Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase was the agreement by which the United States bought from Napoleonic France a huge territory west of the Mississippi River, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, for about fifteen million dollars. President Thomas Jefferson had sent Robert Livingston and James Monroe to try to buy New Orleans, but Napoleon, who had lost interest in an American empire after the failure to retake Saint-Domingue during the Haitian Revolution, and who needed money for war with Britain, offered the whole territory. The purchase roughly doubled the size of the United States, and was followed by the Lewis and Clark expedition. It raised questions about the constitutional powers of the president and about the spread of slavery.

Open on the timeline