Early American History
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One of the decisive turning points in the history of the American continent took place in 1803, when President Thomas Jefferson, by the Louisiana Purchase, bought the whole central portion of North America some 466 million acres,1 or about three quarters of a million square miles, for fifteen million dollars.2 The territory of the United States was doubled at a stroke. At the same time, the prospects for future European colonial expansion in North America were effectively foreclosed. Until 1803, it appeared entirely possible that the independent United States might be confined to the Eastern seaboard, with the vast Mississippi Basin in the hands of either Britain or France. After 1803, the way was open for the United States to expand clear to the Pacific, free of effective opposition from Europe. In the following pages we will examine the Louisiana Purchase: its background, the political motivations of both the American and French negotiators, and the central role of President Jefferson. The roots of the political and colonial situation which culminated in the Louisiana Purchase went back to the sixteenth century, and the North American colonial map began to take definite form in the seventeenth. French privateers were active against the Spanish in the New World for a generation before they were joined by English counterparts such as John Hawkins and Francis Drake. Thus the French were no latecomers to the
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lapsed from within. The English speaking colonies turned out to be all too successful in taking root; they were so rooted that they no longer accepted dependence on Britain. The French eagerly took the side of the revolted colonies, the Royal Navy failed to deliver victories soon or decisive enough, and the United States was established as an independent republic. By a treaty signed in 1795, the United States assumed the rights that Britain had formerly held in the Mississippi Basin; most importantly, the "right of deposit" of merchants' goods. That was, American merchants could leave goods in storage in New Orleans, without maintaining constant personal custody, and be assured of protection of legal claim to the goods.6
The American Revolution did not re establish a French position on the North American mainland. France did, however, gain commercial concessions in the West Indies, while Britain's colonial position was drastically weakened. The cream of former British America was now the independent United States. What remained, Canada, was still partly French in culture and sympathy. Instead of being a strategic staging base for further penetration into the interior of North America, Canada now became a strategic
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2827
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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