The purchase of Louisiana on April 30, 1803 was the most important event in the history of the United States, which forever turned this country towards imperialism. The huge territory of the then Louisiana (2,100,000 sq. Km) to the current small state with the same name has a conditional relationship. To be convinced of this, it is enough to look at the historical maps. In the language of simple comparisons, by annexing Louisiana, the United States immediately doubled territorially, having received enormous resources for economic growth and further unrestrained territorial expansion.
After gaining independence, the US authorities lifted the British ban on settling beyond the Allegheny Mountains, and the colonists moved en masse to the West. But the movement had its own geographical limits - they rested on the borders of Louisiana. The history of this territory is rather complicated, and it in turn belonged to the French, then to the Spaniards, and at the beginning of the 19th century it was in the process of another transfer from Spain to France under the Treaty of San Ildefonso.
The United States was interested in the acquisition, first of all, of New Orleans, through which American trade between the western and eastern outskirts went. Goods descended on the Mississippi, across the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean to the US East Coast. The cargoes went back the same way. But the exit from the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico was locked just by New Orleans, and it was this strategic area that the then US President Thomas Jefferson planned to take under control. There was no talk of buying all of Louisiana at that time, although such thoughts were already expressed in the environment of the head of state.
Although there was an agreement with Spain on the free transit of many goods, this did not remove the acuteness of the problem and more reliable guarantees were required.
In order to conduct a diplomatic sounding, a mission was sent to Paris in the person of James Monroe (the future fifth president of the United States and the author of the famous expansionist Monroe Doctrine) and Robert Livingston. Pierre-Samuel Dupont, who had extensive connections in the ruling circles of France, was attached to them as an assistant. Together, they had to influence Napoleon Bonaparte and convince him to sell New Orleans and the surrounding area to the United States.
By 1803, Paris's relations with London had deteriorated so much that open war was inevitable. Knowing about the inconvenient position of France, the Americans more and more often allowed themselves remarks like “sell or take by force”. They were pronounced more in private conversations, but they accurately reflected the mood of the young power. However, Napoleon himself understood how defenseless the possessions in the New World remained. Remembering the sad fate of Acadia, a French possession in North America, previously conquered by the British, the First Consul of the French Republic decided to sell. The future emperor considered the war at home more important than overseas adventures.
By the way, there is also an alternative version of events, indicating that the French offer for the sale fell on American diplomats like snow on their heads - after all, they had the means and authority only to buy New Orleans.
The sales agreement was signed on April 30, 1803 in Paris, and the actual transfer of sovereignty took place a year later, on March 10, 1804. The territory was eventually sold for $ 15 million, of which $ 11 million.250 thousand were paid immediately, and the rest went to pay off France's debt to US citizens. The benefits to the United States have been colossal on either side. However, at that time, there was still no consensus in the United States about whether this purchase was useful or not, not to mention the sharply aggravated relations with Great Britain and Spain.
The Spaniards, who planned to cover their continental possessions as a shield with French Louisiana, were sharply opposed to the deal, but the United States ignored their opinion. Finding itself in an unfavorable strategic position, Spain was later forced to cede Florida as well.
Britain in 1818, after the Anglo-American War of 1812-1815, retreated to the very north of Louisiana, after which the border was finally straightened and took on a modern look.
Having lost Louisiana, France lost all possessions in North America and only in 1816 Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, tiny islands off the coast of Newfoundland, returned to it.
For Russia, the French situation will be exactly the same more than half a century later in the case of Alaska. Having a constant threat in Europe, military conflicts in Central Asia, as well as the troubled border with China and Japan, the maintenance of the North American possessions seemed to Alexander II an unaffordable luxury. They got rid of the distant and sparsely populated territory through the sale, so as not to lose it by military means.
