, books could be ordered from France. What Napoleon needed was a way to divest himself of the territory while at the same time preventing it from falling into British hands. By April 30, 1803, they hashed out an agreement where the Americans would pay $15 million, a considerable reduction, although its constitutionality was debated. Nobody really knows what post-victory plans for New Orleans and Upper Louisiana were given by the British government to Major General Sir Edward Pakenham and his second-in-command Major General Samuel Gibbs because both generals were killed in action at the Battle of New Orleans. For one thing, they considered it foolish to voluntarily give up an important French holding on the American continent. That leads to the question as to why on Earth would France sell so much land, or at least the rights to it 828,000 acres for what amounted to 4 cents an acre? France wanted to sell the Louisiana Territory to raise funds for Napoleon Bonaparte's war effortsin Europe and to cut its losses in the Americas after losing its colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti). However, the territory, like a regifted picture frame, was swapped among European powers. Americans cried Huzzah! and waved their hats, while French and Spanish residents sulked in glum silence. American expansion westward into the new lands began immediately, and in 1804 a territorial government was established. ii. Joseph A. Harriss With Congress and a vociferous press calling for action, Jefferson faced the nations most serious crisis since the American Revolution. The U.S. adapted the former Spanish facility at Fort Bellefontaine as a fur trading post near St. Louis in 1804 for business with the Sauk and Fox. [22] In 1804 Haiti declared its independence; but fearing a slave revolt at home, Jefferson and the rest of Congress refused to recognize the new republic, the second in the Western Hemisphere, and imposed a trade embargo against it. But in 1800, the region again changed hands, when Napolon negotiated the clandestine Treaty of San Ildefonso with Spains Charles IV. dollar. As Napolons foreign minister, Talleyrand customarily demanded outrageous bribes for diplomatic results. All these soldiers needed to be fed, housed, and paid. [21] 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. . Its about more than just a humdinger of a real estate deal. On January 1, 1804, Haiti declared its independence. Livingston and Monroe were only authorized to spend up to $10 million for the purchase of New Orleans and West Florida. The Louisiana Purchase was the latter, a treaty. As told by Michigan State University, both of them were shocked when the French minister, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, asked how much they would pay for the entire territory. France regained sovereignty of the western territory in the secret Third Treaty of San Ildefonso . In response, Jefferson sent future U.S. president James Monroe to Paris to aid Livingston in the New Orleans purchase talks. The Lewis and Clark expedition followed shortly thereafter. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million and nearly doubled the size of the U.S. Who Owned Louisiana First? - CLJ . [57], The Louisiana Territory was broken into smaller portions for administration, and the territories passed slavery laws similar to those in the southern states but incorporating provisions from the preceding French and Spanish rule (for instance, Spain had prohibited slavery of Native Americans in 1769, but some slaves of mixed African-Native American descent were still being held in St. Louis in Upper Louisiana when the U.S. took over). ", The Historic New Orleans Collection provides more nuance to the negotiations of the Louisiana Purchase. [59] In 1808 two military forts with trading factories were built, Fort Osage along the Missouri River in western present-day Missouri and Fort Madison along the Upper Mississippi River in eastern present-day Iowa. Why did France decide to sell Louisiana to the U.S.? By Edmund Duncan May 31, 2022. They wanted the U.S. government to establish laws allowing slavery in the newly acquired territory so they could be supported in taking their slaves there to undertake new agricultural enterprises, as well as to reduce the threat of future slave rebellions. [4] The colony was the most substantial presence of France's overseas empire, with other possessions consisting of a few small settlements along the Mississippi and other main rivers. They approached the French with the offer to buy New Orleans, a port city of vital significance to American trade that they worried about France owning. Du Pont was living in the United States at the time and had close ties to Jefferson as well as the prominent politicians in France. [26] The Federalists also feared that the power of the Atlantic seaboard states would be threatened by the new citizens in the West, whose political and economic priorities were bound to conflict with those of the merchants and bankers of New England. So while a slave rebellion helped drive the Louisiana Purchase, the new territory was destined to become a place of suffering and exploitation for the thousands of slaves forced to work there. The vast territory was named after Louis XIV, the so-called Sun King. As described by History, under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture, the enslaved allied with nonwhite free people and successfully overthrew the slave order, taking control of all of Hispaniola, not just Saint-Domingue. [43] Hopes brought to the transaction experience with issuing sovereign bonds and Barings brought its American connections.