Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2005 - (Page 60)

For the sum of $15 million, the United States bought approximately 827,000 square miles of land, doubling the country’s size and opening the western frontier. Or so it seemed. Spain wasn't pleased with the purchase, but lacked the military force to block it. On December 30, 1803, the U.S. took formal possession of a land that lacked formal boundaries. In their book, Tales of Old Natchitoches, authors Elizabeth Shown Mills and Gary B. Mills write that the Spanish king immediately posted his claim to all territory west of the Calcasieu River. The U.S. argued that the Sabine was the “most convenient, most natural, and least exceptional boundary.” (In early negotiations, Jefferson was said to have tried to set the boundary as far west as the Rio Grande.) “For more than a century, the boundary between Louisiana and Texas had been an elastic barrier that was stretched and pulled by diplomats, soldiers and citizens,” the Millses wrote. “Throughout the colonial era, as Louisiana bounced between French and Spanish control, the border was THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE Also in that year, Spain found a way to divest itself of its liability in Louisiana. In the secret treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain returned Louisiana to France. It was a fire sale on Spain's part, a wish fulfilled for Napoleon and a potential disaster for the U.S. government. The exact wording of the treaty, officially ratified the following year, stated only that the land ceded to the French Republic consisted of “the colony or province of Louisiana that it had when France possessed it.” How far west that property extended was never spelled out. The U.S. government had other worries besides the boundaries of the French territory. Congress had not been informed of the transfer until 1802, and by then the port of New Orleans had been closed to U.S. shipping. Jefferson penned a letter to the American minister to France: The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France worked most sorely on the United States. It completely reversed all the political relations of the United States and France. Of all nations, France is the one which, hitherto, had offered the fewest points on which we could have any conflict. There was, however, on the globe one single spot, the possession of which was the United States’ natural and habitual enemy. It was New Orleans, through which the produce of threeeighths of America’s land holdings must pass to markets. France, placing herself in that door, assumed an attitude of defiance. Jefferson lobbied Congress for $2 million to purchase New Orleans, and negotiations were opened with Napoleon. In the interim, Napoleon’s impulsive plans to re-establish France in North America had hit a snag. His army, sent to subdue a rebellion in Haiti (then Saint Domingue), had been ravaged by yellow fever. In addition, war with Britain seemed likely and the French government could not afford to occupy the Mississippi Valley. The hot potato of Louisiana was once again tossed into the wind. above right: The Caddo Indians have a long history in the Red River Valley region of what is now Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma. The Caddos were a powerful group, and dealt with the Europeans as equals. In the early 1700s, they invited both the Spanish and French into their land, and traded with them. courtesy of the Pictorial History of Texas, by Homer S. Thrall. N.D. Thompson & Company, St. Louis, Missouri. 1879. t went by many name s: T Free Stat he e of Sabine; T Neut St he ral rip; No Man's Land; T Bastard he Stat Stinking e; H and much, ell; much wor se. I 60 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Fall 2005

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2005

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2005 Contents Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Louisiana State Museum After Katrina and Rita Tabasco: Edmund McIlhenny and the Birth of a Louisiana Pepper Sauce Historic New Orleans Collection Louisiana Association of Museums New Orleans’ Coffee Connection No Man’s Land Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism Bookstand (Book Review by Thomas Uskali) Sound Advice (Music Review by Ben Sandmel) Forum (Commentary by Roy Blount, Jr. )

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2005

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