(C) Verite News New Orleans
This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
May 2, 1803: Louisiana Purchase treaty is signed [1]
['J Brionne Helaire', 'More J Brionne Helaire', 'Lottie L. Joiner', 'Verite News', 'Roxie Wilson', 'College Fellow']
Date: 2023-05-02
On May 2, 1803, a treaty was signed selling the Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million.
The western half of the Mississippi River Basin — 530,000,000 acres over 828,000 square miles — was purchased from France by the United States at less than 3 cents per acre, leading some to describe the transaction as “the greatest land bargain in U.S.history.”
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica France had ceded Louisiana west of the Mississippi River to Spain in 1762. But when Napoleon Bonaparte took control of France, he convinced King Charles IV of Spain to give Louisiana back to France in 1801. The agreement was known as the Treaty of San Ildefonso.
Through the Pinckney Treaty of 1795, Spain had allowed the United States to use the Mississippi River for transportation and for settlers to export their goods from New Orleans without paying a duty or for temporary storage.
U.S. President Thomas Jefferson was concerned that the control of Louisiana by France was not good for the United States, and wanted to at least purchase New Orleans for economic and national security reasons.
Jefferson sent his U.S. minister in Paris, Robert R. Livingston, to negotiate a possible deal with France’s counterpart, but the negotiations initially fizzled. Livingston’s signals of a closer alliance with Great Britain, French losses in Saint-Domingue and the need for money to supply Napoleon’s military efforts eventually pushed the French leader to sell the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States.
A treaty was signed on May 2, but was back-dated to April 30 for official reasons, selling the Louisiana Territory to the United States in the form that France had received it from Spain. The United States Senate approved the treaty by a vote of 24 to 7. After interest payments, the final settlement was $27,267,622.
The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States. The land was valuable and contained rich mineral resources and wildlife resources. It was eventually carved into several states — Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. The territory also included some land in Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Minnesota.
Join Verite’s Mailing List | Get the news that matters to you
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Close window X Republish this article This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Unless otherwise noted, you can republish most of Verite’s stories for free under a Creative Commons license. For digital publications: Look for the “Republish This Story” button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @VeriteNewsNola @VeriteNewsNola For print publications: You have to credit Verite. We prefer “Author Name, Verite News” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Verite News” and include our website, veritenews.org
You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
You cannot republish our photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Tim Morris
Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @VeriteNewsNola on Facebook @VeriteNewsNola on Twitter. If you have any other questions, contact managing editor Tim Morris. May 2, 1803: Louisiana Purchase treaty is signed <h1>May 2, 1803: Louisiana Purchase treaty is signed</h1> <p class="byline">by J’Brionne Helaire, Verite <br />May 2, 2023</p> <p>On May 2, 1803, a treaty was signed selling the Louisiana Territory to the United States for <a href="
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1801-1829/louisiana-purchase">$15 million</a>. </p> <p>The western half of the Mississippi River Basin — 530,000,000 acres over 828,000 square miles — was purchased from France by the United States <a href="
https://www.britannica.com/event/Louisiana-Purchase">at less than 3 cents per acre</a>, leading some to describe the transaction as “the greatest land bargain in U.S.history.”</p> <p>According to the Encyclopedia Britannica France had ceded Louisiana west of the Mississippi River to Spain in 1762. But when Napoleon Bonaparte took control of France, he convinced King Charles IV of Spain to give Louisiana back to France in 1801. The agreement was known as the <a href="
https://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/diplomatic/c_ildefonso.html">Treaty of San Ildefonso.</a></p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-verite wp-block-embed-verite"> <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://veritenews.org/our-commitment-to-listening/ </div> </figure> <p>Through the <a href="
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/pickney-treaty#:~:text=The%20treaty%20was%20an%20important,Orleans%2C%20then%20under%20Spanish%20control.">Pinckney Treaty of 1795</a>, Spain had allowed the United States to use the Mississippi River for transportation and for settlers to export their goods from New Orleans without paying a duty or for temporary storage.</p> <p>U.S. President Thomas Jefferson was concerned that the control of Louisiana by France was not good for the United States, and wanted to at least purchase New Orleans for economic and national security reasons.</p> <p>Jefferson sent his U.S. minister in Paris, Robert R. Livingston, to negotiate a possible deal with France’s counterpart, but the negotiations initially fizzled. Livingston’s signals of a closer alliance with Great Britain, French losses in Saint-Domingue and the need for money to supply Napoleon’s military efforts eventually pushed the French leader to sell the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States.</p> <p>A treaty was signed on May 2, but was back-dated to April 30 for official reasons, selling the Louisiana Territory to the United States in the form that France had received it from Spain. The United States Senate approved the treaty by a vote of 24 to 7. After interest payments, the final settlement was $27,267,622.</p> <p>The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States. The land was valuable and contained rich mineral resources and wildlife resources. It was eventually carved into several states — Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. The territory also included some land in Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Minnesota. </p> This <a target="_blank" href="
https://veritenews.org/2023/05/02/may-2-1803-louisiana-purchase-treaty-is-signed/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="
https://veritenews.org">Verite</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="
https://i0.wp.com/veritenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/cropped-Verite-icon.png?fit=150%2C150&ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="
https://veritenews.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=5967&ga=319934958" style="width:1px;height:1px;"> Copy to Clipboard
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://veritenews.org/2023/05/02/may-2-1803-louisiana-purchase-treaty-is-signed/
Published and (C) by Verite News New Orleans
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 US.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/veritenews/
