Thomas Jefferson's Presidential Legacy.
In eighteen hundred and three, I was involved in one of the largest land deals history has ever known. It was called the Louisiana Purchase. This purchase was arguably the greatest achievement of my presidency but posed many problems.
http://americanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa030902a.htm.
Napoleon Bonaparte had a vision to recapture Louisiana from Spain. By getting this territory, it would stop the expansion westward of the United States and would supply French colonies in the West Indies with the goods they needed. In 1800, Napoleon signed a secret Treaty of Ildefonso with Spain, an agreement that bound France to provide Spain with a kingdom for the son-in-law of Spain's king if Spain would return Louisiana to France. However, Napoleon's plan failed when the twelve-year revolt of slaves and free blacks in the French colony of Saint-Domingue succeeded, forcing French troops to return defeated to France and preventing them from reaching Louisiana and from being able to defend it. As Napoleon's New World empire crumbled, the loss of Haiti made Louisiana unnecessary. .
We (The United States) wanted to get the area near New Orleans to guarantee its right to sail vessels down the Mississippi River through Spanish territory and unload goods at New Orleans for shipment to the Atlantic coast and Europe. In addition, we wanted to gain entire territory of Louisiana because so many American settlers and merchants were already in the region and because of its geographic loction at the mouth of the Mississippi River. .
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