VOCABULARY Pinckney Treaty– Toussaint L’Ouverture – Louisiana Purchase – Napoleon Bonaparte – Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen –

This is where our story begins . . . . Fast Forward . . . George Washington has been elected the first President of the United States. John Adams has been elected the second President of the United States. The United States has been functioning rather well for about twenty-five years. Thomas Jefferson is now the third President of the United States. This is where our story begins . . . .

By 1800, almost one million Americans lived between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. Most were farmers. There were very few roads west of the Appalachians and western farmers relied on the Mississippi River to ship their wheat and corn. They sent their produce down river to New Orleans, from there, ships sailing to the ocean carried the produce to ports along the Atlantic coast.

Mississippi River By 1802, over one million dollars in American trade was floating down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the port of New Orleans.

The French had established the Port of New Orleans as a trade center for traffic between the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico in 1718. The French secretly transferred the city and land west of the Mississippi to Spain in 1763. Spain sometimes threatened to close the port of New Orleans to Americans. In 1795, President Washington sent Thomas Pinckney to find a way to keep the vital port open!

In the Pinckney Treaty, Spain did NOT give the port to America, but agreed to let Americans ship their goods down the Mississippi River and store them in New Orleans. The treaty also settled a dispute over the northern border of Spanish Florida. For a time, Americans sent their goods to New Orleans without a problem. Then . . .

Spain signed a treaty with Napoleon Bonaparte, the new ruler of France (since King Louis XVI’s head was chopped off)! The treaty gave Louisiana back to France which alarmed President Jefferson. Napoleon wanted to conquer all of Europe – what if he wanted to conquer all of North America too?

Napoleon wants to grow food in the Louisiana territory and ship it to the French islands in the West Indies. To feed the slaves that worked in the fields making the French rich! to the French island of Haiti Grow food in the Louisiana Territory Ship the food

Toussaint was born a slave on the island of Saint Dominique (the island was later re-named Haiti). Haiti was the richest French colony in the Caribbean. There, enslaved Africans worked sugar plantations that made French planters very wealthy. Toussaint was trained as a house servant on the island. But his master had allowed him to learn to read and write. Toussaint read many books, especially from the French Enlightenment philosophers and those who spoke of individual rights and equality.

In 1789, the French National Assembly agreed to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. It is a document that states that all men of France were to be treated equally and fairly. Women and slaves were not included. King Louis XVI refused to give his consent to the document since it no longer gave him supreme power (he will eventually lose his head over this!).

Inspired by the French Revolution, the African slaves in Haiti decided to fight for their liberty. Toussaint became the leader of the slave revolt. He led his untrained and unequipped slave army against Napoleon’s troops where he successfully fought them back as well as the invading Spanish and British. By 1801, Toussaint and his followers had nearly forced the French out of Haiti.

In 1803, Napoleon sent troops to retake Haiti In 1803, Napoleon sent troops to retake Haiti. Although the French captured Toussaint, they did not regain control of the island. Toussaint (on Napoleon's orders), was forcefully put on a ship headed for France where he was placed in a prison-dungeon in the mountains where he died slowly by means of cold, starvation, and neglect. In 1804, Haitians declared their independence. Napoleon’s dreams of an empire in the Americas ended with the loss of Haiti.

A: The United States may have never acquired the port of New Orleans if it hadn’t been for Toussaint L’Ouverture!

President Thomas Jefferson wanted to make sure that American farmers would always be able to ship their goods through the port of New Orleans. Jefferson sent Robert Livingston and James Monroe to France to buy New Orleans and West Florida from Napoleon. President Jefferson said they could spend as much as ten million dollars.

France's minister of finance, Francois de Barbé-Marbois, convinced Napoleon that the Louisiana territory was worthless now that Haiti was independent. The minister of finance believed that Napoleon should abandon the idea of an empire in America and sell the territory to the United States. Napoleon agreed. On April 11, 1803, all of Louisiana was offered for $15 million, (this would be about $236 million today).

The Louisiana territory was hard to defend The Louisiana territory was hard to defend. If Napoleon went to war with Britain the British would more than likely send their troops down from Canada. It was costly to ship French soldiers to America. Napoleon needed money to fund his wars across Europe. One of the terms of the Louisiana Purchase was that the United States had to pay the whole price up front in gold. Selling the Louisiana Territory to the United States would increase the United States power making them a greater rival for Britain - Napoleon's most hated enemy.

Livingston and Monroe carefully debated the matter Livingston and Monroe carefully debated the matter. They had no authority to buy all of Louisiana. However, they knew that Jefferson wanted control of the Mississippi River. They thought that Napoleon might withdraw the offer at any time, along with the port of New Orleans, so they signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty on April 30, 1803.

Jefferson wanted to purchase New Orleans and West Florida for 10 million. Instead, Jefferson purchased 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million dollars.