Chapter 1 Louisiana The New Territory Only 20 years after it became independent the United States suddenly and owing to a tremendous stroke of luck doubled in size Fifty years later the young country stretched across immense plains and towering mountain ranges to touch the Pacific Ocean How it grew so fast in such a short time is still an amazing tale Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826 was the third President of the United States 4
By far the largest growth spurt of the United States occurred in 1803 when President Thomas Jefferson’s bold decision doubled the country’s size The Louisiana Purchase the new territory acquired by the U S reached from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains a total of about 828,00 square miles 2,144,354 square kilometers of land The Louisiana Territory had been largely unexplored until after its purchase by the United States 5
At the start of the nineteenth century the United States had only 17 states and the large Northwest Territory which surrounded the Great Lakes There were five and a half million Americans mostly living along the eastern seaboard However more than 700,000 settlers moved west of the Appalachian Mountains after the American Revolution ended in 1783 They pressed into regions that later became Ohio Indiana Illinois Kentucky Tennessee Alabama and Mississippi These people who by 1803 outnumbered Native Americans by eight to one were farmers fur traders hunters and adventurers Many of them used the Mississippi River and the vital port of New Orleans to send their products to the Atlantic coast and to Europe 6
But the lower Mississippi and New Orleans remained in foreign hands Originally claimed in the name of King Louis XIV by French explorers in 1682 Louisiana had been under Spanish control since 1763 Winning the American Revolution had given the United States the Northwest Territory while Britain retained Canada and continued to claim Oregon Country However Spain still controlled Florida the Southwest and all of the land from Texas to the Pacific Ocean King Louis XIV 1638-1715 The Proclamation of 1763 declared that the colonies could not build west of the Appalachian Mountains which changed after the American Revolution 7
