#1576 Ten Things About the Louisiana Purchase

She knows a lot about it, too, and we wanted to talk about this extraordinary moment. In 1803, when the Jefferson administration doubled the size of our republic for three cents per acre, adding 828,000 square miles and 575 million acres, it was the greatest land sale in human history. It was, in a sense, the making moment of America's continental destiny, if you want to use that loaded term.

I know this sounds horrible, but in buying the Louisiana territory, we were effectively buying the lives of the native people who lived in it. You know, the hundreds of thousands of people living in those states that were eventually carved out of the Louisiana purchase, you know, Apache and Comanche and Cheyenne, and Osage and Pawnee and Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikra, Lakota Dakota, Blackfeet, Crow, Shoshone, et cetera. And when Lewis and Clark went on their historic journey, you know, and that's one of my absolutely central interests in life. They gave these speeches to the natives, and Lewis wrote the speech out, so there were probably variations on it, but we know what it was, and it was delivered very slowly. Because it would be a sentence in English that had to be translated over a series of language barriers until it reached the language of the native peoples, where it probably was garbled, et cetera. But what Lewis essentially said was We're here, we're the future. Your relations with a European derived. People must now be with us, and not the Spanish, the French, the Russians or the English. that we don't come to purchase any land we've purchased first right to negotiate with you for land sessions. And you must not treat with any other entity except the United States government. The Great Father.

And but the moment we don't want any land, we've got plenty of land. We're here to establish a trade relationship and to encourage you to live in peace. Peace with us, peace with other European derived peoples, and, above all, peace with each other. That war is a bad thing. If you will just all agree to live under the security umbrella of the United States, all will be well. Don't mess with us.

If you, if you, if you resist or continue your internecine wars, we will have to sort things out. We could crush you if we really needed to. We don't intend to. We're here on a peace mission. That was part of what they said.

And then they also said, You know the those big boats, three giant boats, the 55 foot Gill boat and the two large wooden pirogues. They don't have any trade goods, I know you think boats bring trade goods as they have, but we don't have trade goods. Now. We do have some things we'd like to give you as a token of our friendship and as kind of a menu. You know? Like, almost like the Avon lady appearing at your house of things you can get if you cooperate with, you know. This will include kettles and needles and awls and hatchets and saws and things that you you can't produce from metal because you don't have any metallurgy. And we'll bring you cloth, and we'll bring you beads, and we'll bring you of ribbon. And and and um, mirrors and fish hooks, and um, curtain rings, and you know, pieces of metal that we think you're you're going to like. And this is going to. All these things together are going to make your life both more pleasurable and easier. And we have them and you don't, and now you can get them from other European providers, but we don't want you to. You must trade with us and us alone, because we will get you better prices and we're going to establish a viable trade network. It'll be coming any day.

Now just be patient, and if you work with us, we will revolutionize your lives in an important way. That was the message. What the Natives heard is another question, and we have some evidence about that from their time. Lewis and Clark's time in North Dakota, where other white people from the Northwest Company and the Hudson's Bay Company were actually embedded in the Mandan and Hidatsa villages. And saw Lewis and Clark come and go and observe them and wrote about them.

And so we have some record, indirectly, of native reaction to Lewis and Clark through the eyes of these other traders. They weren't always objective, and they had sort of an anti-American attitude to a certain degree. But nevertheless, we have that evidence, and Lewis and Clark recorded some evidence in the journals from the Native peoples themselves. For example, Out amongst the Shoshone in August of 1805, a young man said to Lewis After hearing all this, how's this supposed to work? You know, we choose our leaders by their prowess in warfare, you know, horse stealing and skirmishing and raids.

If we lived in peace, as you're insisting that we do, that will undercut the very fabric of our leadership system. That's how we choose the chiefs and leaders of our society, and they said, And by the way, that's how we mate. You know that women are attracted to those who are great hunters, great horse dealers, great warriors, and so this would essentially upend the social structure of the shoshone. I don't think we can agree to that.

And even when they did agree, as they sometimes did or seem to. The fact is, the minute Lewis and Clark went around the corner, the Native people sort of returned to their ancient life ways. As you would expect they would. I mean, you know, why would we think that Lewis and Clark appear out of nowhere, unannounced and say they're the wave of the future? Not at all certain at that point. And kind of bully their way through and trying to reset the social dynamics and then say we'll be back, but did not come back. Why would we think that Native peoples would say, Oh, I guess they're a superior civilization, I guess we'll hearken to their suggestions? It's absurd.

