January 17, 2023 • 46 mins
Turns out the Louisiana Purchase was not so much a purchase, but the right to (steal) purchase it from indigenous peoples. But it did transform the United States as we know it. Listen and learn!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck, and Jerry is on standby on our
phone ready for any issue to arise. We're supposed to
text her. And of course that makes this stuff you
(00:23):
should know, the too much information addition, that's right. And
you didn't even say a dish, A dish. I know,
I'm growing up. Look at me. So how are you
doing good? How are you good as well? Good? So, Chuck,
I'm really excited about this one for a number of reasons. One,
(00:43):
we get to take a really standard, universally understood um
part of American history and smash it to bits and
explain how it really happened and what it really was
and what really went on. I love history stuff like that,
don't you? I do? Uh? And this is a good
one because it is. Uh. If you're like someone who
(01:04):
enjoys watching Jeopardy or playing in any sort of trivia
nights or trivia games, trivial pursuit stuff usually no trivial
pursuit Yeah, available everywhere. Uh, this is just get info.
I feel like these kind of questions. It's the Louisiana
Purchase is just such sort of a softball kind of
thing for trivia games. And I don't mean that it's easy.
(01:26):
I just mean there's just so much in there, and
it's not like people go like, well, how am I
supposed to know about the Louisiana Purchase. Like it reshaped
America in ways or the United States rather in ways
that were just the tendrils just kept going and kept going. Yeah,
you can make a really good case that it helps
shape the world, because you know, it was the thing
(01:48):
that jumps started the United States into UM, I guess
the the initiation of it as a up and coming
world power, because yeah, we doubled our sur fas area
and size the United States did. UM and I saw
like and chuck to the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution and that's where the that's where the list ended.
(02:10):
They basically said, those three things are the most important
parts of early American history that helped make the country. UM.
And there's a lot of like really interesting stuff to it.
But there's also like a lot of the history that
just isn't talked about, doesn't get focused on enough, And like,
what's one of the really good things about like living
in the twenty centuries, Like we're really starting to examine
(02:32):
that stuff more and we're taking these really kind of um,
you know, primary and basic and kind of watered down
versions of historical events and like really kind of bringing
them to life for better for worse. Yeah, I mean
it's not every day that a new, burgeoning nation can
get the opportunity to acquire about eight hundred and fifty
(02:54):
thousand square miles uh, not acres square miles uh and
acquire are as we'll see more like the right to
acquire more like the right to kind of take Yeah,
which is what Oh, I know what you mean. I've
done the research. I know where you're going with that. Well,
should we go back then to how the name Luisiana Louisiana.
(03:19):
It sounds Italian when I say it, Yeah, I don't
think that's how it said. It's really French though, right, yeah, Louisian. Yeah.
Exactly what was going on was there were people in France.
There are a lot of people are from France rather uh,
and in fact they were bold enough to call it
new France. Uh. This was King Louis the what would
(03:42):
that be? Yes? Read, I'm brushing up on my Roman numerals,
and King Louis said, all right, Mr French explorer, I'm
gonna let my friend Josh over here to my right
to pronounce your name. Let me try Rene Robert Valier,
Sir de la Salle. Quite a name. But Louis said, hey, dude, um,
(04:06):
you've got authority to explore all the the western part
of this area I called New France. You got a
monopoly on trade there on Buffalo hides. Go knock yourself out.
Licel did just that in two floated down the Mighty
Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico and said, you know what,
I'm just gonna say, all of this area it belongs
(04:28):
to France, and I'm gonna name it after h the
gentleman who handed over my charter. I guess uh. And
it was with an E at the time, Louisian, Louis Louisian.
I don't know why the Italian keeps bobbing up the
land of Louis. It was basically they added in l
A at the beginning and then switched out the A
(04:50):
for an E, or you know, it would later become Louisiana.
I wonder if that's Louisiane iced tea bags are a
nod to is it spelled with ane? Yeah, a n
any I think and they take the eye out. It's
all messed up. I read somewhere chuck that um that
(05:10):
Cavellier when he got to the um delta of the
Mississippi River where it hit the Gulf of Mexico, he
like located the indigenous people that lived around there and
read a proclamation to them. It's basically he said, hey, um,
can you stand still while I read this? And he proclaimed,
like you said that whole area belonging to King Louis
and they're just sitting there like, what are you talking about?
(05:33):
Were so? But this was how um, this part of
the world, this part of North America was settled. It
was by the French and um they figured that. And
I mean this was an enormous swath of of territory
from Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico, from the
west of the Mississippi River all the way to anyone
(05:54):
knows how. Yeah, you just go as far as you want.
No one had any idea what was over that way
except for until you ran into the Spanish and California.
I'm not even sure they were there yet. So um
that that's how the English, um, the Dutch who were
up in New York, the French, the Spanish, how all
of these world powers that were running around North America
viewed the whole thing. And that was frances And so
(06:16):
France said, all right, awesome, let's exploit this. We're gonna
make just a staggering amount of money, and I'm going
to let this one particular person. Uh. In seventeen twelve,
Antoine crazat Um have the the charter to basically develop
this territory into New France. Like we called it kind
of prematurely. Yeah, that they he didn't get a lot
(06:39):
of support from France. Uh, they kind of handed this
over to him, and like you said, it was such
a big area, like it was just too unwieldy basically
to control and maintain and try to manage. And he
lost a ton of money. I think it only took
it took less than five years when he went back
to the king and said, you know what, I appreciate
(06:59):
the charter, but with all due respect, I would like
to be released from it. And you know that was fine.
He was released from the charter, but the French expeditions
kind of continued there for a while, but it was
sort of um, you know, they were outnumbered. They were uh.
The settlements were sparse, mostly still indigenous Americans populating the
(07:21):
area until seventeen sixty two when the Seven Years War
happened and France said, you know what, this territory is
now going to belong to Spain. But Spain didn't really
know what to do with it either, right, No, they
had I think even less of a presence in UM
in this I guess Louisiana territory than the French did.
