Today In Western History: The Expedition Begins

May 14, 1804

 

Today sees the beginning of a historic adventure that will change course of the history of a fledgling country.  This adventure will last two years, four months and ten days.  The two men who will lead the expedition are handpicked by the President Thomas Jefferson.  The idea for 

Thomas Jefferson, 2nd US President
Thomas Jefferson, 2nd US President

this trip came to him in 1803, after he had concluded a major land deal known as the Louisiana Purchase.  He decided he wanted to know just what he had bought for his money so he had asked for some volunteers to check it out for him.   Their long and arduous trip lasted from May 1804 to September 1806.  Their main goal was to explore and the area and make maps showing what they found, so others could follow their trail west across the continent and plant their flag, so to speak, in case other countries decided to claim it. These two men had volunteered to do the job, and they took a few others with them.  But these two men, and their followers, had a second goal that was actually just as important as the first.  They were to document all the area’s plants, animal life, and geography, and also to establish a trading relationship with the local Native American tribes. 

In the winter of 1804–05, the party built Fort Mandan, near the present-day city of Washburn, North Dakota.  As a safety precaution, before they moved on, in order to protect what they had achieved so far, the expedition sent the keelboat back to Saint Louis with a sample of specimens on 7 April 1805, some of which never seen before anywhere east of the Mississippi. The Americans quickly continued westward (upriver), and camped for the winter in the Mandan nation’s territory. Here they met a French-Canadian fur trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau, and his young Shoshone wife Sacagawea. Her place in American history is probably more established than his.  Charbonneau at this time began to serve as the expedition’s translator. Peace was established between the expedition and the Mandan chiefs with the sharing of a Mandan ceremonial pipe. 

 The Corps of Discovery, as this expedition was known, eventually met their objective of reaching the Pacific, mapping and establishing their presence for a legal claim to the land. They also established trade relations with at least two dozen nation of the various Indian cultures.  Although they didn’t find a continuous waterway to the Pacific Ocean, they did manage to locate trail used by the Indians to travel from the upper end of the Missouri River to the Columbia River which ran to the Pacific Ocean.  They also gained valuable and previously unknown information about the natural habitat, the animals and the various plants and grasses, bringing back a multitude of seed, plant, and mineral specimens. They mapped the landscape, showing the location of rivers, streams and mountains, and of course, the various Indian tribes and their territories as they passed through the previously unexplored land.   They also learned and recorded much about the language and customs of the American Indian tribes they encountered, and brought back many of their artifacts, including bows, clothing and ceremonial robes.  They were therefore, in essence, the first souvenir collectors in America.  The expedition helped establish the U.S. presence in the newly acquired territory and beyond and opened the door to further exploration, trade and scientific discoveries.  Who were these two intrepid explorer?  Why, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, of course.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, head of the Corps of Discovery
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, head of the Corps of Discovery

 

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Today In Western History: The Louisiana Purchase Is FInalized

 

On April 30, 1803, representatives of the United States and Napoleonic France conclude negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase, a massive land sale that doubles the size of the young American republic. What was known as Louisiana Territory comprised most of modern-day United States between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, with the exceptions of Texas, parts of New Mexico, and other pockets of land already controlled by the United States. A formal treaty for the Louisiana Purchase, antedated to April 30, was signed two days later.

Beginning in the 17th century, France explored the Mississippi River valley and established scattered settlements in the region. By the middle of the 18th century, France controlled more of the modern United States than any other European power: from New Orleans northeast to the Great Lakes and northwest to modern-day Montana. In 1762, during the French and Indian War, France ceded its America territory west of the Mississippi River to Spain and in 1763 transferred nearly all of its remaining North American holdings to Great Britain. Spain, no longer a dominant European power, did little to develop Louisiana Territory during the next three decades. In 1796, Spain allied itself with France, leading Britain to use its powerful navy to cut off Spain from America.

In 1801, Spain signed a secret treaty with France to return Louisiana Territory to France. Reports of the retrocession caused considerable uneasiness in the United States. Since the late 1780s, Americans had been moving westward into the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys, and these settlers were highly dependent on free access to the Mississippi River and the strategic port of New Orleans. U.S. officials feared that France, resurgent under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, would soon seek to dominate the Mississippi River and access to the Gulf

Emperor Naplolean Bonaparte, circa 1812
Emperor Naplolean Bonaparte, circa 1812

Gulf of Mexico. In a letter to Robert Livingston, the U.S. minister to France, President Thomas Jefferson stated, “The day that France takes

Thomas Jefferson, 2nd US President
Thomas Jefferson, 2nd US President

possession of New Orleans…we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.” Livingston was ordered to negotiate with French minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand for the purchase of New Orleans.