And I think this is where we are in the Lewis and Clark world, you know, I began as a Lewis and Clark scholar and a Jefferson scholar. I still love Lewis and Clark. I'm the editor of. We proceeded on which you should subscribe to just go to the website.

It's headquartered the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation is headquartered in Great Falls. And Join you get the four issues of We Proceeded on the quarterly Scholarly Journal, which I have the joy of editing. You get those per year and other perks, so you should do that. It's really fun.

I just wrapped up the November issue of We Proceeded on. it'll be out in about 10 days and I'm now already working on the February issue. So that's something that you should do. But this was one of my first loves, of course. I grew up in North Dakota, which is on the Lewis and Clark Trail.

And I've spent a lot of time traveling the trail, I've flown over it in a F-16 in South Dakota. I've been on cruise ships in the Lower Columbia, I've canoed in Montana and elsewhere, I've been on power boats on Lake Sakakawea and Lake Oahe.

I have driven along it in my automobile, I've driven along it in an RV for a documentary film. I've spent an enormous amount of time on the trail and will be doing it all over again and systematically. From Monticello all the way to Astoria, and back again for listening to America. But not in the first round. The first round will be the Travels with Charlie Trip, beginning in 2024. But I certainly intend to do absolutely every piece of the Lewis and Clark trail and take thousands and thousands of photographs. And meet with all the scholars and lovers of the story and buffs along the way, and interview people too.

But this is the story that really matters to me, and I think that where we are with it is that. The old paradigm of Lewis and Clark explaining the benevolence of the American system to Native peoples, and then wondering why the Native peoples were resisting, that has to be over now. We now know that Native people had their own systems and their own sovereignty. That they didn't just cheerfully accept the superiority of the Anglo-Americans, and that to expect that somehow they were being ungenerous or mulish, or recalcitrant is an insane thing to say. Just as we would resist if people from Jupiter suddenly came in and took over the United States and said, Yeah, we have a superior system. You'll want to get on board right away. It's completely different from your own and upends everything you understand, but I promise you you'll like it.

There's no chance in the world that we would say, great, can't wait. So I think what we're seeing now is that the cultural revolution is finally catching up with Lewis and Clark. And the beginning came long ago, in 1984, with James Ronda's pioneering book, Lewis and Clark among the Indians. It needs to be updated because an enormous amount has been learned since he wrote that revolutionary book, but it paves the way for everything that follows.

David DeCandre, who's a frequent guest on this program, has written the most important subsequent book on Lewis and Clark amongst natives. It's his book River of Doubt Lewis and Clark on the Columbia, which I had the glory of editing for the Dakota Institute Press. I bring up most of these topics in my own work, both in the essays that I write for. We proceeded on every quarter. I write what I call an essayette, a couple of thousand words for every one of the four annual issues. And I write sidebars and other things to explain the doctrine of discovery and the spelling of the name of Sacagawea, and so on.

But I also have my book, The Character of Meriwether Lewis, Explorer in the Wilderness, which takes on many of these subjects also. So I invite you to take a look at that. We only gave a couple of minutes to that today because we had 10 things to talk about, including this extraordinary exchange between Jefferson and James Monroe. When Jefferson was persuading, Lindsay says, manipulating Monroe into going to France to help consummate the purchase of New Orleans. Or even more, if possible. So I'm recording this podcast introduction a few days a week before Thanksgiving, which is my favorite holiday. By the time you hear this, that holiday will be over.

But I want to say how much. I feel gratitude for you for being faithful listeners to this program, and for your contributions to Listening to America. Your questions, your suggestions, your challenges. At times, all that is really central to my own happiness. And when I give thanks, especially this year, I give thanks to you for making possible what I get to do as a labor of love. You know, as we have always said, I take no emolument from this except joy, except psychic joy, psychic pay. Which is every bit as important as Lucre, in fact, for me, much more important in the long run.

So thank you and everyone that I meet, says. The coming of Lindsay Czerwinski was a great thing for First the Jefferson Hour, and now for Listening to America. She seems to love it, she's got her own fan base, you probably see her on major media.

She's a rising star, she's going to rise much more. We'll keep her close to us as long as we can. But I don't predict, pretend that she will always be available because her career is going to be a very big one, I think. But for the moment, we are fortunate to have her. And David DeCandre, of course. And Joe Ellis, who hasn't been on for a while because he's been moving, but we'll get him back in the new year and much more.

