*Now THAT’s my kind of Louisiana purchase*On this date 215 years ago, the Louisiana Purchase was com
*Now THAT’s my kind of Louisiana purchase*On this date 215 years ago, the Louisiana Purchase was completed (though the formal transfer happened 10 days later) in a New Orleans ceremony with representatives of Napoleon’s administration. Basically what happened was…Napoleon’s plans to re-establish France in the New World were unraveling.The French army sent to suppress a rebellion by slaves and free blacks in the sugar-rich colony of Saint Domingue (present-day Haiti) had been decimated by yellow fever, and a new war with Britain seemed inevitable. France’s minister of finance, François de Barbé-Marbois, who had always doubted Louisiana’s worth, counseled Napoleon that Louisiana would be less valuable without Saint Domingue and, in the event of war, the territory would likely be taken by the British from Canada.France could not afford to send forces to occupy the entire Mississippi Valley, so why not abandon the idea of empire in America and sell the territory to the United States?Why not, indeed. The land mass encompasses parts of Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Wyoming, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Nebraska. Imagine that—all “red” states who owe their existence to the kindness of…France. Sacre bleu, pard'ner. -- source link