![]() They offered to buy New Orleans from France. Hoping to put a stop to the crisis, Jefferson told diplomats Robert Livingston and James Monroe to negotiate with France. ![]() Residents of Ohio and Tennessee and even politicians in Washington threatened bloodshed. ![]() When Spain openly finalized the secret deal in 1802, revoking American access to New Orleans’ warehouses, Jefferson’s worries proved prescient. and Spain had signed a treaty allowing American ships to use the Mississippi without restriction, and for merchants to move goods through the prosperous port of New Orleans without paying duty. Louisiana and the Mississippi River had become increasingly important to the United States as it strained against its westernmost borders. Reports of the secret treaty worried Thomas Jefferson, who was then the president of the newly independent United States. In 1800, he convinced Spain’s king, Charles IV, to cede the territory back to France in a secret treaty. But after battling with Great Britain for control of North America during the French and Indian War, France gave up most of its holdings, ceding Louisiana to Spain and most of the rest to Great Britain in 1763.īut as the French regained power, Napoleon Bonaparte, who dreamed of a French empire in the Americas, decided he wanted Louisiana back. France had once owned a massive swath of what is now the U.S.-including Louisiana. Though people had lived there for thousands of years, it became the site of a fierce tussle over colonial power in the 18th century. Louisiana at the time covered most of the Mississippi Valley.
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