2003 Programs & Events
The Bicentennial of the Signing of the Louisiana Purchase: 1803-2003
What Was the Louisiana Purchase?
At the turn of the 18th century, both France and the United States found themselves attracted strategically and geographically to the Louisiana territory near the mouth of the Mississippi River, territory which had been ceded to Spain by France just under forty years earlier, in 1762. Through a long series of diplomatic exchanges, negotiations, and treaties, France assumed the territory from Spain. In 1803, France in turn sold 828,000 square miles of land from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains to the United States of America for $15 million. "Let the land rejoice," proclaimed General Horatio Gates to President Jefferson in July of 1803, "for you have bought Louisiana for a song."
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• Events
• Franco-American Event - Bibliothèque Nationale