(07:44):
I saw that even when Spain kind of ruled this
area as far as the European powers were concerned for
thirty seven years, there were more French officials calling the
shots there then there were Spanish officials, and um, I
think they were the greatest minority of all. The greatest
majority were the indigenous tribes in the area. But then
(08:04):
as far as Europeans went, you had Um English, you
had a lot of French people, you had UM, a
lot of people who had come down from Um Canada,
the Acadians who went on to become the Cajuns. They
were living in the area at the time. Um, and
it was just kind of uh. Spain was just they
(08:24):
just had the thing, they owned it, they weren't doing
much with it. Yeah, so they tried here and there too,
not you know, uh to not excellent results. There was
a colonial governor named Don Antonio del uh Ulloa. I
guess will that be right? I think? And he said,
all right, you know, we own this place technically, guys,
(08:46):
so I'd like to try to enforce some of our
rules if you don't mind about trade. And the French
leaders there said, yes, we very much do mind because
you're not calling the shots around here, despite the fact
that you quote unquote owned this land. So they revolted
drove him out of the colony. In seventeen uh, Spain
was able to quash that rebellion get a new governor
(09:07):
in there. I guess. I guess they were hoping with
a little more backbone, uh, and started saying like, hey,
you know, fellow Spaniards, why don't you go and settle
that land, like we got all this great land. Please
go there and farm and try and you know, sort
of steak our claim. Yeah, it took also one of
the reasons that they they took so long to encourage
(09:27):
people to go do that and just kind of just
approached the whole thing with like it was just kind
of there was because to the Spanish, the Louisiana Territory
was a buffer between the English and then later on
the Americans to the east and their territory Texas, Mexico, California,
all that to the west. Um, and it was a
(09:49):
really just a nice little kind of no man's land
that Spain owned so that they could be like, you
need to get out, But they were more interested in
it for the this the kind of distance put between
the English and then the Americans and the Spanish colonies. Yeah,
so it served a purpose to them, even if they
weren't as intent on you know, settling it, I guess right.
(10:11):
And then so as far as the Americans were concerned,
when when America became a country, by the time eighteen
hundred rolled around, and think that was the year that
Jefferson was elected, and Jefferson kind of approached the whole
thing with We're totally cool Spain owns, uh, the Louisiana Territory.
We're okay with that right now, Spain's letting us use
the Mississippi. It's letting us use the Port of New Orleans.
(10:33):
It's letting us use the warehouses in the Port of
New Orleans. These were really big deals because that was
how you got stuff out to Europe. In North America
was basically out of the Port of New Orleans. UM
for a lot of stuff, right, especially the Midwestern stuff. UM.
And as long as things were like that, it was
all good. But Jefferson was very smart and he was like,
(10:54):
there's a really good chance that things are not going
to remain the same for very long. And he was right, Boy,
that sounds like a great cliffhanger, I think, so all right, well,
let's take a break. We'll be right back. Jefferson is
feeling his oats. He thinks he can tell the future.
And as Josh said, he was kind of right, and
will explore that right after this, Chuck, that was a
(11:32):
heck of a lead up. I didn't think I was
gonna quit talking for a second. Just the whole podcast
spills out of your mouth from that point on, all right,
and you're just sitting there like I thought we were
taking over him. Uh so this is like the end
of the eighteenth century. Uh, Spain is not doing so hot.
Financially because of just kind of constant warring in Europe
(11:55):
for you know, many hundreds of years. Oh dude, it
was really bad that century. It was a bad century
for the European powers. Yeah. So, I mean it's just
a money drain on everyone. So Spain is hurting financially,
and in just before the turn of the century, in
sev Napoleon uh seizes control in France and he says,
(12:16):
you know, he's you know what Napoleon wanted to do.
He wanted to rule the world the Andi Christ well exactly.
So part of that, you know, obviously would include the
America's and that's not just you know, Louis Louisiana territory,
but like all of the America's Central America down to
South America. And so uh he tried to do so.
(12:37):
In eighteen hundred, they uh signed a secret treaty with
Spain called the Third Treaty of San Il Defonso. Got
it again, buddy, you're on a rule. And the Louisiana territory,
which included New Orleans of course, came back to France
and said, here you go, Spain, um will help you
(12:58):
out with your money problems. And I understand, the nephew
of the Queen of Spain wants some area that to
call his own, so you can have a trucial Etruria
in Italy which is now I think Tuscany, Lazio and Umbria.
They're in central Italy. And they said great, thank you
so much. Yeah. So Spain says like a black check dealer,
(13:21):
as like I'm out of the Louisiana territory, and Frances like, yes,
we've got it back. And from what I understand, Napoleon
UM viewed this largely as a shipping, a storage and
shipping and exporting center. New Orleans was like the crown
jewel of Louisiana territory, but he viewed it more as
a um and assist to the real gem in the
(13:44):
French Empire, which was Saint Domain, which is now called Haiti,
which was one of the most profitable plots of earth
on Earth at the time. I read Chuck that Saint
doming Um, and I've looked at up. I'm pretty surelet's
tell you say it, Um, you're right before the before
the revolt, and I believe eighteen hundred um. They were
(14:08):
just the taxes alone that were paid by the goods
that were produced there is equal to twelve billion dollars
in US dollars today. Yeah, and that was just the
taxes that were being paid, let alone all the productivity.
So Napoleon viewed the Louisiana into territory is like the
(14:29):
place that all that stuff could come to and then
spread out to the rest of the world. Um. That
was how we viewed it. Um. The other thing that
about the French having it is that Jefferson was like, man,
this is not good because we've got really good stuff
going on with the Spanish letting us use the Mississippi
River and the Port of New Orleans, and I don't
think the French are going to do that. And he
(14:50):
turned out to be right, yeah, because they, like you said,
they had a sweet deal going. Uh. The one thing
we didn't mention was that part of the agreement with
Spain because you know, they still wanted that offer uh
to be intact. So they you know, said, France can
have it back, but like, you can't give it away
or sell it to anybody else. Okay, Napoleon, do you
will you shake on that? And he said sure, My
(15:13):
word is my word is my bond. So that was
a big important part of it. Uh. Like you said,
Jefferson is getting a little bit nervous because New Orleans
was very important to us as well. At the time,
tensions are mounting. Uh. In eight ten o two, Spain
revokes those rights that they had previously given us traders
(15:34):
uh in New Orleans. And they were like, wait a minute.
You said you could keep our stuff here and use
these warehouses. They said, not so much anymore. And Jefferson said,
Napoleon he's behind all this. I know, he is that
little stubby uh runt. He's trying to keep this clean.
It's really hard when I'm doing Jefferson, because you know
(15:55):
that guy, yeh, potty mouth. So he said, this is
all on Napoleon. I bet and I bet you anything
that they're gonna shut everything down soon. And so you know,
this got people, um pretty upset. In the early United States,
there were people that said, no, let's let's take it
back by force. There was a senator in Pennsylvania named
(16:17):
James Ross who was very big on that and lobby
for Jefferson to send actual, an actual army down there
of fifty men too, to take this land. Because there
was a big deal. You know, oh, it's a huge deal. Um.