And so next year is going to be a fascinating year. And at some point in June or May, you're going to hear me say hello everyone and welcome to listening to America. This is Clay Jenkinson. I am at Big Bone Lick Kentucky today, I'm in my airstream and I'm talking with, or I'll say hello everyone and welcome to listening to America.

I'm Clay Jenkinson. I am at Sag Harbor, at the edge of the Long Island, where Steinbeck and his wife, his third wife, Elaine, had a home. Or Hello everyone and welcome to Listening to America. I'm at Devil's Tower, which was the first of the national monuments, first ever, and designated by one of my historical interests, Theodore Roosevelt. So you're going to hear from the airstream as if live.

I mean, there'll be taped, of course, but as if live listening to America podcasts in the field. And I'll describe what I'm seeing and the people I'm talking to, and what I'm learning and what I'm reading. I think it's going to be absolutely fascinating, but we'll still have Lindsay once, and often twice a month. The candry will be more important under this structure because we'll be in places where he has a strong interest too, particularly in the American West. There'll be lots of talk of Steinbeck and my dear friend Russ Eagle will be a part of that, so great things are coming.

I'm very excited. I know there have been some growing pains on audio technical quality in a couple of instances. And, you know, we don't yet have a permanent guest host. I need that. I want it to be a woman who has Lindsay's spunk, but who wants to host, you know, Lindsay's a star.

We don't want her to have to host the program, but I want somebody who can be playful and irreverent and really enjoy engaging in these conversations. And that person can live anywhere, of course, and it has to have a radio voice of some sort. You know, it doesn't have to be hello. Welcome to the Thomas Jefferson hour, it doesn't have to be like that.

So anyway, I can't wait for Thanksgiving, by far my favorite holiday. I'm going to try a couple of new things this year, including a new recipe for cream of mushroom soup that I learned from friends in Thompson, North Dakota, a week or two ago. Let's go to the program. 10 Things about the Louisiana Purchase.

One of my favorite subjects in the world and a really spirited conversation with Dr. Lindsay Trevinsky. Thank you everyone.

Hello everyone and welcome to listening to America today. 10 things about the Louisiana Purchase. My friend Dr. Lindsay Trevinsky is at the other end of the country.

We're speaking by way of Zoom technology. And today, 10 things about the Louisiana. Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States in 18 three, consummated in Paris on April 30th, 18 three and ratified not unanimously by the United States Senate. On October 20th, 1803, Mr. Jefferson purchased 575 million acres and 828,000 square miles from Napoleon Bonaparte, thus effectively doubling the size of the United States. Welcome Lindsay.

A really interesting letter that Jefferson wrote to his protege Monroe, not only persuading him to go to France, but sort of forcing him to take on that role. Then, extremely interesting and important. Saddening the implications for slavery. Because this was a moment when the United States could have gone in one of two directions on the expansion of slavery into the West. And, finally, exploration of the Louisiana purchase. So, Lindsay, let's pick it up at previous attempts. So, at the end of the Revolutionary War, the settlement in Paris in 1783 gave the United States everything up into the east bank of the Mississippi River. A gigantic territory that wouldn't be filled for 60 or 70 years at least. And suddenly, in 183, we doubled it.

Why?

And so, as long as the United States did not have control over the Mississippi River and, critically, the Port of New Orleans. Our ability to expand economically, geographically, uh, financially, was going to be limited by.

So that was a significant part of it. So Jefferson, a visionary with a very strong interest in the West, was not going to let us be hemmed in by these foreign powers.

They felt that the federalists had not done a good enough job in doing that. And that John Jay had actually sold the West out in one of his negotiations in Spain. And they felt strongly that if Jefferson or the Jefferson administration couldn't do something to get this problem solved, they might attach themselves elsewhere. Because commerce mattered to them at least as much as their American patriotism, right?

So the right to trade on the Mississippi and the right to deposit their goods in New Orleans. However, Spain kind of was ambivalent about enforcing that treaty and would sometimes close things here and there. But as Spain decided to retrocede New Orleans and the Mississippi to France, that agreement would no longer be in place. So what was seen as a solution to this problem was no longer acceptable, even though France and the United States were on decent-ish terms. At this point, there was a sense that they would be a much more powerful threat to the right of access to those things.

