When you look at the map of the USA you see that this country stretches¹ from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific in the west. However, before April 30, 1803, the USA was much smaller.

In 1800 the map of North America looked much different. The young USA lay in the east. The land west of Mississippi belonged to Spain in the 1700’s and then to France. The American president Thomas Jefferson wanted to use the Mississippi River for commerce². New Orleans was especially important for him. This city is an important port³ where the Mississippi flows⁴ into the Gulf of Mexico. The farmers wanted to send their crops⁵ down the River and then to the east. Jefferson started to negotiate⁶ with France. Napoleon Bonaparte I represented France. He didn’t know much about the Louisiana Territory and thought France didn’t need it. He also needed lots of money to fight with Great Britain. Jefferson wanted to buy just Louisiana and Florida but Napoleon offered the whole territory. Jefferson bought it for 15 million dollars!

What was the Louisiana Territory?
It covered all or parts of present day states of Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, North and South Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana – an area of 2,155,500 square⁷ kilometers west of the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. The purchase almost doubled⁸ the area of the USA. It was one of the biggest land purchases in the US history. 

DID YOU KNOW?
Louisiana was named after the French king Louis XIV. The name also means “red stick” in French, because red cypress⁹ trees grow in some places in Louisiana.

Vocabulary: 1[streči:s] – sa rozprestiera, 2[kom¶:s] – obchod, 3[po:t] – prístav, 4[fl¶us] – vteká, 5[krops] – úroda, 6[nig¶ušieit] – rokovať, 7[skwe¶] – štvorcových, 8[dabld] – zdvojnásobila,  9[saipr¶s] – cyprusy