Understanding the Louisiana Purchase in just five minutes

You may have noticed in the news lately that there was a supposed desire by the US government to purchase New Orleans from Denmark. Now, while this sounds kind of crazy today, it's actually how the United States got a lot of its territory, like Alaska, Florida, or the place we'll be talking about today, Louisiana. The purchase of Louisiana was a gigantic step for the expansion of the United States. The territory of Louisiana spread across 15 current US states. Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Minnesota, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and even a little bit of Canada. Imagine if the US hadn't bought this land or taken control of it by any other mean. It would probably have stopped their expansion west, dividing the future country in half and containing the US in its current east coast. Maybe California and Texas would have still rebelled against Mexican rule, but remaining independent and larger states. Louisiana could have eventually declared independence from France like the US did from Great Britain and we would have four countries instead of one. Now, first of all, what was Louisiana? The Louisiana territory was part of France's North American colonies from 1682 to 1762. It's named Louisiana in honor of French King Louis XIV. In 1763, France lost the Seven Years' War against Great Britain. In what seems to be an attempt to not have Britain take the land, the French king, now Louis XV, gave the land to his cousin, Charles III of Spain. And so, Louisiana became a Spanish territory. In 1800, however, with Napoleon now in charge of France, he bought back the territory from Spain as part of a broader project to re-establish a French colonial empire in North America. But France's colonial projects seemed doomed to fail. Their failure to put down a revolt in another colony, Saint-Domingue, plus the possibility of a new war against the United Kingdom, pushed Napoleon to consider selling Louisiana to the United States and abandon his American colonial ambitions. U.S. President Jefferson was really happy about this because it had been his long-term goal to purchase Louisiana and control the Mississippi River, as well as the port of New Orleans. His idea was to purchase it piece by piece, but this way, he didn't need to wait. And so, two years later, in 1803, the US bought the territory from France, in return for $15 million, or approximately $18 per square mile. That's a pretty good deal. The American government used $3 million in gold as a down payment, which Napoleon supposedly used to finance his planned invasion of England, which ended up never happening. The treaty was negotiated by the French treasury minister acting on behalf of Napoleon and American delegates acting on behalf of President Thomas Jefferson. But Jefferson didn't have such an easy time achieving this goal, facing a lot of domestic opposition. The Federalists, a political party at the time, strongly opposed the purchase, favoring close relations with Britain over close ties to Napoleon and were concerned that the US had just paid a large sum of money to declare war on Spain, which still technically administered the territory. Many were also concerned about whether or not the purchase was constitutional. A lot of members of the House of Representatives opposed the purchase. They called for a vote to deny the request, but it failed by two votes, 59 to 57. It's crazy to think how close history came to be completely different. Just two votes. The Spanish themselves weren't too happy about this either, claiming that France had previously promised not to alienate Louisiana to a third party. But in the end, everything worked out. The Spanish Prime Minister authorized the US to negotiate with the French government. Spain turned the territory over to France in a ceremony in New Orleans on November 30, a month before France turned it over to American officials. Later, on April 30 of 1803, the Louisiana Purchase treaty was officially signed in Paris, being announced by President Jefferson to the American people on July 4th of that same year. Like I said, the purchase of the land also helped the expansion of the U.S. territory, which with this nearly doubled in size overnight, also adding 60,000 new inhabitants to its population, allowing them access to the Mississippi River Basin, a gigantic plot of land, and a pathway to the West. In his speech, Jefferson stated, From this day, the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank, demonstrating the incredible importance that this purchase and the territorial expansion that came with it had for the establishment of the United States as the country we know today and paving the way for its future status as a world power.