But what was going on in New Orleans caused a crisis in the West and he had to act. Or who knows what would have happened, there might've been border wars. And so at that point, he decided to stir himself into action, which he, you know, Jefferson was more more wanting to wait things out than to act in most situations. So then he contacted James Monroe, his his second protege after Madison, and said, I want you to go on a special mission that you and you alone can can be responsible for to Paris to help solve this problem.

But when he sent Monroe to Paris Lindsay, he wasn't saying, Go buy the Louisiana territory.

What is now? One state was two states at the time, sort of Western Florida and Eastern Florida. And it made sense that the United States would want these. A because it would can help connect up to New Orleans. But also, they were beneath all of the southern states, and they were a place where a lot of self-emancipated, enslaved individuals ran away to. So it was, it was for lots of reasons. This territory was wanted and they offered to buy those two states and the Port of New Orleans for $10 million. And that was the offer that Robert Livingston was authorized to make to Napoleon. Now the story gets a little bit complicated from there, because, as you said, Jefferson also sent Monroe.

Uh, and by the time Monroe arrived, Livingston had received a counter offer from Napoleon, and would you like to say what the counter offer was?

Jefferson was more interested himself in the Florida, he knew that he had to do something about New Orleans and the River, but he himself lusted for. The Florida's never got over it, and the Florida's, as you say, wasn't. The Florida's, as you say, weren't just the current state of Florida, but Florida, plus the Gulf Coast, all the way to Texas. And that mattered to him because that would give us a sole control of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. And so Jefferson really wanted that, and he was willing to take New Orleans to solve the crisis, but he really wanted both.

We didn't get the Florida's in the treaty.

And there are other factors that are shaping our actions and we're shaping theirs. So, in 1793, in the middle of the French Revolution, the French Assembly had declared an end to slavery. And one of the French colonies was Saint-Domingue, which is now known as Haiti. And it was a very wealthy sugar colony, and it was predominantly worked by enslaved individuals, but it was a very complex, multiracial hierarchy that's very different than what we think of in the South.

So just important for that context, slavery had been abolished in 1801, the Haitian Revolution broke out, so this is right at the beginning of Jefferson's administration, the Haitian revolution breaks out. And Napoleon, by this point, has signed a temporary peace treaty with Britain. And decides that he is going to send an enormous French fleet to reassert French authority. Within two months of the fleet's arrival, 15,000 French soldiers had died from yellow fever alone.

And that was right when Robert Livingston came and said, How would you like to sell us New Orleans and the Floridas? Napoleon says. I will do you one better. And how about half of the country?

10 things about the Louisiana Purchase. When we come back, I want to ask you about the American response to the Haitian revolution. This is a special edition of Listening to America. We'll be back in just a moment.

Welcome back to this special edition of Listening to America. Lindsay Chervinsky. We are talking about 10 things per the Louisiana purchase. And when we went to break, we were talking about the Haitian revolution, Toussaint louverture, the Black Napoleon, as he was sometimes called, and the results of that. And I think it's fair to say that the slave holding class in the United States, including one, Thomas Jefferson, freaked out when this revolution began.

Because it was the first time in the history of the United States that it meant that if there's a Black insurgency, a Black revolution in Haiti. This could bleed over into Georgia, the Carolinas, Kentucky. These slaveholders lived in constant, paranoid fear that there would be a race war in the United States. And whenever there was a rebellion, like Gabriel's rebellion or any others, they went into a kind of a militaristic siege mentality. And one of the more disappointing moments in anyone's characterization of Jefferson is his response to this revolution.

So they saw the financial opportunity, but they feared the radicalism that might come in from the Haitian revolution. So when the revolution initially broke out, a lot of French emigres came from France and from Saint-Domingue to the United States. And an interesting element of that was they often brought their enslaved people with them. So when we talk about this complex racial dynamic, it's really quite messy. And so the federalists were fearing that they were going to bring this anarchy, and they were going to destroy the government and the Republicans. People like Thomas Jefferson feared that they were going to start a racial uprising, so everyone feared them. But just for lots of different reasons.

And you're right that the racial concerns were were real. Because there was an understanding that no matter how much the what they called the slavocracy at the time cracked down on information, enslaved people had conversations, they had networks, this information spread, and there was really nothing that they could do about it.

And when Jefferson came into office, he cut off that connection.

He was deaf, he didn't want to go outside of his portfolio, but really, the offer had been made and he knew that it was a great thing. And suddenly in comes Monroe, the president's pal, full of his own majesty and his authority. And he kind of shoves Livingston out of the way and for the rest of his life, takes enormous credit for this thing.

