How America Bought Louisiana 🇺🇸🤯 Napoleon’s $15M Deal 🇫🇷 — Transcript

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1. 0:00The United States sent two diplomats to
2. 0:02France to meet with Napoleon and offered
3. 0:04to buy just one city, but somehow ended
4. 0:07up buying the entire Louisiana territory
5. 0:09for almost the same price. But let's
6. 0:11start from the beginning. 1802, France
7. 0:14and Britain make peace after years of
8. 0:16war, but both know it's just a short
9. 0:17break before the next war begins.
10. 0:19Napoleon controls a huge territory in
11. 0:21North America, Louisiana, and has grand
12. 0:24plans to bring back the French Empire in
13. 0:25the Americas. And the key to his success
14. 0:27lies in France's richest colony in the
15. 0:30Caribbean, Saint-Domingue, today's
16. 0:31Haiti. It was literally a money-making
17. 0:33machine. They grew sugar and coffee on
18. 0:35massive plantations, all thanks to
19. 0:37hundreds of thousands of people working
20. 0:39there for free. Yeah, slavery. But at
21. 0:42some point they had enough [music] and
22. 0:44started a revolution, after which France
23. 0:46basically lost control of the island.
24. 0:48Napoleon used to the truce to retake
25. 0:50control of Saint-Domingue and sent a
26. 0:51huge army there. At first, the French
27. 0:54were successful, but then yellow fever
28. 0:56wiped out much of the army and France
29. 0:58lost the island for good. And without
30. 1:00Saint-Domingue, Louisiana suddenly made
31. 1:03no sense. At the same time, the US
32. 1:05western border ran along the Mississippi
33. 1:07River, an important route for western
34. 1:09trade, carrying goods to the ocean
35. 1:10through New Orleans, which at the time
36. 1:12belonged to France. So, President Thomas
37. 1:14Jefferson sent two diplomats [music]
38. 1:16with an offer to buy New Orleans for $10
39. 1:18million.
40. 1:19With war against Britain coming,
41. 1:20Napoleon needed money and Louisiana was
42. 1:23too far away to defend. So, to
43. 1:24everyone's surprise, he offered to sell
44. 1:26the entire territory for $15 million.
45. 1:29Funny enough, the diplomats weren't
46. 1:31authorized to make a deal that big, but
47. 1:33this was a once-in-a-lifetime offer, so
48. 1:35they agreed, almost doubling the size of
49. 1:37the United States in a single day for
50. 1:38just 4 cents an acre.