Thomas Jefferson's Foreign Affairs: The Louisiana Purchase
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The Louisiana Purchase was a treaty signed by Thomas Jefferson in 1803 that added 830,000 sq miles to the U.S. He purchased it from France for about $15,000,000 - about $309,000,000 in today’s money. The Louisiana Purchase consisted of most of the land from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountain Range. While the land was “owned” by France, most of the area was already settled by Native Americans. The people living on that land were supposedly paid for it, but the U.S. government has long dishonored the treaties they signed with the Native American tribes. The buying of the land led to the start of the Westward expansion throughout the United States.
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