When, really, it was Napoleon first, Livingston second, Monroe third.

And so to agree to $5 million more dollars, which was at the time an astronomical sum, half the budget of the U.S. per annum. Yes, so a huge, huge endeavor without any sort of approval from the President. And, of course, keep in mind, he can't pick up a phone, so he's having to wait.

He would have had to wait probably eight weeks at the very, very best for a reply. But he also knows that he can't wait eight weeks to accept this deal, because it kind of comes with an expiration date, so he agrees to the deal. Monroe comes, he swoops in. Monroe is very beloved by the French, and he loves the French. Because he had previously been a minister to the United States and had left, well, sort of in disgrace. He had been recalled by Washington for being too pro-French as the American minister presiding with France over the United States.

Yes, exactly. And so he comes and he's all excited to be there, and they're excited to have him. And he writes back to Jefferson Amazing news. Look, what I have accomplished. Kind of forgetting to mention, Oh, right.

Livingston was there first and comes back and says, Look, what I have accomplished and aren't I amazing, and the United States can thank me. And poor Robert Livingston never really gets his due.

And I want to read a little piece of it too, he said, telling him he had to do this because Monroe had retired from government. He'd been kind of burned out in several ways and a little bit bitter. He now needed to make some money as a private attorney, and he did not want to undertake a mission like this.

And Jefferson writes to him a couple of letters, and on the 13th of January, he says All eyes, all hopes are now fixed on you. And were you to decline, the chagrin would be universal and would shake under your feet the high ground on which you stand with the public. Indeed, I know nothing which would produce such a shock, for on the event of this mission depends the future destinies of this republic.

If we cannot buy, purchase of the country, and sure to ourselves, of course. The perpetual peace and friendship with all nations, and as war, cannot be distant. It behooves us immediately to be preparing for that course. Et cetera, et cetera. Monroe didn't want to do this. But how do you say no to Thomas Jefferson on this one? But here's the funny thing about it. Well, first comment, Do you have a comment?

He did it to Washington, sometimes he did it to his daughters, He did it to Monroe, I know he did it to Madison. I mean, it's just he was so good at maneuvering people into doing what he wanted them to do.

So Monroe gets it, he goes. But here's what's so interesting. Lindsay Uh, when Jefferson was moping after the Tarleton attack at Monticello in 1781 and retiring and saying he was done forever. And only the all healing grave would ever overcome the pain that he had received from the American public. And so I'm pouting, pouting in a big, big way. Monroe wrote him a letter and said, Oh, come on, you're Jefferson.

You're important, this is just an event that they'll forgive you. They've already apologized to you, you know, get over it, we need you.

Jefferson wrote back to him and said, No. The law does not warrant the assumption of such power by the state over its members, or if it does, where is that law? Nor yet does reason for? Though? I admit that this does subject every individual, if called on, to an equal tour of political looting. Yet it can never go so far as to submit it to its whole existence. If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater, we are made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling, and indeed ridiculous to suppose a man had less right in himself than one of his neighbors. Or all of them. Put together, this would be slavery and not liberty.

Whoa. So if he had received the letter from Monroe, he would have written this and said, I've done my service. Nobody can make me do it. I am not going to be enslaved to our republic. A very ill choice of word.

I would say, amazing, isn't it? I mean, that Jefferson had this strong sense, and I believe he meant it of a personal privacy and the sovereignty of the individual. But when it was in his interest as president, flip that switch in a second.

In that same letter to Monroe from 1781, Jefferson The famous sentence from Jefferson. I had been suspected and suspended in the eyes of the world without the least hint. Then or afterwards, made public, which might restrain them from supposing. I stood a rain for reasons of the heart and not mere weaknesses of the head. And I felt that those injuries, for such they have been since acknowledged, had inflicted a wound on my spirit, which will only be cured by the all healing grave. Whoa, that's, uh, you know, not even John Adams would whine in that way. That's a pretty strong, um, self pity.

He's a strict constructionist, at times, at least. He believed that we should never take a step beyond the boundaries of the Constitution. He had famously attacked Hamilton for being a broad constructionist on the National Bank Bill. Suddenly, he has a chance to double the size of the country for 3 cents per acre. But he does actually think it's probably unconstitutional, since the Constitution does not have an explicit right for the executive or the government to acquire territory.

So what does Jefferson do, my friend?