Other the Federalist Party said no, you know, screw that,
Let's just succeed and let's form our own nation, which
(16:37):
includes New Orleans. And so things were getting really up
to sort of like a fever pitch about whether or
not the United States was gonna have access to this
territory for shipping. Right. Um, before we continue, Chuck, I
want to show you a little magic trick. You ready,
m I'm going to I'm going to delete a thousand
email drafts right now. What you call Napoleon a runt?
(17:01):
And he actually was average size. He was, he was
it's a big it's a big deal, and it was.
It all came down to a difference between the French
foot and the English foot. There's a mistranslation, and so
he was actually like five eleven. That's right. I'm not
trying to correct you. I'm just trying to those from
those emails. I knew that. But what my point is, Jefferson,
(17:21):
I've seen his diaries. He very much called him a runt.
Whether or not he was average sized or not, did
he really wow? Well, Also, Jefferson was like I think
nine and a half feet tall, so he would have
considered someone five eleven a run anyone under seven feets all,
it was a pretty small person. To Jefferson, Yeah, yeah,
for sure. So, um, because of the Haitian Revolution, uh,
(17:43):
like Hatie became the first black run country, um outside
of Africa in the world because there was a slave revolt,
and it was I mean, that's an enormous deal. Even
in retrospective at the time it was it was like
earth shattering for for Europe because you know, France was
making so much money off of this, but you know
(18:04):
it was having a trickling outward effect on all the
other countries as well, who were really benefiting from this
incredibly productive forced slave labor um. And so when that stopped,
it had a really huge effect on the economy. And
to Napoleon it was like, well, then what's the point
of Louisiana territory anymore? If it was just a supporting
(18:25):
character for Saint doming And now Saint Domag is now
Haiti and we don't have any interest in it anymore. Um, like,
there's no point in owning the Louisiana territory. And he
started stroking his chin and he thought, first he thought
I should grow a soul patch. And then after that
he said, what is a soul patch? And then the
(18:47):
third thing he thought at that moment was I'm gonna
sell New France the Louisiana territory to the Americans. Yeah.
I mean the other reason too, is like he was
mad with power, but he also had a lot of
irons in the fire, and Louisiana was a long ways away,
so he was like, you know, and also to take
(19:08):
on like more warring now way over there. It's like
I'm spread a little bit thin, even though I am. Uh,
everyone knows an average height, right, And everyone nodded and
said yes, yes, yes, And he's like, in history will
view me that way, right, it's just an average height person, Yes, sir,
absolutely sir. And he said okay, he said, so selling
(19:28):
it won't make me look short, and they nope, not
at all. He said, okay, well we'll proceed. Then I
saw he also thought, chuck that it would be really
great to basically help a fledgling nation become a really
big nation freshly balance out and temper well more more,
to be an enemy of his enemy, which was and
to kind of give the Brits or run for their money.
(19:50):
So he did all these things in one master stroke,
which was selling the Louisiana territory. The boy looking. I mean,
things were just wild back then, with uh world shaping stuff.
I would argue that still goes on today, not like that.
No really, I mean, do you do you think NATO's
(20:15):
fighting a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine right now?
So I would say, so, yeah, well, yeah, I mean,
these things happen. I'm just saying it seemed like back
then it was happening everywhere, all at once. No, yeah,
I still I still think that happens today. I don't
know that not everywhere all at once. Like Canada is
(20:35):
not at war with the US to try and take territory.
And Canada's greatest trick is convincing the world that they're
laid back? Are they? Are they laying in? Wait? Oh boy,
that's all we need? Yeah? A million guns chuck, That's
all I have to say. All right, So this is
(20:58):
um let's call it eighteen oh you, because that was
the year that it was. And Jefferson and you know, Jeffy,
it takes a long time to get word about stuff.
As I realized when I was creating this UM Jefferson
doesn't know, you know that Napoleon's has this plan to
sell us territory back, or not back to us, but
to us. So he orders our minister to France, Robert Livingston,
(21:21):
to go to France to their foreign minister and say
his last name is tally Ran, great name, and say, hey, listen,
we'd like to put a stop to the acquisition of
the territory from Spain unless it's already finalized. And in
the back of the set he was like, if it
is finalized, you know, maybe go over uh and see
(21:42):
if you can buy New Orleans. See if they'll put
New Orleans up for sale. Okay, I'll go over there.
And he took uh he took a future president with him,
right or was he former president? Future? I think we
only had Yeah, I always get the order mixed up
there in the early days. I think Jefferson was the third.
(22:03):
I really hope Jefferson was the third, but yeah, James
Monroe went along to help Livingston too, and UM they
they started negotiating. UM. They were authorized to spend up
to ten million dollars and they started negotiating with UM.
A guy named Barbe Marbois Francois Barbe Marbois, and he
(22:23):
was a politician. I don't think he was the foreign minister,
because I think tally Rand was the foreign minister, right,
tally Rand was the foreign minister. Correct, Okay, So so
Barbe Marbois was a politician who was close to Napoleon,
who was instructed to basically broker the steal. And then
tally Rand came along and and said I'm going to
help out too, And so as they started to talk
and negotiate, I think within the first couple of days
(22:46):
maybe Barbee Marbois and tally Rand said henceforth known as
the French contingent um. They said, hey, how about this
um have you? Would you guys be interested in purchasing
the whole Louisiana? Terry Tory and Monroe and Livi said like,
oh my god, oh my god. Yeah cool, and they're like,
(23:06):
I don't know. I think Monroe like examined his fingernails
and said, well, we'll think about it. We might take
it off of her. Now, how much do you want?
And the Prince said twenty two million bucks, And he
leaned over and said, well, Jefferson wanted chin million for
new Orleans twenty two mill for all of it's not
a bad deal. No, and uh and Monroe said six
(23:30):
nay on the eel day. Wait, what would that be?
Nix the deal, which actually is the opposite of what
he would have said. But anyway, well he said, let's
try and talk him down. Yeah. I think they countered
with eight million. Right, they settled on fifteen, just five
million more than he was authorized to pay for New
Orleans alone. Right, you get another you know, eight hundred
(23:53):
five thousand square miles. Right, that is a bargain. And
that's how this whole thing's gone down in history as
far as as most people look at that the French
made a terrible real estate deal and the Americans made
out like bandits. Because I think National Geographics said it
was equivalent fifteen million dollars at the time, was equivalent
(24:14):
to three two million dollars. I did the methods up
to three four now, but at the time that came
to about nine cents an acre, which is I mean
in today's money, that's nine cents an acre. Um. So
it's an incredible deal. Um. So of course they went
(24:35):
for it. But like you said that, the mail was
really slow at the time, so they couldn't wait to
get authorization from Jefferson. They had to just decide on
their own that this was too spectacular of a deal
to walk away from and they were going to spend
fifty more than they were authorized to to buy the
Louisiana territory. And they did. And it took two months
for Jefferson the President, to find out that this this
(24:57):
deal had gone down two months so yeah, there wouldn't
time to go back. Didn't spend another two months getting
word back to Napoleon's party, the French contingent excuse me right,
and apparently the whole um. They were putting pressure on
the Americans by saying like, well, Napoleon's reconsidering this deal.
