Which 1803 land deal nearly doubled U.S. territory in the history celebrated by America250?

The Louisiana Purchase was the 1803 land deal that nearly doubled the territory of the United States.

The United States acquired the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million. The agreement covered approximately 828,000 square miles in the Mississippi River basin and central North America, including land that later became part of fifteen U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

President Thomas Jefferson had originally sought access to New Orleans and the Mississippi River. French Treasury Minister François Barbé-Marbois offered the entire territory to American negotiators Robert Livingston and James Monroe, producing a much larger acquisition than Jefferson had expected.

The purchase raised constitutional and political questions, and its boundaries were disputed with Spain. It also involved territory inhabited by numerous Native nations, whose lands and sovereignty were not erased by the transaction. The deal’s long-term expansion of the United States makes it a major part of the national history surveyed by America250.