And he shared it with his Cabinet secretaries, and most of them said, That's a really bad idea. Some, you know, gave more nuanced, Madison gave more nuanced feedback, kind of trying to, you know, fudge it. Robert Smith was the secretary of the Navy, and he was among the most opposed. Because he felt like he was going to be stirring up a wasness for no reason. Until Congress asked for it, until anyone made an objection.

Why would he introduce this problem until someone had actually seen it? And Jefferson tweaked the language and he fiddled with it, and he shared it with them again, and they all continued to express reservations. And so when he did finally convene a Cabinet meeting to talk about the Louisiana purchase, he then did not discuss the amendment. He discussed how to convene Congress early because they had to bring together Congress in order to ratify it. The treaty offer was going to expire on October 30th, and usually Congress didn't convene until November-ish.

So they had to bring Congress back together early, and then once they brought Congress back. Rumors were starting to circulate that Napoleon was having second thoughts. Madison was convinced that Napoleon wasn't actually having second thoughts. He was just saying he was having second thoughts to speed the process along, and maybe that was so.

And if that's the case, then Napoleon was playing that situation quite brilliantly. But Jefferson was not willing to take the risk that those rumors were correct. And so he did not introduce the Constitutional Amendment to Congress. And even though he continued to fiddle with it and tweak it, he put it in a drawer. Until and if Congress raised an objection, which they did not.

But I also admire Jefferson for this. He's a strict constructionist, you know. He made some flexibility with it at times, but on the whole, he meant it. Like the people are sovereign, they've come together.

In Philadelphia, they granted powers to a government, They enumerated what those powers were, they didn't really enumerate this one. Therefore, we need an amendment authorizing the purchase.

And he wrote a second one, or at least toyed with one. That would figure out how to incorporate the new territory by way of new states. So he's consistent in this, I like this. He's a principled constitutionalist and he worried, and he should have worried. And we should worry that once you spring, the doors open on the Constitution, so that almost anything goes. You're not going to be a republic very long. But I think the Cabinet was right and Jefferson was wrong, so he wins both ways, right?

In the end, he winds up being flexible, he listens to his most senior. Uh, aid, particularly. Madison. Gets the thing done, gets all the credit in history for it. Uh, more than Napoleon, who actually did it. And at the same time, uh, as a Jefferson scholar, I can point to, well, look, he had these qualms because he really meant strict construction. So, you know, Hamilton's view would have been a You'll be a pitiful nation if you don't have broad construction. Come on, don't hamstring yourself this way.

And he actually did suggest, as I believe, that we should have just sent troops and taken it. Forget Napoleon, just go get it.

And so there does need to be a certain amount of flexibility there that will allow the government to respond to those threats. Um, but governing also requires a certain pragmatism, it requires a certain realism about the state of the world. And when push came to shove in the presidency, at least in this moment, Jefferson's pragmatism wins out. And I think that that is generally the sign of an astute leader. Hamilton is hilarious.

And this actually gets at one of my other ones on my list about the previous attempts to sort of take care of this problem. And there were many other discussed options, so there were previous sales that were discussed, there were many previous treaties which we touched on some of them.

My particular favorite occurs in 1799. When it's becoming clear that the new or the provisional army that was created to to grapple with the French threat is probably not going to be used. And Hamilton floats these ideas of marching the army south into Florida to, kind of through Virginia, which may or may not have been useful in the election. You know, going into Florida and then going into South America and helping South American revolutionaries, this idea is nuts. This is a totally insane plan.

It would have violated all sorts of civil liberties, but he thought it'd be a very good use for his new army. By this point, everyone pretty much understood that the United States was expanding and at some point was going to be a global power. This was a shared concept by both Americans and other imperial powers. And so it was only a matter of time before. There were going to be tensions between those lingering in the Floridas if they were not part of the United States and Americans. Americans wanted Cuba because it was one of the closest land masses to North America.

They wanted control of the Caribbean and the Gulf, as you mentioned, they wanted these trades, these trade routes, they were already growing into a pretty sizable economic power. And so there were a lot of good defensive reasons in terms of being able to control your own borders. Trade reasons in terms of having access to ports and to rivers, and to gulfs and national expansion regions. That were interesting to people who had visions of national expansion, like Hamilton, that you would want this territory, right?

At the bottom most tip of Cuba, we'll plant a cairn on which we'll print NE Plus Ultra thus far, and no farther, so Atlantic to Pacific North Pole, to the bottom of Cuba. That's not an imperialistic vision at all.

