The United States paid France $15 million for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, dramatically expanding the nation celebrated by America250.
The purchase transferred about 828,000 square miles of territory west of the Mississippi River to the United States. The land stretched from the Mississippi basin toward the Rocky Mountains and included the port of New Orleans, a crucial outlet for western farmers.
President Thomas Jefferson authorized the negotiations, and diplomats Robert Livingston and James Monroe reached the agreement with France. Napoleon Bonaparte’s government accepted the sale partly because renewed war with Britain made the distant North American territory difficult to defend.
The headline price was $15 million, but the financial arrangement included the assumption of certain American claims against France. The purchase nearly doubled the country’s size. It did not instantly settle ownership questions involving Native nations, Spain, or Britain, and its consequences included both national growth and intensified disputes over slavery and Indigenous land.