24 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY: 
that power, then under the military rule of Bonaparte, her 
entire possessions in the Mississippi valley, including Upper 
and Lower Louisiana. By this treaty, the soil we now oc- 
cupy, after an interval of about forty years of Spanish rule, 
again passed under the control of France. Napoleon, at 
this time, absorbed in his gigantic schemes for establishing 
the French empire and controling the policy of Europe, 
found little opportunity to attend to the interests of a dis- 
tant colony, and thus, fortunately for the cause of American 
republicanism, the formidable coalition of the European 
powers obliged this ambitious military ruler to concen- 
trate all his efforts on European soil. Hence, after little 
more than a year’s nominal jurisdiction, he disposed of this 
newly acquired territory of Upper and Lower Louisiana 
to the United States for $15,000,000. 
The date of December 20th, 1803, by which the final 
transfer was made by France to the United States of this 
|| trans-Mississippi region, marks an event which may 
worthily occupy the first page of a history which in the suc- 
ceeding seventy years progress, has astonished the world. 
Jefferson, the master spirit in bringing about this new 
acquisition, was not only a far-secing statesman, but an em- 
inently practical man, and to his wise policy we are mainly 
indebted for the series of government explorations inaugur- 
ated by him for determining the actual character and re- 
sources of this western region. It would be but a just com- 
memoration of the early services of this great statesman, to 
affix the name of Jefferson to some well defined state to be 
carved out of these rapidly developing western territories, 
to inelude, if possible, under natural boundaries, the head 
sources of the grand rivers flowing east and west from the 
great continental water-shed. 
With the era of western explorations commencing with 
the adventurous journey of Lewis and Clark, in 1804-5-6, 
to the Pacific ocean by way of the head waters of the Miss- 