He liked the idea of natural exploration, he understood the very real, tangible benefits that would accrue to the United States for, through and for expansion. And so he wasn't dumb about those things he knew.

Lindsay, When we come back, I want to ask you about the Frederick Jackson Turner thesis. I'll set it up. This is a special edition of Listening to America. We will be back in just a moment.

Welcome back to Listening to America. 10 Things About the Louisiana Purchase Lindsay Before I start Elbridge Gary Gerrymander Why?

And so the term frontier would no longer be used. And that led a young, up and coming scholar in Wisconsin named Frederick Jackson Turner, to write a famous essay. Which turned out to be one of the most famous essays in American history called The Significance of the Frontier in American History, which was delivered in 1893. In it, he said that the Louisiana purchase was the making moment of American history. But it also meant we could not be a republic, that now we had to be an empire. Jefferson doesn't really write about this, but early in his career, he, as you know, he and Madison were obsessed with the problem of the large republic.

And another side is is civilized society. So you have the forest and then you have the people, and of course, that's. We know that that's not what it was, because there were different civilizations, there were different types of cultures. Now, the term that is more I think is more accurate is borderlands. Because it implies that there are multiple different communities and societies and cultures and forms of law intersecting in this space.

And his terminology of frontier, I think, is a valuable one. Because it demonstrates that. By taking on this land, we were engaging in conflict and eventually in subordination of native nations. But also, and one of the items I know on your list is to talk about how, what it meant for the expansion of slavery and both things, slavery and our interactions with Native Americans were inherently imperial activities.

Um, interestingly enough, Theodore Roosevelt read it and wrote to Turner and said, You know, I couldn't agree more with you about this. But you didn't emphasize violence enough that these, these frontiersmen, these white frontiersmen, were violent, they were. They were not members of the rotary, you know? They were using their guns and chopping things down and and and killing natives and killing off the wolves, and and and clearing the forest. And that this was. America is the nation it is. And this is all good for Roosevelt. Because there was this errand in the wilderness, and that errand required a certain kind of strength of character. It wasn't for the faint of heart.

You know, Edgar Allen Poe is not a frontiersman, he's a poet. Daniel Boone is a frontiersman, Davy Crockett is a frontiersman, Theodore Roosevelt is a late frontiersman.

And and Roosevelt felt that this, this American complacency about violence, or commitment to violence, was actually what made us the great people that we are. So that's that's on Roosevelt.

You know, that's practicable, saying nobody feels more fervently than I do. When the moment comes, I'll be ready. So he buys the Louisiana territory. And as you said, and I want you to explain this, the race taxonomies, if I can use that term in New Orleans and in the Floridas, were not as rigid. White v black, slave v free, et cetera. Uh, as they were in Virginia or South Carolina, that there was more fluidity, there were, there were. There were a whole range of different designations and rights and privileges and constrictions, depending on whether you were Creole or Black, African, and so on.

And so there was, it was kind of the beginning of what was a more generous view of race. I would say in Louisiana territory in the south. But when we bought Louisiana, Jefferson had to make a decision, which is, how shall we govern it?

In New Orleans, because it was very much a Creole, society had been Spanish and French, and people from the United States, and people from the Caribbean, and people from South America. There was, it was much more of a blend. And so you saw a lot of women business owners, you saw a lot of Black business owners, you saw a lot of Black business owners that actually owned other slaves that were Black. And so it was just a much more complex society that I don't in any way wish to say that slavery was less, but that there was room for advancement in a way that was not possible in a lot of cases in the United States. Because you could go on to have a business and have some form of economic success, even if you were a person of color.

And that was true also in the Floridas, where you had these communities that were formed in what we would think of as very inhospitable environments. That had mixed between Native Americans and self-emancipated, enslaved individuals and people that had come to colonize. And so you had just a very interesting mix of communities, and, to your point, when, when Jefferson took over, when they, when they got the Louisiana purchase. One of the questions is, is American law going to be enforced on these places? And the answer is somewhat more complex than we might think. Louisiana, at least on the state level, in terms of its state law, is technically Napoleonic code, where that does not conflict with federal law.

So it is a. If you, for example, want to become a lawyer in Louisiana and you take the bar exam, your bar exam is going to look very, very different than the New York bar exam. So there were it was a very complex question. And then I think we'll also get into what it meant for the expansion of slavery westward, because the purchase did have enormous implications for that as well.