The Americans were like, okay, all right, classic move. Yeah,
(25:19):
he's not really sure now the offer might be off
the table. So they announced the deal fourth of July
eighteen o three. Um. Most people in the United States
were obviously super psyched um, but not everyone. It seems
that people in New England were, uh, they had a
problem with it. They were like, hey, listen, we are
(25:40):
kind of broke anyway, and we've already got enough land,
Like who wants eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles
to have to take care of when we're a fledgling
nation and what we need now is to keep our
coffers full. And Massachusetts Congressman Joseph Quincy said, you know,
we should succeed because of this. There was a lot
of threats to succeed. Thank goodness, that doesn't happen anymore, right, right,
(26:04):
but they you know that was that didn't happen obviously. Um,
there was another issue, which which was that Jefferson was
a real strict constitutionalist and did not believe in a
president just sort of exceeding their power. And he was like,
you know what, I don't even know if what we
did was strictly legal. This guy helped, Yeah, he was like,
(26:28):
can you have someone check that? But I don't. I
don't think we're allowed to even do this, are we?
I mean he was right, No, there's no if you
if you limit the presidential powers to a strict reading
of the Constitution, No, nowhere in there it doesn't say
the president is allowed to acquire land for the nation, right,
I mean they can go by a condo or something
(26:48):
if they want to privately. Sure, you know, the condo
White House, that's what they call that White House West,
nice little place on the Pacific Ocean, right. But but
he was he was worried about this, so he said like, hey,
maybe we should pass the constitutional amendment about this. Yeah,
And they and you know, everyone was kind of debating.
(27:10):
They're like, you know what, I don't think we need
to add a constitutional amendment. I think it's probably okay. Uh,
you know, all the all the like the early brilliant
minds and early US government. We're trying to figure this out,
kind of thinking that, hey, we got to move through
with the purchase and we'll kind of figure it out later.
If we need to add an amendment, maybe we can
do that retroactively. Uh. And then his Treasury Secretary, Albert H.
(27:35):
Gallatin said, you know what, Um, this should be allowed
under your authority to make treaties. That's how I read it,
at least, And Jefferson said that sounds good. Let's debate it.
They debated it in eighteen oh three in October, and
the Senate voted twenty four to seven that it was
all good. Yeah, um, which makes sense. I think it
(27:58):
was upheld later on in three by the Supreme Court
by no less than Jefferson's political rival John Marshall. Justice
John Marshall Um said, yeah, actually, this is totally correct.
The presidents allowed to make treaties under the Constitution, and
you can acquire land through treaties ipso facto, the president
can acquire land. And ever since then that's just been
(28:20):
you know, part of America, although it'll probably be reversed
in the next couple of years. How about a break, Yes,
all right, let's take a break and we'll talk about
the fact that this really wasn't a purchase outright, Okay,
(28:53):
Chuck so Um. Up to now, we've basically just been
laying down the general, the generally understood Louisiana purchase, maybe
with a few more details, and most people know more
than I knew before we started researching this, I should say,
But at this point we reached like the actual geopolitical,
um like layer of this, this historical event of how
(29:18):
the people at the time understood what was going on.
Because in retrospect, like I said, everybody looks at the
Louisiana purchase like the greatest real estate deal of all time.
If you look up greatest deal in history, the Louisiana
purchases cited as the greatest deal ever in almost every
return on whatever search engine use. Right, So at the
(29:41):
time they didn't really consider it that it wasn't like
a purchase of land. Instead, it was a transfer of
what the French had acquired through the doctrine of discovery,
which is essentially this kind of again a geopolitical layer
of the legal fiction that's laid over actual land that
(30:03):
basically says, um, if you go to an area and
you find people there but they're not Christians, you can
claim that land as yourself and deal with the people
who are indigenous as you see fit without interference from
the other European powers. Right, So that's what they purchase. Um,
you could call it a preemption or a territorial abstraction,
but yeah, it basically meant your we almost bought the
(30:26):
right to steal that land from Native Americans without uh yeah,
like without Spain or France laying any claim to it.
I would agree with what you just said, fully, but
I would remove almost from it. Fully I guess the
word I mean, yeah, it's crazy. And that whole doctrine,
the discovery thing, by the way, came from people bull
(30:48):
Papal decree from coincidentally, where the Pope said essentially that like,
if you find a place that's considered Tera Nolus, which
is unpopulated, essentially unpopulated by Christians, that's your that's your land.
So it was basically legal cover for the genocide that
followed from that point on. Yeah, and it's at this
(31:10):
point that I'm gonna recommend again. I know mentioned it before,
but the great documentary series from one called Exterminate All
the Brutes. Uh, you, of all people would love it. Uh,
it's really good, you would love it. Um. Raoul Pecks
series Explorers Basically that was on HBO. I think just
(31:31):
sort of the history of um colonialism, but but more
than that, um the way he tells it through a
modern lens and um just sort of from the dawn
of time once people started um being mean to each other.
Basically really really tough, heavy documentary series. So yeah, it
(31:51):
sounds like my Friday night for sure, well several Friday nights,
but yeah, sure if you watch that all on one
Friday night and then very dark Saturday of so, um, Okay,
I'll check it out. What's it call again the Brutes? Okay,
I'll check it out because I happen to have HBO Max.
Oh well too, maybe it's on there for my money,
(32:13):
one of the best streaming services. So um, the just
to kind of button this whole thing up. Basically, what
happened under the doctrines of discovery and the preemption that
America bought from France said that you can go do
whatever you want with this land. You can acquire it
(32:33):
however you want to. We're not going to do like
you don't actually get any land from us. You get
us saying this is yours now and the rest of Europe.
We have to leave these guys alone while they do
whatever they want. This is now part of their sovereign territory,
from one Christian nation to another. Basically exactly that's right.
