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In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States, giving access to the Mississippi River trade route and New Orleans. Napoleon sold the land for 15 million USD to fund his conquest of Hispaniola. The deal included 13 new states and fulfilled manifest destiny.
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson signed a treaty with Napoleon Bonaparte ceding a giant chunk of land to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. This doubled the size of America, giving the country access to the all-important Mississippi River trade route and the port city of New Orleans. The land included in the deal would eventually become 13 new states of the union for pennies an acre.
The land of the New World had been a bone of contention between America, France, Great Britain and Spain for decades. In the early 19th century, France controlled New Orleans, but Spain had entered into a separate agreement to allow Americans to navigate stretches of the Mississippi River. They claimed to control this passage for the benefit of both countries in trade. Napoleon’s dream was to secure the entire area to be used as a new economic center for the French conquest of Hispaniola (modern day Haiti) for the trade in sugar, rum and slaves. He was low on supplies, however, and concern about another war against Britain in Europe helped him offer Jefferson land.
On April 30, 1803, the two chiefs signed a Treaty of Cession, as well as payment documents, to legally transfer the land. The property contained in the Louisiana Purchase extended from the Gulf of Mexico to the amorphous northern border with Canada and from the Mississippi River to somewhere near the Rocky Mountains. It was a staggering 800,000 square miles (2 million square kilometers) of valuable resources for just 60,000 francs, or 15 million US dollars (USD). Jefferson took a risk in engaging in this transfer, as he extended the power of the federal government over the states to test the limits of the Constitution.
The largest single land purchase in U.S. history, the deal included all or part of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, with maybe some Texas and New Mexico. The extension of the Union’s borders fulfilled the obligation of manifest destiny to occupy the continent formerly occupied by Native Americans. In 2003, many of these states celebrated the Bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase with special exhibits, parades, and fairs.
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