England: After the French and Indian War of 1763, the British took control of all of Canada and the former French territory west to the Mississippi River. With the end of the American Revolution in 1783, the British lost their land from the Great Lakes to the North to the Gulf of Mexico to the South, from the Atlantic Ocean to the East and the Mississippi River to the West. They maintained control of their Canadian Land. The British were slow to move troops out of the Ohio River Valley despite the terms of the Treaty of Paris. It was not until over 10 years later with Jay’s Treaty did the British start to pull troops out of territory in the western part of the United States. The British began to explore along the Northern and Western borders of the United States after the Revolution. In 1789 in attempt to assert its sovereignty over the Pacific coast the Spanish seized British ships on Vancouver Island. This action sparked an international incident that resulted in the Nootka Convention which was signed on October 28, 1790. The conventions stated that the English had the right to found settlements anywhere on the Pacific claimed by Spain but never settled by Spain. As a result claims of sovereignty on the Pacific were determined by settlement or feet on the ground as opposed to claims based on prior discovery. The British began settling the Western Coast of the present day United States. The British still sought to one day regain control of its lost colonies. Britain was still a very wealthy and powerful empire after the American Revolution. Britain and France had a long standing rivalry.
Transcript
England:
After the French and Indian War of 1763, the British took control of all of Canada and the former French territory west to the Mississippi River.
With the end of the American Revolution in 1783, the British lost their land from the Great Lakes to the North to the Gulf of Mexico to the South, from the Atlantic Ocean to the East and the Mississippi River to the West. They maintained control of their Canadian Land.
The British were slow to move troops out of the Ohio River Valley despite the terms of the Treaty of Paris. It was not until over 10 years later with Jay’s Treaty did the British start to pull troops out of territory in the western part of the United States.
The British began to explore along the Northern and Western borders of the United States after the Revolution.
In 1789 in attempt to assert its sovereignty over the Pacific coast the Spanish seized British ships on Vancouver Island. This action sparked an international incident that resulted in the Nootka Convention which was signed on October 28, 1790. The conventions stated that the English had the right to found settlements anywhere on the Pacific claimed by Spain but never settled by Spain. As a result claims of sovereignty on the Pacific were determined by settlement or feet on the ground as opposed to claims based on prior discovery.
The British began settling the Western Coast of the present day United States. The British still sought to one day regain control of its lost colonies. Britain was still a very wealthy and powerful empire after the American Revolution. Britain and France had a long standing rivalry.
Six important linguistic or cultural groupings of Native-American tribes were indigenous to what is now the state of Louisiana at the time of European contact: the Attakapa; the Caddo; the Tunica; the Natchez; the Muskhogean, and the Chitimacha. Each could be further divided into subgroups or tribes but many did not survive their encounters with the Europeans.
The Natchez were systematically destroyed by the French in 1729. But the Caddo have continued with their culture unbroken to the present day. The Attakapa lived in the far southwest corner of present day Louisiana and were distantly related to the Opelousas tribe. They were very peaceful and easily overwhelmed by the Europeans and disappeared as a distinct group before the 19th century.
Tribes ranged from small clans of hunters to large communities of farmers. Evidence shows they had extensive cultural and economic exchange networks with tribes around them, reaching as far south as Mexico, Central American and the Caribbean. Material goods were traded, as were language, technology, and recreational practices.
As the Europeans arrived trade was established with the tribes and cultural interaction developed In the 1700s, Native Americans were the largest segment of Louisiana's population.
In the late eighteenth century white settlers began migrating from the original thirteen colonies over the Appalachian Mountains and into the "West." Around the turn of the nineteenth century they slowly began to move into the eastern parts of the Northwest Territory, which had been established in 1787, and into parts of the Old Southwest, or Alabama, Mississippi, and western Kentucky and Tennessee. They viewed the Native peoples who resided there as an obstacle to be conquered or pushed further westward.
President Jefferson and those who followed him envisioned an "Indian colonization zone" or permanent Indian frontier, in a north-south tier on the west bank of the Mississippi. Many people advocated this approach to "the Indian problem." They believed that removal of Indians to that area would permanently resolve the conflict between the original Native inhabitants and the Euroamericans who were clamoring to "civilize" the continent. Whites would live east of the river, Indians west of it.
France:
The Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War. It was signed by Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. Preferring to keep Guadeloupe, France gave up Canada and all of its claims to territory east of the Mississippi River to Britain and Spain.
While the French lost a majority of their land in North American after the French and Indian War they were still a wealthy and powerful nation looking to expand their empire.
In the secretly negotiated Third Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800, Spain returned the colonial territory of Louisiana to France.
Napoleon Bonaparte, who had come to power in France in 1799, planned in 1801 to use the fertile Mississippi Valley as a source of food and trade to supply a French empire in the New World.
Jefferson was aware of the potential threat that France could be in the New Orleans region and was prepared to go to war to prevent a strong French presence there.
The purchase of the Louisiana territory began with a bid from Jefferson’s emissaries in Paris to buy the vital trading port of New Orleans. Negotiations had gone nowhere until Napoleon Bonaparte, preparing for another war with England, suddenly announced that the United States could have New Orleans if it would take the entire 820,000-square mile Louisiana Territory for $15 million (about three cents an acre).
Bonaparte had his own reasons for the dramatic offer. He held title to Louisiana but had little power to enforce it. The Americans, he believed, were sure to overrun the area long before he could get an army there, if he ever could. Further, the land sale would empower a young nation that shared one of France’s common rivals: England.
After the French and Indian War, 1763, the Spanish ceded Florida to the British, but later received New Orleans and French Louisiana from Britain.
