Thomas Jefferson’s administration completed the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The United States agreed to acquire the Louisiana Territory from France, greatly expanding the nation west of the Mississippi River.
Jefferson especially wanted control of New Orleans, a crucial port for commerce moving along the Mississippi River. Instead of selling only New Orleans, France offered the entire Louisiana Territory. James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston negotiated with French representatives, and the United States agreed to pay 60 million francs plus claims owed to American citizens, for a total value commonly stated as about 15 million dollars.
The purchase nearly doubled the nominal size of the United States, although the territory’s exact boundaries and the status of Native nations within it remained complicated. The acquisition did not mean that all land was empty or unclaimed. It included vast regions inhabited and governed by Indigenous peoples, a fact often omitted from simplified maps and classroom summaries.