Louisiana Godsend

  • Also known commonly as the Lousiana purchase

  • 1800, secret pact signed

  • Bonaparte induced Spain to cede an immense region of Louisiana, including New Orleans

  • Spaniards at New Orleans withdrew warehouse rights guaranteed by Pinckney’s Treaty of 1795

  • Hoping to quiet clamor in West, Jefferson in 1803 sent James Monroe to Paris to work with Robert Livingstone, the regular minister there

  • Instructed to buy New Orleans and as much land as possible for $10 million

  • Napoleon suddenly decided to abandon dream of a new world empire and sell all of Louisiana

  • Failed in an effort to reconquer the sugar-rich island of Santo Domingo (Haiti)

  • Slaves struck for freedom in 1791

  • Haitian Revolution was eventually crushed, but yellow fever killed thousands of French troops

  • Without Haiti, no need for Lousiana’s food supplies

  • To keep Louisiana from the British, Napoleon decided to sell it and use the money for schemes in Europe

  • Livingston was shocked when French asked him what he would give for all of Louisiana

    • On April 30, 1803, treaties were signed ceding Louisiana to the United States for about $15 million

Lousiana in the Long View

Losuaina Purchase

  • Secured the western half of the richest river valley and laid the foundation of a future major power

  • Established valuable precedent for future expansion on the basis of equal membership

  • Imperialism with a new democratic face

  • This would lead to the displacement of many Indians

  • Made isolationist principles of Washington’s Farewell Address operational because removed Europe from North America

  • Would create 15 new states 

Events of 1802-1803

  • October 16, 1802: Spain revokes American goods to move into or through New Orleans

  • November 1802: Jefferson learns that Spain secretly transferred Losuians territory to Frace

  • 1803: Jefferson sends negotiators to France and offers $10 million for NO and West Florida

  • April 11, 1803: Napoleon offers the entire territory for $15 million ($275 million adjusted)

    • Gained 828,000 square miles at three cents an acre

Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery

  • 1804 Jefferson sent personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, and army officer William Clark to explore the northern part of Louisiana

  • Exploration took 2 ½ years

    • Rich harvest of scientific observation, maps, knowledge of Native Americans, and adventure stories

    • Demonstrated viability of overland trail to Pacific 

Corps of Discovery

  • While Lewis gathered supplies for the trip, Clark trained the men

  • 21 soldiers, 18 river men, an interpreter, Clark’s slave, and a Newfoundland dog made up the crew 

  • Started up the Missouri in 1804

Fort Mandan

  • The Discovery Corps traveled up from St. Louis to make a winter camp for the winter of 1804-1805

  • They arrive at the Mandan and Hidatsa’s village which had a larger population than D.C. or St. Louis

  • That winter they recorded 45 degrees below zero, the lowest ever cold temperate recorded at this time

Sacagawea

  • Lewis and Clark hired a French man, Charbonneau, who had been living as an interpreter for the Hidatsa’s

  • Sacagawea, a Shoshone girl, was a prisoner of the Hidatsa before being sold to Charboneau

  • While camped for the winter, she gave birth to her son, helped into labor by a concoction of rattlesnake rattles made by Lewis

  • She goes with her husband along with Lewis and Clark

The Journals

  • Required by Jefferson

  • Included 60 maps

    • Rivers, mountains

    • Very detailed

  • Sketches

    • animals/plant life

  • 140,000 words

  • Provided important credibility to the journey 

  • Visited/traded with nearly 50 tribes

    • Mandan, arikira, nez, perce,shoshone

  • Confrontations between Blackfeet + Sioux (1805, 1806)

    • First deaths of natives by representatives of the US

  • The expedition returns to St. Louis where everyone thought they were dead

  • They had been gone 2 ½ years

  • Were given a heroes welcome and there were many balls and celebrations in the town they traveled through on their way home

  • Lewis was named governor of the Louisiana territory and Clark was made the Indian agent for the west

  • Jefferson sent another expedition to explore the wilderness

  • Lt. Zebulon Pike led two expeditions into a region that is now Colorado

  • Pikes Peak - snowcapped mountain he called Grand Peak

The Aaron Burr Conspiracies

  • Louisiana Purchase expanded the fortunes of the United States and power of the federal government 

  • In short term, vast new territory  and freebie reach of government raised fears of secession and foreign intrigue 

  • Burr, Jefferson’s first-term VP, helped justify such fears

  • Burr joined with federalists extremists to plot secession of New England and New York

  • Hamilton exposed and foiled conspiracy 

  • Jefferson elected in 1804

    • 162 electoral votes to only 14 votes for Federalist opponent

  • Napoleon provoked renewed war with Britain

    • Conflict would rage for the next 11 years

  • During the first two years of the war, maritime United States enjoyed commercial pickings

  • 1806 London issued orders of council

    • Closed ports under French control to foreign shipping, including Americans unless vessels stopped at British ports first

  • Napoelion struck back:

    • Ordered seizure of all merchant ships, including Americans that entered British ports

    • American vessels were caught - no way to trade with one nation without antagonizing other

  • Impressment also upset Americans - forced conscription of sailers by British  - some 6000 U.S. citizens impressed by Britains (1808-1811)

Embargo Act

Reasoning: since England and France were at war with one another and traded for most of their natural resources with the US if we cut off our exports to them it would force them to respect our neutrality… THIS IS CALLED ECONOMIC COERCION

  • It would have the reverse effects…

  • The act not only hurt France and Britain but US trade as well which was our economic survival as a nation, as a result, many Americans defied the law and began to smuggle goods from these countries and others

  • The Embargo Act failed because of Jefferson 

    • Underestimated British determination 

    • Overestimated dependence of both belligerents on American trade

    • Miscacluted unpopularity of a self-crucifying weapon and difficulty in enforcing it

  • New England plucked new prosperity from the ugly jaws of embargo

    • Resourceful Yankees reopened old factories and made new ones