The Spanish were the most aggressive explorers of the era. They controlled the majority of the land in Central and South America. They also controlled most of the land west of the Mississippi River in North America.
Pinckney's Treaty, 1795, also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo, settled the northern border of West Florida as the 31st parallel. This means that Spain controlled Florida and the Gulf Coast all the way across Mississippi and Alabama to New Orleans.
Spain was a wealthy nation which depended on the Port of New Orleans for trading. When the Spanish controlled the Port of New Orleans, Americans had to ask for permission to use the port. Sometimes Spain would deny Americans access to the port.
In the secretly negotiated Third Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800, Spain was forced to return the colonial territory of Louisiana to France in exchange for territory in Europe. Spain was angry at the loss of this territory.
In 1803, only four roads crossed the Appalachian Mountains. But the United States had the potential to become a powerful nation if it could add the area west of the Mississippi to its territory. At that time, however, people were skeptical that one nation could govern an entire continent. The distance between the Appalachians and the Mississippi, the limited transportation options, and the unanswered questions about the western land were barriers to westward expansion. Also, horses were the fastest mode of transportation, and the few roads or trails that existed were in poor condition. It was impossible to get anything from the Mississippi to the Atlantic seaboard in fewer than six weeks. These barriers helped quell ideas of spreading national interests further west.
The half-million Americans (one out of 10) who already lived west of the Appalachian Mountains, however, felt they had found their own “national” interests. Since water routes were viewed as a source of commerce, many people along the Mississippi viewed themselves as the seeds of an independent nation that would tap into the world marketplace, not by going east to the Atlantic seaboard, but by following the Ohio and Mississippi river system down to the Gulf of Mexico.
Jefferson knew the inhabitants of this region posed a risk of secession from the United States. After all, the nation, only 18 years old, was born of rebellion. He was determined to obtain the vital trading port of New Orleans for the United States, in part to prevent the West from breaking away.
The Louisiana Purchase has often been described as one of the greatest real estate deals in history. Despite this, there were some issues that concerned Americans of the day. First, many wondered how or if the United States could defend this massive addition to its land holdings. Many New Englanders worried about the effect the new addition might have on the balance of power in the nation. Further, Jefferson struggled with the theoretical implications of the manner in which they carried out the purchase, particularly in light of Jefferson's previous heated battles with Alexander Hamilton concerning the interpretation of limits of constitutional and presidential powers. In the end, however, the desire to purchase the territory outweighed all of these practical and theoretical objections.
In 1802 President Jefferson sent a group of diplomats to negotiate with the French leader Napoleon Bonaparte to buy the port city of New Orleans. The United States offered Napoleon 5 million dollars for the port. Napoleon refused. Instead Napoleon offered the U.S. the entire territory of Louisiana for 15 million dollars. Jefferson accepted his offer and purchased the Louisiana Territory without Congressional approval in 1803.
Jefferson’s purchase was very controversial because the Constitution did not specifically give the President the power to purchase land from foreign nations. Jefferson himself was a strong supporter of a strict interpretation of the Constitution. He believed that the federal government should strictly follow the wording of the Constitution. He also thought that to do so would erode states' rights by increasing federal executive power.
Why did Jefferson go against his personal beliefs when buying the Louisiana Purchase? Did he feel that it was a necessary evil to buy the land to prevent others from settling it?
You have been assigned 5 major countries/peoples of the time period to investigate. Your job is to determine the following:
1. Would this country/people be interested in owning the Louisiana Territory? Why?
2. Would this country/people have been able to afford to buy the Louisiana Territory?
3. Would France have been willing to sell the Louisiana Territory to this country/people? Why or Why not?
4. If this country/people did have possession of the Louisiana Territory would this be a positive or a negative for the United States? Why?
5. Should the United States buy the Louisiana Territory to prevent this country from settling the land? Why/Why not? Was it a ‘necessary evil’ for Jefferson?
828,000 square miles- When purchased it doubled the size of the United States. Sold for a total sum of 15 million dollars (less than 3 cents per acre) for the Louisiana territory ($233 million in
2012 dollars, less than 42 cents per acre) The Louisiana territory encompassed all or part of 15 present U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The land
purchased contained all of present day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska; parts of Minnesota that were west of the Mississippi River; most of North Dakota; most of South Dakota; northeastern New Mexico; northern Texas; the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide; Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans; and small portions of land that would eventually become part of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Located within the Louisiana Territory the city of New Orleans controlled the Mississippi River due to its location; other locations for ports were attempted, but did not succeed.
The central portion of North America was considered prime land for settlement in the early days of the republic. The Missouri and Red Rivers drained the region east of the Rocky Mountains into the massive Mississippi Valley, offering navigation and fertile farmlands, prairies, pastures and forests. The region also held large deposits of various minerals, which would come to be economic boons as well. Buffalo and other wild game were plentiful and offered an abundant food supply for the Native Americans who peopled the region as well as for later settlers.
In 1800, 38% of our country’s farming products pass through the port of New Orleans. In the coming generation the western territory of the United States up to the Mississippi River will hold 50% of our
fertile farmland and 50% of our overall population.
England Indian Territory Russia Spain Frontier America
1. Would this country/people be
interested in owning the Louisiana Territory? Why?
2. Would this country/people have been able to afford to buy the
Louisiana Territory?
3. Would France have been willing to sell the Louisiana
Territory to this country/people? Why or
Why not?
4. If this country/people did have possession of the
Louisiana Territory would this be a positive or a
negative for the United States? Why?
5. Should the United States buy the Louisiana Territory to prevent you from settling
the land? Why/Why not? Was it a ‘necessary evil’ for
