Louisiana because of the river was a significant crossroads of empowerment anybody who controlled the mouth of the Mississippi would be a natural enemy of the United States if Spain or France would not sell it it was a compelling national interest that the US should seize it Louisiana Purchase is one of the most important events in American history well it added almost half of the territory of the United States to the new nation at a bargain price the purchase helped transform the United States from a seemingly irrelevant country and experiment into a powerful country it set the foundation ultimately to expansion all the way to the Pacific Ocean American annexation of the region know the Louisiana Purchase doesn't mean that everything is now hunky-dory one very large negative effect of the Louisiana Purchase and that is it's going to lead to the Civil War funding for this program provided by the Tangipahoa Parish School Board from a US Department of Education teaching American history grant [Music] in 1682 Lassalle claimed all of the land drained by the Mississippi River for friends naming it after king louis xiv over 100 years later france would pull down her flag and sell the Louisiana territory to a new player in world affairs the United States of America like toppling dominoes from the popular 18th century game this astounding purchases and other major events into motion it would be the source of amazing accomplishments and troubling tragedies but two Americans like President Thomas Jefferson this unexpected opportunity was the young Republic's destiny well Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark odd to find out what he had bought and they went up the Missouri River out to the mountains and that over the mountains to the coast and came back and reported the best bargain that has ever been made key to American survival much less expansion was a Mississippi River a muddy waterway which forced its way through the heart of the North American continent American trappers and farmers in the frontier needed this economic artery to ship their goods to the east but France owned the Louisiana territory and for all practical purposes the Mississippi River as France realized it was losing the French and Indian War to Great Britain the French secretly transferred the territory with its control of the Mississippi to Spain well the Mississippi River is arguably the most important geographic location in North America in the late 1790s and early 1800s the Mississippi River constituted the first great interstate highway of Commerce in the students Americans had spilled out into the Ohio River Valley these people had to ship their goods through new armies in order to reach the Atlantic coast in 1795 the Spanish opened up the river to the Americans they didn't require them to pay any fees they allowed them to deposit their things at New Orleans for three years and before they were export if they did everything they could to satisfy the Americans so they wouldn't take the river by force the Spanish government actually in 1802 restricted American use of New Orleans cut off American access to the Lower Mississippi River and this created a huge crisis in the United States of Western farmers who then were putting pressure on the Jefferson administration to do something about it disgruntled Western farmers and trappers threatened secession from America unless the problem was resolved this unrest combined with recent knowledge that France had secretly taken back the Louisiana territory from the weaker Spain gravely concerned President Jefferson every eye in the US is now fixed on this affair of Louisiana Thomas Jefferson Jefferson became really alarmed he as much as he loved France and hated Britain said the day that France takes hold of the mouth of the Mississippi we must marry ourselves to the British fleet in the British nation but the idea there is that anybody who controlled the mouth of the Mississippi would be a natural enemy of the United States if Spain or France would not sell it it was a compelling national interest that the US should seize it and then at moments where national survival depended on a firing territory the US should do that French first console napoleon bonaparte had displayed spectacular military might as his powerful army had become a conquering machine in europe now he hoped to transform the louisiana territory into a powerful french colony meanwhile jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison made round about threats to Napoleon while negotiating to obtain the Isle of Orleans and West Florida from him what would be Napoleon's next move would it come to war between France and America Napoleon although he had been approached by the American government for the purchase of new audience began to think in terms of selling more than if he could get X number of dollars for New Orleans what could he get fall of Louisiana Louisiana was 1/4 the size of Europe Louisiana territory was as big as Great Britain Germany Spain Portugal and probably some other countries combined now he had controlled that in Europe by the hardest imagine having to do it 3,000 miles away paulien needed money if he was going to continue his war against England and he knew he couldn't it was just going to be impossible America was growing American settlers have already begun to go across the Mississippi River this was a emerging country a growing country and I don't think there's any way that these other powers could have stopped the United States from eventually acquiring Louisiana by 1802 50,000 French soldiers on the lucrative French sugar island of San Lemang have been killed by slave revolts and yellow fever this bad turn of fortune for Napoleon and France was a stroke of incredible luck for Jefferson and America suddenly Napoleon wanted to sell the entire Louisiana territory to America incredulous at this amazing offer foreign ministers robert Livingston and James Monroe didn't have time to