So Um, the thing is is that I guess the
(32:55):
Americans that were running the show at the time, led
by Jefferson, we're well aware like this is this is
there's plenty of people out there, and probably even more
than we realize. I'm sure there's indigenous groups that we've
not even encountered yet. He sent Lewis and Clark out
in eighteen o four, like the the year after the
purchase was announced. Um, but they had to get that
(33:16):
land somehow, and this this preemption gave them the right
to either to do however they pleased treaty paying people off,
just straight up extermination however America wanted to do it.
From that point on, that was Europe was just going
to sit back and let it happen. Yeah, And it
was kind of a mix of all those things. Um,
(33:37):
the US did pay you know, uh, I mean it's
a lot of money, but it's still not a lot
of money, you know, uh, about eight point five billion
dollars in modern dollars two Native Americans for the land
within the Louisiana territory. But as we'll see, that happened
in a lot of different ways, and there were some
(33:59):
modern sort of repartitions that happened as a result here
and there. Um, there was a land deal and these
are just some examples. Um, there was you know, there
was always sort of the threat of violence hanging over
every deal that was made, so you have to factor
that in. Um, there was a land deal with a
native nation. This was after you know, we made the
(34:19):
deal with France and the sac and Fox Nation sent
uh some people to St. Louis sent a delegation there
to say, hey, you know, uh, we murdered three squatters
on our land. I would really like you to not retaliate,
retaliate on us, because that would start a big mess.
And so William Henry Harrison, who was the governor um
(34:40):
of the Indiana Tory territory and now Louisiana, which was
this is a lot of area that William Henry Harrison
was covering, uh signed you know, put a lot of
heat on them, and they signed away three point six
million acres of land along the Mississippi, including about one
point six million that was part of the Louisiana purchased
here Tory for three thousand three dollars in goods. And
(35:05):
if that if that sounds like a paltry amount, you're right.
But even at the time it was like the Salk
and the Fox would have considered it paltry because I
read that they made something like sixty thousand dollars a
season just from selling furs alone. So this was an
insulting amount of money. Supposedly, William Henry Harrison was like
(35:25):
particularly adept at creating these treaties, and this was the
first one, and uh, they ended up basically negotiating with
this this contingency of this contingent of um Sac and
Fox leaders, but also not people who were recognized in
those tribes as having the authority to sign away their land.
(35:46):
But they signed something. William Henry Harrison said, good enough,
this is legal. We now own that that land. Please
get out. And this all this is one of those
that um was brought up. Later in three there was
a commission, federal commission that look back on this land
deal and said, you know what it was worth about
(36:07):
sixty cents an acre at the time. We purchased it
for a half cent an acre. So here's what we're
gonna do. We're gonna pay you back now here in
the early nineteen seventies that fifty nine and a half cents. Uh,
here's two million dollars. And they said, we'll wait a minute, though,
this is this is nineteen seventy three. You're not including
(36:27):
inflation or interest like you're you're paying us for what
you owed us in eighteen o four using nineteen seventy
three money. And excuse me, what, here's your check. Just
go about your go about your day. And that's exactly
what happened. And that was the first deal, the first
treaty that was that was formed after the Louisiana purchase
(36:48):
that affected land from Louisiana territory, right, and it just
kind of went on from there. Some some tribes were
giving money, some tribes were forced out for no money whatsoever.
I think the black Feet famously lost twelve million acres
and were given no money at all. Um And what's
They weren't exactly like the indigenous tribes, weren't exactly treated
(37:11):
like royalty by the French or the Spanish, but they
weren't forced off of their land on mass um like
they were once America owned the Louisiana territory, like it
was a brand new a brand new show that they
had not been prepared for. They they lived and worked
(37:33):
and you know, follow their traditional ways among the French
and the Spanish, who you know, made concessions to them
and recognized a lot of their their um, their tribal
territory and their tribal customs um. But they were they
still considered the land belonging to France or belonging to Spain.
But they weren't moved off. And then America came along
and we're like, get out we've got a lot of
(37:55):
people back east, and we are spreading westward. And essentially
what they did was just continue to push and push
and push the Native Americans all the way into the Pacific. Basically. Yeah,
and you know, one of the things they would do
is like they would clear out one tribe and the
you know we call it the West, it was the
Louisiana territory to make room to move like an East
(38:18):
Coast tribe or a Southeastern tribe or a Northeastern tribe.
Then they would move them into that land and say here,
you can have this, but not for long because we're
also going to remove you. And it was just like
you said, it was just sort of shuffling these tribes
one at a time further and further west, which you
know obviously culminated in the Trail of tears Um, which
(38:41):
we had a I think that was a two parter, right, Yeah,
that was one of one of the best Um two
parters we've done. I think it rivaled Evil Kinneval. Even
Mark Ruffalo tweeted out about that episode. I forgot Hulk himself.
That's right, he did Hulk himself, Polk himself. So it
was it was just sort of the beginning of uh,
(39:05):
beginning of a new day for Indigenous Americans, h no more,
you know, basically sort of living with Europeans and kind
of sharing the land. It was like, now this is ours,
and and we're removing you, you know, permanently. Yeah, And
I mean, just like that papal decree of the Doctrine
of Discovery, America kind of formulated its own stuff, like
(39:26):
the manifest Destiny, which essentially said, like we were we
were given this land to take it over from coast
to coast. This is America was meant to do this,
to become this continental nation and become a superpower. And
that was used as a reason like just we were
supposed to do it. We were, we were destined to
do this, so let's just keep doing it. And another
(39:49):
one that was used is that the Native Americans weren't
weren't using the land, they weren't putting it to use,
So we're going to put it to more productive use
and make money off of it, which if so facto,
means we should have it. So these were kind of
like the rationals for pushing further and further west, and
we did it with such gusto Chalk that the Louisiana
purchase was signed in eighteen oh three. Fifty years later,
(40:14):
the Gadsden Purchase purchased southern Arizona in southwest New Mexico
from Mexico. I believe, and at that moment, fifty years
after Louisiana purchased double the size the contiguous forty eight
states as they are today was set. Fifty years is
all it took for us to take over the entire
North American continent aside from Canada and Mexico. Wow, that
(40:39):
puts it into perspective. We were vigorous, I should say so.
Like you mentioned earlier, Lewis and Clark were then sent
out because we didn't really know even what we had
as far like the borders were very hazy. Uh. They
were hazy when Spain had it. They were hazy when
France had it. They knew the northern and southern borders
because you had the Gulf of Mexico and you had
(41:02):
the you know, Canada and the northern territories. But as
far as west goes, they're like, I don't know. And
everyone would look at each other, they would look at
mat makers and they would all shrug and go I
don't know so. Uh. In fact, in the purchase it said, uh,
they refer to the land the colony or province of Louisiana,
with the same extent it now has in the hands
(41:22):
of Spain and then it had when France possessed it.
