LOUISIANA PURCHASE 



3521 



LOUISIANA PURCHASE 



HISTORY 



De Soto, Fernando La Salle, Sieur de 



Grandfather's Clause Louisiana Purchase 

 Iberville, Sieur d' Reconstruction 



PRODUCTS AND INDUSTRIES 



Cotton Pine 



Forests and Forestry Rice 



Lumber Sugar 



Molasses . Sugar Cane 



Oyster Sulphur 

 Petroleum 



RIVERS 



Mississippi 

 Red 



Creole 



Sabine 

 Washita 



UNCLASSIFIED 



Levee 



LOUISIANA PURCHASE, the most impor- 

 tant event of Thomas Jefferson's administra- 

 tion, by which the United States secured a vast 

 region lying between the Mississippi River and 

 the Rocky Mountains, and extending from the 



LOUISIANA PURCHASE 



An area over half as large as that part of 

 Europe west of Russia. It cost the United States 

 less than fifteen dollars per square mile. 



Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian boundary. 

 Out of this domain have been formed fourteen 

 states, in whole or in part. In 1802 the gov- 

 ernment discovered that two years before Spain 

 had been forced by Napoleon to cede to France 

 the territory known as the province of Louisi- 

 ana, the heart of the North American Conti- 

 nent. The news was disquieting, for France was 

 a powerful nation, and the mouth of the Mis- 

 sissippi was a strategic point. To close the 

 mouth of this river to United States trade 

 meant to ruin the commerce of the western 

 states bordering on the great river. When Jef- 

 ferson heard of the acquisition of the province 

 by France he wrote Robert R. Livingston, min- 

 ister at Paris, to ask for New Orleans and the 

 Floridas, or at least for the right of deposit 

 (storage for American imports and exports) at 

 221 



New Orleans. If the request were refused, Jef- 

 ferson, although a lover of peace, stood ready 

 to declare openly against France, holding that 

 the despotic control of the Mississippi was an 

 act of deliberate unfriendliness. In such a case, 

 the United States would at that time have be- 

 come the ally of Great Britain in its war with 

 France. 



Napoleon was forced to recognize Great Brit- 

 ain's supremacy on the sea, and he felt the im- 

 possibility of holding the port of New Orleans 

 against British attack. For this reason, more 

 than for any friendliness toward the United 

 States, Napoleon offered Livingston, not the 

 Floridas or the minor right he had demanded, 

 but the entire Louisiana province, a section of 

 land which covered 1,172,000 square miles. At 

 this point, James Monroe, sent by Jefferson as 

 minister plenipotentiary in the crisis, closed the 

 deal unhesitatingly. The land cost the United 

 States $15,000,000. The transfer was made on 

 April 30, 1803. 



The act did not win Jefferson's unqualified 

 approval. He held that there was nothing in 

 the Constitution which provided for the acqui- 

 sition of the land and advised a constitutional 

 amendment, but the people overwhelmingly ap- 

 proved of the purchase, and the vote of the Sen- 

 ate stood twenty-four to seven in favor of it, 

 so the province of Louisiana was annexed to the 

 United States. The inhabitants of that terri- 

 tory came under United States protection, and 

 special privileges of entry, to hold good for 

 twelve years, were granted France and Spain. 



Louisiana Purchase Exposition, an interna- 

 tional fair held in Saint Louis, Mo., to celebrate 

 the one-hundredth anniversary of the purchase 

 of the Louisiana territory from France. It 

 opened April 30, 1904, and continued until De- 

 cember. It was one of the greatest exhibitions 

 the world had ever seen; forty-two states and 

 fifty-three countries were represented. Fifteen 

 buildings, in Renaissance architecture, were 

 grouped in the form of a fan on a site in Forest 

 Park. Four art buildings were the point of the 

 fan. There were palaces of Education and So- 

 cial Economics, of Mines and Metallurgy, of 

 Liberal Arts, of Manufacture, of Varied Indus- 

 tries, of Electricity, of Machinery and of Trans- 

 portation. The largest building was the Palace 

 of Agriculture, which covered twenty-three of 

 the 1,142 acres given to the site. There were 

 also 500 buildings representing governments, 

 states and special exhibits. France erected a 

 copy of its Grand Trianon (the home of Marie 

 Antoinette) of Versailles, and Louisiana's build- 