ask Jefferson's permission they immediately agreed to the most enormous land deal of all time for all practical purposes Napoleon was selling the country of New France to America they only ask of me one town in Louisiana but I already considered the colony as entire lost Napoleon Bonaparte garrison thought he was buying New Orleans he had to have New Orleans he was going to hold the West in the Union but to his astonishment Napoleon said I'll sell the whole Louisiana and Jefferson leaked that Jefferson didn't believe that the Constitution allowed him to purchase to Louisiana and so he was willing to go against his own constitutional beliefs to extend the life of the Republic the magical date was May 2nd 1803 with the scroll of a pen and a 15 million dollar price tag America had purchased over 500 million acres of land from France land which would become one of the greatest natural resources in the world only weeks after the purchase France would use this money to resume its war with Great Britain while European powers were destroying each other America would begin building an empire already she had peacefully doubled her size now stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic but ahead lay the arduous task of carving out a vast continent of unknown dangers and undefined boundaries the administration of Thomas Jefferson was dead set on purchasing the Gulf Coast of Florida perhaps the Florida peninsula and especially New Orleans and when they learned instead that France had sold this vast tract west of the Mississippi River there were certainly Americans who worried about this because first of all the purchase did not include the Gulf Coast and that seemed to leave the United States very vulnerable after the purchase confusion over territorial boundaries was common Spain still owned East and West Florida but American settlers insisted this region was now part of the United States after intimidating military attacks from American General Andrew Jackson Spain finally agreed to sell all of the Florida's to the United States in 1819 a few years later u.s. President James Monroe warned European countries to stay away from the American continent the Monroe Doctrine symbolized the United States intention to widen her borders not even France had known the exact boundaries of the vast territory she had sold when Livingstone and Monroe had asked the French for a clarification they got none I can give you no directions you have made a noble bargain for yourselves and I suppose you will make the most of it Sharla movies the tally-hawk the Louisiana Purchase set the foundation ultimately to expansion all the way to the Pacific Ocean on the one hand it's more than double the size of the country and in the long term it's going to provide the basis for our United States world power from this day the United States will take its place among the powers of the first rank robert Livingston in all 15 states would be either fully or partially shaped from the rapidly populating Louisiana territory states like Texas Nebraska and New Mexico America's first detailed information about the most remote regions places like present-day Wyoming and Montana had come by way of Meriwether Lewis William Clark and their Corps of Discovery the Lewis and Clark expedition is a central ingredient to the ultimate incorporation and organization of Louisiana Purchase and making Louisiana part of the United States it's something Jefferson had had in mind for a long time Jefferson did try to get permission from the Spanish to have Lewis and Clark go through their territory and they turned him down but he sent them anyway [Music] and it was really the first time that citizens of the United States could look to the land west of the Mississippi River and believe they understood it believed that they owned it and quite literally see a national future there when you think about the Louisiana Purchase the diplomatic event the huge transfer of land the way in which it completely reshaped North America those big themes are almost too big to wrap your mind around but the story of Lewis and Clark going up the Missouri is a is a manageable human story you know it's been written that America knew more about the moon in 1969 when they sent Apollo 11 dan was known by the Western world about the western United States so no one knew what they would find well Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark odd to find out what he had bought and they went up the Missouri River out to the mountains and then over the mountains to the coast and came back and reported the best bargain that has ever been made amazingly the Lewis and Clark expedition had safely made it to the Pacific Ocean and back over 7,000 miles in two years with crucial assistance from Native Americans like Sacagawea a young Indian girl and from a black slave named York these sturdy explorers had been able to survive brutal elements growling Grizzlies and inhospitable Indians they're brave legacy had opened up a window to and exciting possibilities now the Louisiana territory would serve as a portal to westward expansion it belongs upright to the United States to regulate the future destiny of North America New York Evening Post the US didn't really buy Louisiana France sold Louisiana for reasons of its own and then the US had to play catch-up and what happened in the decades that followed were really endless conflicts there's a lot of tension in the colonies and in the early United States between the residents of the east and western portions of the continent the people who were living in New Orleans and in the Lower Mississippi Valley were not Americans for the most part they're people who had no allegiance to the United States maybe know much about what was going on in parts of the United States or think much about any place that wasn't proximate to them the main thing in their minds was that they'd be able to trade with the United States they were their biggest trading