In France and Spain both shrugged. So they sent Lewis
and Clark out, and Jefferson said, Hey, when it comes
to that western border, just go nuts. Um. You don't
don't feel like you got to really be too restrictive
on where that on where this Louisiana territory ends. And
so they said, how about the Rocky Mountains and they said, great,
(41:45):
that's they sound lovely perfect. Right. In America's tactic strategy,
national strategy, you could say, it was just to keep
pushing westward, right, so when you reached America's border, just
keep going. And we would show up in mass and
these British, like the British apparently controlled Oregon Territory, which
I didn't realize, but it explains Washington and British Columbia's names. Um,
(42:08):
and we would just show up along the Oregon Trail,
and enough of us would show up that the Brits
would finally be like, fine, forget it here, just take this.
We want British Columbia. You take Washington and Oregon. And
we did that in Texas. And that's how we just
kept acquiring more and more land, just just by virtue
of showing up in numbers and being willing to shed blood,
(42:29):
pay money, um, and do you know all sorts of
stuff to acquire that land. That's right, yeah, And I
mean there's it's not like this is all just a
nothing but a negative story. I mean, depending on your perspective. Yeah,
it's pretty negative in a lot of ways. But also,
I mean it's not like America is just like the
(42:51):
worst country that ever existed. Like America has done a
lot of really great stuff for the world, spread democracy,
spread peace, done a lot of shady stuff too. I
think everybody who has ever listening to the podcast knows
that I am aware of that. But it's also done
a lot of really cool stuff for the world. So
in one sense, the Louisiana purchase helped kickstart that country
(43:11):
that would go on to do some really cool, important things. Unfortunately,
on the other hand, it gave us the Midwest. Oh Man,
I had a feeling that was building towards a joke,
a punchline. I meant everything, get Bay off. Okay, so
you got anything else about the Louisiana purchase. No, I
(43:32):
think I'm well armed for Jeopardy though. Okay I am too.
Let's get it on. As Alex Trebek used to say, uh,
if you want to know more about the Louisiana purchase,
you can search that on um well on your favorite
search bar. But also, I'm sure How Stuff Works has
some good stuff on it, so why not start there?
And since I said how Stuff Works and it's two
(43:52):
thousand and ten again, it's time for listener mail. I'm
gonna call this support for you. Okay, thank you for
the whole songs. Sarah Tobacco when I in retrospect was
a little unfair When I was like, what you never knew? Stand?
Sarah meant no, Sarah's I didn't take it that way
(44:15):
at all. But I know how you feel right now
because I just cueate our How Vampires Works Episode Worked
episode from back then. Yes, and you said you didn't
like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, And I was like, what,
all right, here we go. I just listened to the
life of played episode guys, it felt like I had
to back up Josh in regards to do Sarah and Sarah.
(44:35):
I'm an architect and endured many grueling years of architectural school,
during which we primarily prepare graphic and architecture role presentations
in lieu of exams and paper so so you can
imagine the aesthetic mind of a young architect can get
obsessed with selecting the perfect font to align with the
architectural concept they're about to present. I wasted many hours
selecting the perfect font, and as did most other students
(44:58):
in my class. I mean now my thirties and have
been practicing for over twelve years, and made no connection
to the twelve years. Would you hire twenty four year
old architect? Mm hmmm. I don't know if if he
was okay, coacious and went he or she, you know,
started started attending Harvard at fifteen. May look at me.
(45:18):
I'm being agents. Uh now mid thirties, have been practicing
for twelve years. Made no connection to the meaning of
Sarah until two or three years ago. Like Josh, I
was well aware of the idea of songs, but never
put the two and two together. You could take everything,
Josh stated word for word and apply it to me.
You guys make me laugh a lot, but this is
(45:39):
one of the better chuckles I've had while listening to
Josh go on about San Saraf, his San Sarah revelation
and the likeness to my own Unlike Josh, though I
never admitted it, allowed uh, and I felt it was
about time to Josh. Thanks for sharing and letting me
know that I'm not alone. Kind regards from Tim. Tim,
thank you for that support. That is very nice of you,
(46:00):
and I feel like I'm I'm the midwife of helping
you birth your own um admission, it just got weird
for sure, as Bob new Heart would put in, yeah, um.
Thanks again, Tim, and if you want to be like Tim,
you can send an email to stuff podcast at iHeart
(46:21):
radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck, and Jerry is on standby on our
phone ready for any issue to arise. We're supposed to
text her. And of course that makes this stuff you
(00:23):
should know, the too much information addition, that's right. And
you didn't even say a dish, A dish. I know,
I'm growing up. Look at me. So how are you
doing good? How are you good as well? Good? So, Chuck,
I'm really excited about this one for a number of reasons. One,
(00:43):
we get to take a really standard, universally understood um
part of American history and smash it to bits and
explain how it really happened and what it really was
and what really went on. I love history stuff like that,
don't you? I do? Uh? And this is a good
one because it is. Uh. If you're like someone who
(01:04):
enjoys watching Jeopardy or playing in any sort of trivia
nights or trivia games, trivial pursuit stuff usually no trivial
pursuit Yeah, available everywhere. Uh, this is just get info.
I feel like these kind of questions. It's the Louisiana
Purchase is just such sort of a softball kind of
thing for trivia games. And I don't mean that it's easy.
(01:26):
I just mean there's just so much in there, and
it's not like people go like, well, how am I
supposed to know about the Louisiana Purchase. Like it reshaped
America in ways or the United States rather in ways
that were just the tendrils just kept going and kept going. Yeah,
you can make a really good case that it helps
shape the world, because you know, it was the thing
(01:48):
that jumps started the United States into UM, I guess
the the initiation of it as a up and coming
world power, because yeah, we doubled our sur fas area
and size the United States did. UM and I saw
like and chuck to the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution and that's where the that's where the list ended.
(02:10):
They basically said, those three things are the most important
parts of early American history that helped make the country. UM.
And there's a lot of like really interesting stuff to it.
But there's also like a lot of the history that
just isn't talked about, doesn't get focused on enough, And like,
what's one of the really good things about like living
in the twenty centuries, Like we're really starting to examine
(02:32):
that stuff more and we're taking these really kind of um,
you know, primary and basic and kind of watered down
versions of historical events and like really kind of bringing
them to life for better for worse. Yeah, I mean
it's not every day that a new, burgeoning nation can
get the opportunity to acquire about eight hundred and fifty
(02:54):
thousand square miles uh, not acres square miles uh and
acquire are as we'll see more like the right to
acquire more like the right to kind of take Yeah,
which is what Oh, I know what you mean. I've
done the research. I know where you're going with that. Well,
should we go back then to how the name Luisiana Louisiana.
