18031776 Club
Jefferson tells the nation: Louisiana is ours, bought from France for fifteen million dollars
The deal hands America New Orleans and the full Mississippi valley; the country's size has nearly doubled in a stroke.
For years, American farmers and merchants depended on a river port they didn't control. New Orleans, gateway to the Mississippi, belonged to a foreign crown that could shut it down at will, and had. On July 4, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson announced to the American people that the United States had bought the entire Louisiana territory from France for fifteen million dollars. Overnight, the country's size nearly doubled…