Black is black, white is white, there aren't any variations. Um, they. They passed essentially what we would call black codes, uh, that retrofitted the populations there. I know these are what if questions, but could it have been otherwise?

And so it didn't really make sense to try and increase slavery because it wasn't financially beneficial for the people. Certainly not the people enslaved, but for the people who were owning these plantations. And once you had the expansion of land, then all of a sudden there were all of these new places where you could sell off your quote unquote, extra enslaved people. And it became a financially viable enterprise again. And so I think that not only were the there the financial incentives to expand slavery. The Constitution was interpreted in such a way that would prohibit the government from prohibiting the expansion of slavery. There was, there was no power that was given to the federal government to make that kind of economic firm line. And so, even if Jefferson had wanted to, I don't think that he would have been able to. Because I think Congress would have pushed back, and I think the Supreme Court would have pushed back.

And we will, in sense, constrict the social order of Louisiana. That must've had an enormous influence on people living there. I would think it must've been a source of enormous frustration. Uh, but it is what it is. It wasn't until Lincoln, uh, where a president said firmly No further.

I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll die on this hill if I need to. And we know what came of that, right? All right, so I want to go to one last little question here.

First of all, just for those who might not know, uh, here's what the Louisiana purchase was. State of Louisiana, part of Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, part of Minnesota, North Dakota, part of Montana and part of Wyoming, and part of Colorado. I mean, a gigantic, really. The Great Plains is what we're talking about, and and parts of the Lower Midwest. But it would be impossible, as a historian, I think, to exaggerate the impact of this, uh, extraordinary moment in 1803..

And so, you know, he didn't just buy it and say we'll see what happens here. He then wanted to find out what he had purchased. Primarily, I think, for the enlightenment, but also for geopolitical purposes. You know, the English way of establishing the doctrine of discovery is to be there and to build something. And that's exactly what happened at Fort Mandan and Fort Clatsop. But I think we have to give Jefferson high marks here.

This is one of the great moments in American history when he sent his protege and gave him a very broad agenda. To take down Native American vocabularies, to to speak of peace and prosperity, to try to bring natives into the American trade orbit. To look at the lands, to see if they were habitable by by American settlers, to see if the rivers interlocked. And maybe we could find a northwest passage across the continent to bring back data on new plants and new animals, and so on. This was one of the great moments of the enlightenment. And I don't know that John Adams would have done it, I don't know that John Quincy Adams would have done it. Although it should be said that John Quincy Adams voted yes on the Louisiana Purchase treaty.

Most of the federalists behaved the way our parties behave today. They were against it because it was Jefferson. Um, they also knew that almost every Western state would be more Jeffersonian than Federalist, but almost all the federalists decried the Louisiana purchase. But John Quincy Adams said, Are you kidding?

No, no, we have to do this.

Especially people like Timothy Pickering. I'm going to have a lot of shots against Timothy Pickering in the next year, he's a very easy target. But yeah, I mean, just vile. Some federalists, actually, I think, genuinely had concerns about the constitutional issues that we discussed. And some had concerns about what it would do in terms of the nation's priorities. So they worried about having to funnel all of the funds to Defense of the West, because that had happened a fair amount. Because American settlers had trouble keeping their hands to themselves.

And so there were, I think, genuine concerns, but I do agree with you that it was mostly political. And for this vote, John Quincy Adams was kicked out of the Federalist Party and was not elected again because he supported Jefferson. I think that John Quincy Adams might have actually done, I don't know if he would have done something exactly the same. But he loved touring different regions, he loved to see the science. I think we've talked about all the different tree samples that he planted at the White House when he was there.

So he had a real appreciation for nature and the flora and the fauna. And in true John Quincy Adams fashion would quiz himself on the names to make sure he understood all of the Latin classifications of the different things. Because one can never just have a walk in the woods, it has to be a lesson and test for one's mind. You know, what I think is really interesting is there's two types of, you know, like naturalists. There's the Thomas Jefferson Send your Protege, and there's the Theodore Roosevelt. You have to go do it and kill things yourself.

So, as we've discussed, Jefferson liked to stay home at Monticello. But I agree with you that he did really send Lewis and Clark with extraordinarily enlightened instructions in terms of trying to cultivate good relationships. This was not a, you know, burn and pillage mission, by any stretch.

And it waited until 1818.

So Lindsay, thank you. This was really interesting. I can't wait to see Napoleon and compare notes. And for the rest of you, we'll see you next week for another important edition of Listening to America.