Erin Blakemore is a journalist from Boulder, Colorado. Slaves were routinely terrorized in a race-based social order. The answer fell into his lap. But the resourceful Barb-Marbois had an answer for that too. The entire economy of Americas Western territories was in jeopardy. All four started from the Mississippi River. Why did France sell Louisiana? The British had re-entered the war and France was losing the Haitian Revolution and could not defend Louisiana. At the time, Britain and France were at war in Europe, and if France had not sold Louisiana that war would most likely have spread to North America. [42] The first group of bonds were issued on January 16, 1804, but the banks had already provided a 10 million franc advance to France in July 1803. Bruce Kauffmann is a historian, syndicated columnist, author, and speaker. Also, many Federalists were speculators in lands in upstate New York and New England and were hoping to sell these lands to farmers, who might go west instead, if the Louisiana Purchase went through. Why did France sell Louisiana to the US? 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). In March 1802, he warned Madison that France intended to have a leading interest in the politics of our western country and was preparing to send 5,000 to 7,000 troops from its Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue (now Haiti) to occupy New Orleans. The Americans thought that Napoleon might withdraw the offer at any time, preventing the United States from acquiring New Orleans, so they agreed and signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty on April 30, 1803, (10 Floral XI in the French Republican calendar) at the Htel Tubeuf in Paris. The key to opening the western goal was securing the Mississippi River and the Louisiana Territory. Your Privacy Rights France turned over New Orleans, the historic colonial capital, on December 20, 1803, at the Cabildo, with a flag-raising ceremony in the Plaza de Armas, now Jackson Square. This respite gave Napoleon breathing room in his failed attempt to recover Saint-Domingue. Regardless of its legality, Smithsonian Magazine details how in order to finance the transaction, several British banks actually bought the territory and turned it over to the United States in exchange for bonds at 6% interest. By Edmund Duncan May 31, 2022. [27], Spain protested the transfer on two grounds: First, France had previously promised in a note not to alienate Louisiana to a third party and second, France had not fulfilled the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso by having the King of Etruria recognized by all European powers. Selling the Louisiana territory gave Napoleon a significant windfall from a territory he was probably going to lose anyway. Hed planned to send troops to Louisiana to take over the colony, which he had received from the Spanish through a secrettreatyin 1800, in the hopes ofusingthe territory as a trade venue for the commodities produced in Haiti. France was slow in taking control of Louisiana, but in 1802 Spanish authorities, apparently acting under French orders, revoked a U.S.-Spanish treaty that granted Americans the right to store goods in New Orleans. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for SIGNED Roughneck Daddy: A Memoir by Donna F. Orchard, Paperback Louisiana Oil at the best online prices at eBay! Since the late 1780s, Americans had been moving westward into the Ohio River and Tennessee River valleys, and these settlers were highly dependent on free access to the Mississippi River and the strategic port of New Orleans. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million and nearly doubled the size of the U.S. [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. Even though Europeans had ostensibly laid claim to Louisiana for centuries, it remained largely undeveloped, with few wanting to move there. There he confirmed Napolons desire to sell the territory for $22,500,000. In return for fifteen million dollars, or approximately eighteen dollars per square mile, the United States nominally acquired a total of 828,000sqmi (2,140,000km2; 530,000,000 acres) in Middle America. U.S. officials feared that France, resurgent under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, would soon seek to dominate the Mississippi River and access to the Gulf of Mexico. How was the Louisiana Territory acquired? Neither Livingston nor Monroe had been authorized to buy all of the territory, or to spend $15 milliontransatlantic mail took weeks, sometimes months, each way, so they had no time to request and receive approval of the deal from Washington. ", This page was last edited on 16 April 2023, at 22:34. On March 9 and 10, 1804, another ceremony, commemorated as Three Flags Day, was conducted in St. Louis, to transfer ownership of Upper Louisiana from Spain to France, and then from France to the United States. According to the memoirs of Franois Barb-Marbois, in what was a prophetic statement foreshadowing the American Civil War, Napoleon said, "Perhaps it will also be objected to me, that the Americans may be found too powerful for Europe in two or three centuries: but my foresight does not embrace such remote fears.
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