USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Acquisition of Louisiana was a long-term goal of President Thomas Jefferson, who was especially eager to gain control of the crucial Mississippi River port of New Orleans. Jefferson tasked James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston with purchasing New Orleans.

Detailed explanation-2: -Jefferson’s men were in Paris because he wanted to buy the port of New Orleans. To him, New Orleans was key: Whoever owned it would be America’s natural enemy because that nation would control the channel through which produce from more than a third of the United States had to pass.

Detailed explanation-3: -New Orleans was a port city with stores of supplies that could be seized. Control of the Mississippi River would have given the British the upper hand in the war. They would have controlled waterways throughout the Louisiana Territory as well as the Port of New Orleans and access to the Gulf of Mexico.

Detailed explanation-4: -Spain cedes Louisiana to France. New Orleans is closed to American shipping. French army sent to re-establish control in Saint Domingue is decimated. Jefferson sends James Monroe to join Livingston (pictured third from left) in France.

Detailed explanation-5: -When France offered to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803, Jefferson wanted to seize the opportunity to double the size of the nation and to provide future generations with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of new farmland.