(03:19):
It sounds Italian when I say it, Yeah, I don't
think that's how it said. It's really French though, right, yeah, Louisian. Yeah.
Exactly what was going on was there were people in France.
There are a lot of people are from France rather uh,
and in fact they were bold enough to call it
new France. Uh. This was King Louis the what would
(03:42):
that be? Yes? Read, I'm brushing up on my Roman numerals,
and King Louis said, all right, Mr French explorer, I'm
gonna let my friend Josh over here to my right
to pronounce your name. Let me try Rene Robert Valier,
Sir de la Salle. Quite a name. But Louis said, hey, dude, um,
(04:06):
you've got authority to explore all the the western part
of this area I called New France. You got a
monopoly on trade there on Buffalo hides. Go knock yourself out.
Licel did just that in two floated down the Mighty
Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico and said, you know what,
I'm just gonna say, all of this area it belongs
(04:28):
to France, and I'm gonna name it after h the
gentleman who handed over my charter. I guess uh. And
it was with an E at the time, Louisian, Louis Louisian.
I don't know why the Italian keeps bobbing up the
land of Louis. It was basically they added in l
A at the beginning and then switched out the A
(04:50):
for an E, or you know, it would later become Louisiana.
I wonder if that's Louisiane iced tea bags are a
nod to is it spelled with ane? Yeah, a n
any I think and they take the eye out. It's
all messed up. I read somewhere chuck that um that
(05:10):
Cavellier when he got to the um delta of the
Mississippi River where it hit the Gulf of Mexico, he
like located the indigenous people that lived around there and
read a proclamation to them. It's basically he said, hey, um,
can you stand still while I read this? And he proclaimed,
like you said that whole area belonging to King Louis
and they're just sitting there like, what are you talking about?
(05:33):
Were so? But this was how um, this part of
the world, this part of North America was settled. It
was by the French and um they figured that. And
I mean this was an enormous swath of of territory
from Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico, from the
west of the Mississippi River all the way to anyone
(05:54):
knows how. Yeah, you just go as far as you want.
No one had any idea what was over that way
except for until you ran into the Spanish and California.
I'm not even sure they were there yet. So um
that that's how the English, um, the Dutch who were
up in New York, the French, the Spanish, how all
of these world powers that were running around North America
viewed the whole thing. And that was frances And so
(06:16):
France said, all right, awesome, let's exploit this. We're gonna
make just a staggering amount of money, and I'm going
to let this one particular person. Uh. In seventeen twelve,
Antoine crazat Um have the the charter to basically develop
this territory into New France. Like we called it kind
of prematurely. Yeah, that they he didn't get a lot
(06:39):
of support from France. Uh, they kind of handed this
over to him, and like you said, it was such
a big area, like it was just too unwieldy basically
to control and maintain and try to manage. And he
lost a ton of money. I think it only took
it took less than five years when he went back
to the king and said, you know what, I appreciate
(06:59):
the charter, but with all due respect, I would like
to be released from it. And you know that was fine.
He was released from the charter, but the French expeditions
kind of continued there for a while, but it was
sort of um, you know, they were outnumbered. They were uh.
The settlements were sparse, mostly still indigenous Americans populating the
(07:21):
area until seventeen sixty two when the Seven Years War
happened and France said, you know what, this territory is
now going to belong to Spain. But Spain didn't really
know what to do with it either, right, No, they
had I think even less of a presence in UM
in this I guess Louisiana territory than the French did.
(07:44):
I saw that even when Spain kind of ruled this
area as far as the European powers were concerned for
thirty seven years, there were more French officials calling the
shots there then there were Spanish officials, and um, I
think they were the greatest minority of all. The greatest
majority were the indigenous tribes in the area. But then
(08:04):
as far as Europeans went, you had Um English, you
had a lot of French people, you had UM, a
lot of people who had come down from Um Canada,
the Acadians who went on to become the Cajuns. They
were living in the area at the time. Um, and
it was just kind of uh. Spain was just they
(08:24):
just had the thing, they owned it, they weren't doing
much with it. Yeah, so they tried here and there too,
not you know, uh to not excellent results. There was
a colonial governor named Don Antonio del uh Ulloa. I
guess will that be right? I think? And he said,
all right, you know, we own this place technically, guys,
(08:46):
so I'd like to try to enforce some of our
rules if you don't mind about trade. And the French
leaders there said, yes, we very much do mind because
you're not calling the shots around here, despite the fact
that you quote unquote owned this land. So they revolted
drove him out of the colony. In seventeen uh, Spain
was able to quash that rebellion get a new governor
(09:07):
in there. I guess. I guess they were hoping with
a little more backbone, uh, and started saying like, hey,
you know, fellow Spaniards, why don't you go and settle
that land, like we got all this great land. Please
go there and farm and try and you know, sort
of steak our claim. Yeah, it took also one of
the reasons that they they took so long to encourage
(09:27):
people to go do that and just kind of just
approached the whole thing with like it was just kind
of there was because to the Spanish, the Louisiana Territory
was a buffer between the English and then later on
the Americans to the east and their territory Texas, Mexico, California,
all that to the west. Um, and it was a
(09:49):
really just a nice little kind of no man's land
that Spain owned so that they could be like, you
need to get out, But they were more interested in
it for the this the kind of distance put between
the English and then the Americans and the Spanish colonies. Yeah,
so it served a purpose to them, even if they
weren't as intent on you know, settling it, I guess right.
(10:11):
And then so as far as the Americans were concerned,
when when America became a country, by the time eighteen
hundred rolled around, and think that was the year that
Jefferson was elected, and Jefferson kind of approached the whole
thing with We're totally cool Spain owns, uh, the Louisiana Territory.
We're okay with that right now, Spain's letting us use
the Mississippi. It's letting us use the Port of New Orleans.
(10:33):
It's letting us use the warehouses in the Port of
New Orleans. These were really big deals because that was
how you got stuff out to Europe. In North America
was basically out of the Port of New Orleans. UM
for a lot of stuff, right, especially the Midwestern stuff. UM.
And as long as things were like that, it was
all good. But Jefferson was very smart and he was like,
(10:54):
there's a really good chance that things are not going
to remain the same for very long. And he was right, Boy,
that sounds like a great cliffhanger, I think, so all right, well,
let's take a break. We'll be right back. Jefferson is
feeling his oats. He thinks he can tell the future.
