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Louisiana Purchase Research Paper

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Would it be hard to believe that almost a one quarter of modern day United States was purchased in one large transaction? Specifically 828,000 square miles of land. The Louisiana Purchase more than doubled the size of the United States in 1803. After signing a secret treaty to return the Louisiana territory to France, France wanted to sell the Louisiana territory because they did not believe it was worth the money or the trouble since they were having a hard time holding on to Saint Dominique in Haiti already. France and the United States already had a treaty in place allowing the United States to use the port of New Orleans; (the Treaty of San Lorenzo) and neither France nor Spain were pleased that the United States was profiting off it’s port. Napoleon thought that if he could make quick money from a deal with the United States, his people would …show more content…
Minister to France Robert Livingston to negotiate with French minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand on his behalf for the purchase of New Orleans. Jefferson later sent future United States president James Monroe to aid Livingston in the talks. Shortly before Monroe arrived, France asked Livingston if the United States was interested in purchasing the entire Louisiana territory. Livingston, shocked, yet not wanting to waste time consulting with Jefferson and chancing France changing their minds, accepted the offer and bought the entire territory for $15 million, or 3 cents per acre. In present-day, this territory includes the entirety of Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. The territory also includes parts of Minnesota, western Louisiana, northeastern New Mexico, South Dakota, northern Texas, parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado. The purchase of The Louisiana Territory during Thomas Jefferson's presidency not only expanded farmland and trade, but also gave birth to multiculturalism and the conflicts of slavery related to

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