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Louisiana Purchase

Good Essays

Christian Ruiz
Mr. Kelley
Period1
14 February 2013
Louisiana Purchase On April 30,1803 the Louisiana territory, which was a third of the land for the new nation we call America, was purchased from France for fifteen million dollars. This helped fund Napoleon’s war against Great Britain. Thomas Jefferson made this decision because Jefferson did not want any other nation ruling in that territory, because Jefferson did not want to feel threatened with natives from the new land and France trying to take over America. Another reason for this decision was because Congress pressed Jefferson to see if Jefferson wanted to either expand land or have other nations rule in the new mother land. After the purchase was done Thomas Jefferson had …show more content…

After giving them the land in the first place, “in 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte of France persuaded Spain to return the Louisiana Territory” (Danzer et al. 201). Fortunately Napoleon got his way, “in 1801, Spain signed a secret treaty with France to return Louisiana Territory to France” (Monroe 4). France and Spain made a secret treaty behind the United States to give all the land back to France. With all the secretive meetings and untrustworthy treaties, “to settle the matter by peaceful measures, President Jefferson in January 1803 appointed Monroe envoy extraordinary to France to aid Robert R. Livingston...in purchasing the territory at the mouth of the Mississippi” (Monroe 4). Needing a companion on this important trip, “Monroe joined Livingston in Paris on April 12, and the two ministers, on finding Napoleon willing to dispose of the entire province of Louisiana, decided to exceed their instructions and effect its purchase” (Monroe 4). Jefferson made Monroe envoy extraordinary to France to solve the whole treaty issue that France made with the United States. Getting there just a little too late, “by the time that Monroe arrived in Paris in April 1803, Napoleon had decided to sell the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States” (Danzer et al. 201). Making things short and sweet, “on May 2, 1803, they signed a treaty and two conversations whereby France sold Louisiana to the

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