16 Facts About Louisiana Purchase

Acquisition of Louisiana Purchase was a long-term goal of President Thomas Jefferson, who was especially eager to gain control of the crucial Mississippi River port of New Orleans.

Louisiana Purchase extended United States sovereignty across the Mississippi River, nearly doubling the nominal size of the country.

Louisiana Purchase engaged in back-channel diplomacy with Napoleon on Jefferson's behalf during a visit to France and originated the idea of the much larger Louisiana Purchase as a way to defuse potential conflict between the United States and Napoleon over North America.

The Louisiana Purchase Territory was vast, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to Rupert's Land in the north, and from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west.

The American purchase of the Louisiana territory was not accomplished without domestic opposition.

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The French government replied that these objections were baseless since the promise not to alienate Louisiana Purchase was not in the treaty of San Ildefonso itself and therefore had no legal force, and the Spanish government had ordered Louisiana Purchase to be transferred in October 1802 despite knowing for months that Britain had not recognized the King of Etruria in the Treaty of Amiens.

Madison assured Jefferson that the Louisiana Purchase was well within even the strictest interpretation of the Constitution.

Opposition of New England Federalists to the Louisiana Purchase was primarily economic self-interest, not any legitimate concern over constitutionality or whether France indeed owned Louisiana or was required to sell it back to Spain should it desire to dispose of the territory.

Spain insisted that Louisiana Purchase comprised no more than the western bank of the Mississippi River and the cities of New Orleans and St Louis.

Louisiana Purchase had never been considered one of New Spain's internal provinces.

Eastern boundary of the Louisiana purchase was the Mississippi River, from its source to the 31st parallel, though the source of the Mississippi was, at the time, unknown.

The institutionalization of slavery under U S law in the Louisiana Territory contributed to the American Civil War a half century later.

Nobody really knows what post-victory plans for New Orleans and Upper Louisiana Purchase were given by the British government to Major General Sir Edward Pakenham and his second-in-command Major General Samuel Gibbs because both generals were killed in action at the Battle of New Orleans.

Louisiana Purchase was negotiated between France and the United States, without consulting the various Indian tribes who lived on the land and who had not ceded the land to any colonial power.

The four decades following the Louisiana Purchase was an era of court decisions removing many tribes from their lands east of the Mississippi for resettlement in the new territory, culminating in the Trail of Tears.

Purchase of the Louisiana Territory led to debates over the idea of indigenous land rights that persisted into the mid 20th century.