Robert R. Livingston, lawyer, politician, diplomat from New York, and a Founding Father of the United States
Robert R. Livingston, lawyer, politician, diplomat from New York, and a Founding Father of the United States

France was slow in taking control of Louisiana, but in 1802 Spanish authorities, apparently acting under French orders, revoked a U.S.-Spanish treaty that granted Americans the right to store goods in New Orleans. In response to this, President Jefferson sent future president

 James Monroe, 5th US President and the last Founding Father to be President
James Monroe, 5th US President and the last Founding Father to be President

James Monroe to Paris to aid Livingston in the New Orleans purchase talks. On April 11, 1803, the day before Monroe’s arrival, Talleyrand asked a surprised Livingston what the United States would give for all of Louisiana Territory. It is believed that the failure of France to put down a slave revolution in Haiti, the impending war with Great Britain and probable Royal Navy blockade of France, and financial difficulties may all have prompted Napoleon to offer Louisiana for sale to the United States.


Negotiations moved swiftly, and at the end of April the U.S. envoys had agreed on the cost of the purchase.  The new United States agreed to pay $11,250,000 (or $179,195, 378.35 in 2015 dollars) and assumed all claims of its citizens against France in the amount of $3,750,000 (or $ 59,731,792.78 in 2015 dollars).  In exchange, the United States acquired the vast domain of Louisiana Territory, some 828,000 square miles of land (at a cost of $288.56 in 2015 dollars per square mile).   

 

In October, Congress ratified the purchase, and in December 1803 France formally transferred authority over the region to the United States. The acquisition of the Louisiana Territory for the bargain price of less than three cents an acre was Thomas Jefferson’s most notable achievement as president. American expansion westward into the new lands began immediately, and in 1804 a territorial government was established. On April 30, 1812, exactly nine years after the Louisiana Purchase agreement was made, the first of 13 states to be carved from the territory–Louisiana–was admitted into the Union as the 18th U.S. state.

 

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Today In Western History: France Sells Louisiana

April 11 —

In one of the great surprises in diplomatic history, French Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand makes an offer to sell all of their Louisiana Territory to the United States.

Charles Maurice Tallyrand, French Foreign Minister for Bonaparte
Charles Maurice Tallyrand, French Foreign Minister for Bonaparte

Talleyrand was no fool. As the foreign minister to French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, he was one of the most powerful men in the world. Three years earlier, Talleyrand had convinced Napoleon that he could create a new French Empire in North America. The French had long had a tenuous claim to the vast area west of the Mississippi River known as Louisiana Territory. In 1800, Napoleon secretly signed a treaty with Spain that officially gave France full control of the territory. Then he began to prepare France’s mighty army to occupy New Orleans and bolster French dominion.

Thomas Jefferson, President, inventor, surveyor, architect, author, statesman and diplomat
Thomas Jefferson, President, inventor, surveyor, architect, author, statesman and diplomat

When President Thomas Jefferson learned of Napoleon’s plans in 1802, he was understandably alarmed. Jefferson had long hoped the U.S. would expand westward beyond the Mississippi, but the young American republic was in no position militarily to challenge France for the territory. Jefferson hoped that his minister in France, Robert Livingston, might at least be able to negotiate an agreement whereby Napoleon would give the U.S. control of New Orleans, the gateway to the Mississippi River.

Robert R. Livingston, lawyer, politician, diplomat from New York, and a Founding Father of the United States
Robert R. Livingston, lawyer, politician, diplomat from New York, and a Founding Father of the United States

At first, the situation looked bleak because Livingston’s initial attempts at reaching a diplomatic agreement failed. In early 1803, Jefferson sent his young Virginia friend James Monroe to Paris to assist Livingston. Fortunately for the U.S., by that time Napoleon’s situation in Europe had changed for the worse. War between France and Great Britain was imminent and Napoleon could no longer spare the military resources needed to secure control of Louisiana Territory. Realizing that the powerful British navy would probably take the territory by force, Napoleon reasoned it would be better to sell Louisiana to the Americans than have it fall into the hands of his enemy.

After months of having fruitlessly negotiated over the fate of New Orleans, Livingston again met with Talleyrand on this day in 1803. To Livingston’s immense surprise, this time the cagey French minister coolly asked, “What will you give for the whole?” He meant not the whole of New Orleans, but the whole of Louisiana Territory. Quickly recognizing that this was an offer of potentially immense significance for the U.S., Livingston and Monroe began to discuss France’s proposed cost for the territory. Several weeks later, on April 30, 1803, the American emissaries signed a treaty with France for a purchase of the vast territory consisting of 828,000 square miles for $11,250,000.  That works out to $ 28.035 per square mile in 1803.  Including interest, the U.S. finally paid $23,213,568 for the Louisiana territory. What cost the fledgling United States $11,250,000 in 1803 would cost a whopping $369,756,808.94 in 2015, which would be $446.566 per square mile.

Just two weeks later, Great Britain declared war on France. With the sale of the Louisiana Territory, Napoleon abandoned his dreams of a North American empire, but he also achieved a goal that he thought more important. “The sale [of Louisiana] assures forever the power of the United States,” Napoleon later wrote, “and I have given England a rival who, sooner or later, will humble her pride.”  Truly, a case of “The enemy of my enemy, is my friend.”

 

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