| Our
eastern neighbors will spend much of 2003 celebrating the centennial of the Louisiana
Purchase, a fantastic real estate deal concluded by President Thomas Jefferson
in 1803. Few may remember its impact on East Texas.
First, The Purchase:
The Peace of Paris, 1763, eliminated the French empire from North America. English
(later American) claims then extended to the Mississippi River, and Spain assumed
French lands west of the Father of Waters.
By the time the United States
was organized in 1789, American settlement had extended to the river, and all
those living west of the Appalachians needed access to the Mississippi so they
could ship produce and import goods via New Orleans. And that seemed more complicated
after Napoleon forced Spain to return their portion of the plunder of 1763.
So Jefferson determined to purchase the port of New Orleans from France,
assuming that the nation that owned the port would control ingress and egress
to and from the interior via the Mississippi River.
Jefferson sent Robert
Livingston, and later James Monroe, to France, to make the deal. Jefferson¹s men
caught Napoleon at a "good time" for the United States and a "bad" time for Napoleon.
Dreams of recreating the French empire had crumbled and he needed cash. So he
sold not just New Orleans, but all of Louisiana, to the United States for approximately
$15 million.
There were several consequences of this significant real
estate transaction. The United States greatly increased in size, and now controlled
both sides of the primary artery of navigation and commerce in the continent¹s
interior. Eventually all or portions of a dozen states emerged from the territory.
As far as Texas is concerned, the matter of a definite border between the
United States and Spain was left undecided in negotiations by French and American
diplomats. This created an uncertainty that led to the Magee-Gutierrez Expedition,
an filibustering invasion of Texas, in 1812. Later, when the Adams-Onis Treaty
(1819) established the Sabine River as the boundary and the United States disclaimed
any claims west of that stream, it provoked the James Long Expedition to claim
Texas for the expansion of the Southern way of life.
These filibustering
expeditions, plus unnumbered individuals who slipped across the Sabine unnoticed,
advanced the notion of Manifest Destiny: The faith that one day all of the continent
would be within in the United States. The Purchase then, while important to Louisiana
for different reasons, is also important to East Texas.
All
Things Historical
May
18-24, 2003 column
A syndicated column in over 40 East Texas newspapers
This column is provided as a public service by the East Texas Historical Association.
Archie P. McDonald is director of the Association and author of more than 20 books
on Texas. |