[42]. Why did France sell Louisiana? Spain had not yet completed the transfer of Louisiana to France, and war between France and the UK was imminent. In need of funds, Napoleon pressed the banks to complete their purchase of the bonds as quickly as possible, and by April 1804 the banks transferred an additional 40.35 million francs to fully discharge their obligations to France. LA History Chapter 8 Test Review Flashcards | Quizlet Barings relayed to order to Hopes, which declined to comply, allowing the final payments to be made to France in April 1804. Earlier in 1803, Francis Baring and Company of London had become the U.S. government's official banking agent in London following the failure of Bird, Savage & Bird. The Louisiana Purchase was an incredible deal for the United States, the final cost totaling less than five cents per acre at $15 million (about $283 million in today's dollars). Claiborne and Gen. James Wilkinson, the new commissioners of the territory, officially took possession of it in the name of the United States, assuring all residents that their property, rights and religion would be respected, celebratory salvos boomed from the forts around the city. [61], During the War of 1812, Great Britain hoped to annex all or at least portions of the Louisiana Purchase should they successfully defeat the U.S. Aided by their Indian allies, the British defeated U.S. forces in the Upper Mississippi; the U.S. abandoned Forts Osage and Madison, as well as several other U.S. forts built during the war, including Fort Johnson and Fort Shelby. [30], Other historians counter the above arguments regarding Jefferson's alleged hypocrisy by asserting that countries change their borders in two ways: (1) conquest, or (2) an agreement between nations, otherwise known as a treaty. "Napoleon, Jefferson, and the Louisiana Purchase. The difficulties and risks . The two powers were at peace in early 1803, having signed the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, which, as explained by Britannica, ended hostilities between the two nations. What were some of the benefits of the Louisiana Purchase quizlet How did France obtain the Louisiana Territory? - 2023 are incalculable, warned the U.S. vice-consul in New Orleans, Williams E. Hulings, in a dispatch to Secretary of State James Madison. On March 11, 1803, Napoleon began preparing to invade Great Britain. Under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture, slaves took over the entire island of Hispaniola, including St. Domingue and its neighbor Santo Domingo. Felix S. Cohen, Interior Department Lawyer who helped pass ICCA, is often quoted as saying, "practically all of the real estate acquired by the United States since 1776 was purchased not from Napoleon or any other emperor or czar but from its original Indian owners", roughly estimating that Indians had received twenty times as much as France had for the territory bought by the United States, "somewhat in excess of 800 million dollars". Then, too, Napolon was gearing up for another campaign against Britain and needed funds for that. The lack of instructions and the necessity of consulting ones government are always legitimate excuses in order to obtain delays in political affairs, he once wrote. Why did France sell the Louisiana Territory to the U.S in 1803? It hangs not far from a color engraving of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was composed in 1789 by Lafayette with the advice of his American friend Thomas Jefferson. Intent on avoiding possible war with France, Jefferson sent James Monroe to Paris in 1803 to negotiate a settlement, with instructions to go to London to negotiate an alliance if the talks in Paris failed. [1][2], Domestic opposition and constitutionality, Formal transfers and initial organization. [10], In 1803, Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, a French nobleman, began to help negotiate with France at the request of Jefferson. However, France's failure to suppress a revolt in Saint-Domingue, coupled with the prospect of renewed warfare with the United Kingdom, prompted Napoleon to consider selling Louisiana to the United States. 1. The crunch came for Jefferson in October 1802. By the time of the Louisiana Purchase, its population of whites, slaves of African origin and free persons of color was about 8,000. As explained by Medium, in 1803, even before final Haitian independence, it had dawned on Napoleon that his prospects for developing an American empire were growing increasingly faint. Advertising Notice [42] In October 1803, the U.S. Treasury had some $5.86 million in specie on hand, $2 million of which would be used to pay a portion of the debts assumed from France as part of the purchase. Following French defeat in the Seven Years' War, Spain gained control of the territory west of the Mississippi, and the British received the territory to the east of the river. The Louisiana territory was born on April 9, 1682, when the French explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur (Lord) de La Salle, erected a cross and column near the mouth of the Mississippi and solemnly read a declaration to a group of bemused Indians. "[29] The sale of course was not "worthless"the U.S. actually did take possession. Thomas Jeffersonand his cabinet, themselves terrified of a French presence so close to the United States, used this conundrum as an opening.
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