partners these are Americans kaintuck since they were often call you know coming down the Mississippi and settled and you know these are Wow hard fighting you know whiskey drinking people you know who are quite different from cosmopolitan New Orleans how are they going to mix with us the populations of the Northeast and that along the Lower Mississippi River Valley were worlds apart yet suddenly they were members of the same country with this clash of cultures lead these new citizens to revolution they feared being oppressed they feared losing their property and their lives as they knew it - an alien power British ancestors Protestants up in New England were hostile to the idea of bringing in to citizenship people who spoke French or Spanish and who were Catholic the Americans feared especially the French and Spanish residents of Louisiana because they were monarchist they were people who lived in the regime of monarchy and in the American frame of mind tyranny could the offer to extend those liberties to them ultimately on in the future the United States statehood and political liberties did begin to come to some areas of the region the aisle or territory of Orleans along with a portion of West Florida which had belonged to Spain came into the Union as a present state of Louisiana in 1812 because it guarded the mouth of Mississippi River New Orleans would logically be the most important part of the region and a vital necessity to the country the allegiance of these first new Americans the New Orleanians would quickly be tested in the war of 1812 under the leadership of General Andrew Jackson the eyes of country and world now focused upon their response to an imminent British attack upon New Orleans it is no mere coincidence that as the United States is getting ready to go to war with Great Britain that's a good time to bring Louisiana into the Union and make sure that the residents of Louisiana are full participants in the nation and we can see this in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 people were wandering people like Andrew Jackson were wondering how is the local population going to react to this battle are they gonna actually side with the British against the United States or will they actually help defend the colony and the truth is they helped defend the colony in in fact the crucial people at the Battle of New Orleans were the Creole artillery men and so this showed that now the colonists in Louisiana considered themselves Americans the Americans from Louisiana had helped rout Great Britain in the Battle of New Orleans it was a signal to the world of America's growing power farther upriver enterprising Americans were pouring into the fertile regions of the Upper Mississippi Valley like Lewis and Clark these brave pioneers were a symbol of American perseverance but fueled by their own hasty penetration into the frontier settlers found themselves facing hostile Indian attacks people greatly concerned about this becoming a routine thing with the Indians attacking these outposts much the North American West remained a territory that was under the control of Indians as far as they understood things white settlers from the US were the most land hungry most violent most difficult people in North America the Louisiana Purchase gives Jeffersons that this opportunity to to think differently about how to handle the relationships between the Indians of quite secure and unfortunately the idea that he comes up with leads ultimately to remove it and through all the destruction that happens to Indian tribes and Indian culture in the 19th century Jefferson's idea was to push Indians west of the Mississippi River clearing the eastern banks for farming and trapping settlements but as the United States began to expand westward more and more Native Americans were displaced the lands of the present-day state of Iowa were named after the Iowa Indians who were pushed westward to accommodate an American land rush and the Sioux Indians in Minnesota were moved to reservations in Nebraska these stories would play out again and again in this new American land the instruments which we have just signed will cause no tears to be shed they prepare ages of happiness for innumerable generations of human creatures robert Livingston but many tears and blood drops would be shed following the purchase first for Native Americans and now for another group of oppressed people who desired freedom slaves in America slaves and France had been free during the French Revolution and the Sun domain slaves had been successful with their island revolt against France and Napoleon both events gave slaves in America greater hopes for freedom well this revolutionary fervor did not die down until the early American period when they realized that France was not going to keep it was in and that the liberty and fraternity that they hope was going to come so music I was not going to be there given the whites were often outnumbered by the free blacks and the slaves there was never a time in New Orleans history up through reconstruction when the whites were not terrified of a black uprising the largest slave revolt in US history was the revolt of 1811 near New Orleans like other slave uprisings in the territory this one was also unsuccessful armed with only farm equipment many of the slaves were killed or executed by local militia and vigilantes but tension over slavery was not confined only to the lower Mississippi River Valley st. Louis had been a crucial trading outpost for the newly acquired Louisiana frontier a Gateway to the West now this territory called Missouri had applied for statehood as a slave state something northerners opposed one of the ways that a number of people have talked about Missouri is that it was this place where America came together because all these rivers flowed there all these different people came together there but it's also the place where America came apart because it was at the center of the debate