Louisiana Territory And on May 2 US and French officials made it final They signed the Louisiana Purchase treaty Making an Offer The deal started with President Thomas Jefferson He was interested in New Orleans The city was on the mouth of the Mississippi River France controlled the city France also owned the Louisiana Territory The river was vital to many Americans Developing cities relied on it for 6 A Brief History of the Territory French explorer Robert Cavelier claimed the Mississippi River Basin for France in 1682 He named the area Louisiana after French king Louis XIV In 1718 another French explorer Jean-Baptiste le Moyne settled nearby He founded Nouvelle Orléans or New Orleans By the mid-1700s France controlled more of what is now the United States than any other European power France gave Spain some land west of the Mississippi River in 1762 It was called French Louisiana Spain did little with the territory In 1801 Spain returned the land to France
British Territory Indiana Territory Louisiana Territory Spanish Territory Pacific Ocean United Sta tes Miss issippi Territory T Atlantic Ocean h e Flo ri d a s Territories of 1803 Study this map of the United States and its neighboring territories in 1803 What is different from the United States today What is the same moving supplies and merchandise Farmers used it to sell their goods When Jefferson took office in 1801 one of his top goals was to get control of the city He gave Robert Livingston the task of negotiating a deal Livingston was the US minister to France Livingston was to offer France 2 million to buy the city parts of the Mississippi’s east bank and free access to the river for business purposes But news reached Jefferson that Americans could no longer ship goods from New 7
Orleans The United States needed the area more than ever Jefferson sent James Monroe who had previously been the US minister to France to help Livingston Jefferson authorized up to 10 million for the port of New Orleans and the Floridas The Floridas were parts of present-day Florida Alabama and Mississippi Napoléon Bonaparte France’s leader had plans for the region He wanted to create an empire in the New World But he ran into trouble in the Caribbean In 1801 Napoléon sent troops to France’s colony on the island of Hispaniola That was present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti The troops fought a slave uprising More than 40,000 French soldiers died during ten months of fighting France lost the fight It was the most successful slave revolution in history This ruined Napoléon’s hopes for a French empire in the Americas Now Napoléon needed money for a war with the United Kingdom So he offered the entire 8
Livingstone center and Monroe right agreed to buy the whole territory Louisiana Territory to the United States He asked for just 15 million The move shocked Livingston and Monroe The amount was more than Jefferson had approved the men to spend It was more than the United States could afford But they had to take the 9
