Pierre Clement de Laussat was the last representative of a foreign power to exercise authority in Louisiana. Appointed colonial prefect by Napoleon Bonaparte, Laussat departed for Louisiana in January 1803 to preside over the formal retrocession of the colony from Spain to France, only to have his mission altered entirely by the Louisiana Purchase on April 30, 1803. These memoirs, covering the period from January 1803 to July 1804, provide a unique firsthand perspective on the momentous transaction that doubled the size of the United States.
Laussat pens very personal observations on...
Pierre Clement de Laussat was the last representative of a foreign power to exercise authority in Louisiana. Appointed colonial prefect by Napoleon Bo...
In 1803, the U.S. purchased 828,000 square miles of land from France at approximately three cents per acre. The final decision came after President Thomas Jefferson struggled for three years with the choice that many believed to be unconstitutional, during which the land changed hands between the French and the Spanish. In what was perhaps the nation's most formative development since the Revoluationary War, the the eventual deal secured the U.S. fifteen new states, although it started more polemic and public arguments about the American Frontier, and ensured Jefferson a complicated legacy...
In 1803, the U.S. purchased 828,000 square miles of land from France at approximately three cents per acre. The final decision came after President...
In "Surveying the Early Republic," Robert D. Bush contextualizes the firsthand account of Andrew Ellicott, the United States Boundary Commissioner appointed by President George Washington in 1796. Ellicott and his Spanish counterparts established the boundary line between the United States and Spanish territory in North America after the United States and Spain signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo, opening the door to navigation of the Mississippi River and the export of American goods from the Spanish-held port of New Orleans. Over the course of this multiyear surveying project (1796 1800),...
In "Surveying the Early Republic," Robert D. Bush contextualizes the firsthand account of Andrew Ellicott, the United States Boundary Commissioner ...