over slavery that would eventually lead to the Civil War the Missouri question which is intimately linked to the purchase is also one of the most significant events of Antebellum American history each time the United States acquires new territory there's this huge debate is it going to be free territory or slave territory ultimately it led to congressional gridlock over the issue and the way the gridlock was broken was that in 1820 the Missouri Compromise was carved out where two new states would enter the Union mean as well as Missouri and that would continue a balance of power one would be a free state the other slave state what it didn't resolve were the moral questions about slavery free nation this momentous question like a fire Bell in the night awakened and filled me with terror I considered it at once the knell of the union Thomas Jefferson Missouri's neighbor Kansas would also have to address the burning issue of slavery known as Bleeding Kansas because of fierce territorial fighting over the issue of slavery it officially entered the Union as a free state in 1861 quarrels between Kansas and its neighbor Missouri a slave state heightened tensions nationally and brought America closer to Civil War Louisiana the first part of the territory to receive statehood in the Union was also one of the first states to secede from the union in 1861 Arkansas also an agrarian slave state departed the Union as well the Mississippi River which skirted their borders made these two states crucial for transporting Confederate supplies during the Civil War the West had talked to secession over the Mississippi the New Englanders had talked of secession during the War of 1812 because they didn't believe in that war the last part of the country to talk of secession was the south but they were the only ones who actually did the divisions that Jefferson had ardently feared played out in the bloodiest of all American wars the Civil War had affected almost every region of this troubled body of American land including its geographical heart the Louisiana territory yet after cannons had fallen silent America's Union had remained intact now she could resume her gigantic growth spurt our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond limits and cover the whole northern if not the southern continent with a people speaking the same language governed in similar forms and by similar laws Thomas Jefferson [Music] during the Civil War President Abraham Lincoln had signed two laws that would drastically speed up westward expansion the Homestead Act of 1862 turned over large parcels of public land to private citizens for free people stormed into the Midwest by the thousands tilling toiling and turning soil into some of the most prosperous farmland in the world the other law gave the go-ahead for a technological marvel building the first continental train system the Pacific Railway suddenly railroads would link east to west farmers ranchers and adventurers would inundate Oklahoma Iowa and Nebraska and the uppermost reaches of the territory places like North Dakota South Dakota and Minnesota there was an ancient belief that empires always grew westward many Americans had come to believe their countries push West was unstoppable they call the idea manifest destiny and it seemed to be working the Louisiana Purchase made Americans much more aware as they moved into the farther reaches of the territory of what else was out there the Americans believed that they were destined to expand across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans and to control the continent suddenly more lands that had belonged to European powers fell into American hands the powerful Great Britain again gave way to the feisty young Republic giving her portions of land which would become parts of present-day Minnesota North Dakota Wyoming and Montana as well as states nearer to the Pacific coast America would also defeat Mexico grabbing areas of present-day Texas Colorado New Mexico and Wyoming and States farther westward during the same period tens of thousands of Americans braving deadly hazards would push through westward routes like the Oregon Trail the difficult journey would claim many lives yet wave after wave of pioneers would continue to cross the Louisiana territory in route to their promised lands their motivation dreams of pristine land abundant gold and a new way of life by the early 20th century America had secured for herself all the territory of the present lower 48 states but the United States might look very different today have the Louisiana Purchase never happened Louisiana Purchase is arguably the most significant foreign policy initiative by any American and Minister well I've had it almost half of the territory of the United States to the new nation at a bargain price it set the foundation ultimately to expansion all the way to the Pacific Ocean the purchase helped transform the United States from a seemingly irrelevant country and experiment into a powerful country so how important was it it's impossible to exaggerate its importance the purchase had been a noble bargain but it would also send America on a difficult journey with this unprecedented land transfer came exhilarating expansion for some and difficult displacement for others America had survived threats from powerful empires while she would face major divisions within herself but the golden thread binding Louisiana territory to America had been the Mississippi River and just as this wet Sojourner begins as a trickle it becomes a mighty wash of water America had started small and grown large and strong ultimately the Louisiana Purchase had unfurled an incredible history allowing the nation's expansion while capturing the world's attention [Music] funding for this program provided by the Tangipahoa Parish School Board from a US Department of Education teaching American history grant to learn more about the Louisiana Purchase please visit our website [Music]