And as Josh said, he was kind of right, and
will explore that right after this, Chuck, that was a
(11:32):
heck of a lead up. I didn't think I was
gonna quit talking for a second. Just the whole podcast
spills out of your mouth from that point on, all right,
and you're just sitting there like I thought we were
taking over him. Uh so this is like the end
of the eighteenth century. Uh, Spain is not doing so hot.
Financially because of just kind of constant warring in Europe
(11:55):
for you know, many hundreds of years. Oh dude, it
was really bad that century. It was a bad century
for the European powers. Yeah. So, I mean it's just
a money drain on everyone. So Spain is hurting financially,
and in just before the turn of the century, in
sev Napoleon uh seizes control in France and he says,
(12:16):
you know, he's you know what Napoleon wanted to do.
He wanted to rule the world the Andi Christ well exactly.
So part of that, you know, obviously would include the
America's and that's not just you know, Louis Louisiana territory,
but like all of the America's Central America down to
South America. And so uh he tried to do so.
(12:37):
In eighteen hundred, they uh signed a secret treaty with
Spain called the Third Treaty of San Il Defonso. Got
it again, buddy, you're on a rule. And the Louisiana territory,
which included New Orleans of course, came back to France
and said, here you go, Spain, um will help you
(12:58):
out with your money problems. And I understand, the nephew
of the Queen of Spain wants some area that to
call his own, so you can have a trucial Etruria
in Italy which is now I think Tuscany, Lazio and Umbria.
They're in central Italy. And they said great, thank you
so much. Yeah. So Spain says like a black check dealer,
(13:21):
as like I'm out of the Louisiana territory, and Frances like, yes,
we've got it back. And from what I understand, Napoleon
UM viewed this largely as a shipping, a storage and
shipping and exporting center. New Orleans was like the crown
jewel of Louisiana territory, but he viewed it more as
a um and assist to the real gem in the
(13:44):
French Empire, which was Saint Domain, which is now called Haiti,
which was one of the most profitable plots of earth
on Earth at the time. I read Chuck that Saint
doming Um, and I've looked at up. I'm pretty surelet's
tell you say it, Um, you're right before the before
the revolt, and I believe eighteen hundred um. They were
(14:08):
just the taxes alone that were paid by the goods
that were produced there is equal to twelve billion dollars
in US dollars today. Yeah, and that was just the
taxes that were being paid, let alone all the productivity.
So Napoleon viewed the Louisiana into territory is like the
(14:29):
place that all that stuff could come to and then
spread out to the rest of the world. Um. That
was how we viewed it. Um. The other thing that
about the French having it is that Jefferson was like, man,
this is not good because we've got really good stuff
going on with the Spanish letting us use the Mississippi
River and the Port of New Orleans, and I don't
think the French are going to do that. And he
(14:50):
turned out to be right, yeah, because they, like you said,
they had a sweet deal going. Uh. The one thing
we didn't mention was that part of the agreement with
Spain because you know, they still wanted that offer uh
to be intact. So they you know, said, France can
have it back, but like, you can't give it away
or sell it to anybody else. Okay, Napoleon, do you
will you shake on that? And he said sure, My
(15:13):
word is my word is my bond. So that was
a big important part of it. Uh. Like you said,
Jefferson is getting a little bit nervous because New Orleans
was very important to us as well. At the time,
tensions are mounting. Uh. In eight ten o two, Spain
revokes those rights that they had previously given us traders
(15:34):
uh in New Orleans. And they were like, wait a minute.
You said you could keep our stuff here and use
these warehouses. They said, not so much anymore. And Jefferson said,
Napoleon he's behind all this. I know, he is that
little stubby uh runt. He's trying to keep this clean.
It's really hard when I'm doing Jefferson, because you know
(15:55):
that guy, yeh, potty mouth. So he said, this is
all on Napoleon. I bet and I bet you anything
that they're gonna shut everything down soon. And so you know,
this got people, um pretty upset. In the early United States,
there were people that said, no, let's let's take it
back by force. There was a senator in Pennsylvania named
(16:17):
James Ross who was very big on that and lobby
for Jefferson to send actual, an actual army down there
of fifty men too, to take this land. Because there
was a big deal. You know, oh, it's a huge deal. Um.
Other the Federalist Party said no, you know, screw that,
Let's just succeed and let's form our own nation, which
(16:37):
includes New Orleans. And so things were getting really up
to sort of like a fever pitch about whether or
not the United States was gonna have access to this
territory for shipping. Right. Um, before we continue, Chuck, I
want to show you a little magic trick. You ready,
m I'm going to I'm going to delete a thousand
email drafts right now. What you call Napoleon a runt?
(17:01):
And he actually was average size. He was, he was
it's a big it's a big deal, and it was.
It all came down to a difference between the French
foot and the English foot. There's a mistranslation, and so
he was actually like five eleven. That's right. I'm not
trying to correct you. I'm just trying to those from
those emails. I knew that. But what my point is, Jefferson,
(17:21):
I've seen his diaries. He very much called him a runt.
Whether or not he was average sized or not, did
he really wow? Well, Also, Jefferson was like I think
nine and a half feet tall, so he would have
considered someone five eleven a run anyone under seven feets all,
it was a pretty small person. To Jefferson, Yeah, yeah,
for sure. So, um, because of the Haitian Revolution, uh,
(17:43):
like Hatie became the first black run country, um outside
of Africa in the world because there was a slave revolt,
and it was I mean, that's an enormous deal. Even
in retrospective at the time it was it was like
earth shattering for for Europe because you know, France was
making so much money off of this, but you know
(18:04):
it was having a trickling outward effect on all the
other countries as well, who were really benefiting from this
incredibly productive forced slave labor um. And so when that stopped,
it had a really huge effect on the economy. And
to Napoleon it was like, well, then what's the point
of Louisiana territory anymore? If it was just a supporting
(18:25):
character for Saint doming And now Saint Domag is now
Haiti and we don't have any interest in it anymore. Um, like,
there's no point in owning the Louisiana territory. And he
started stroking his chin and he thought, first he thought
I should grow a soul patch. And then after that
he said, what is a soul patch? And then the
(18:47):
third thing he thought at that moment was I'm gonna
sell New France the Louisiana territory to the Americans. Yeah.
I mean the other reason too, is like he was
mad with power, but he also had a lot of
irons in the fire, and Louisiana was a long ways away,
so he was like, you know, and also to take
(19:08):
on like more warring now way over there. It's like
I'm spread a little bit thin, even though I am. Uh,
everyone knows an average height, right, And everyone nodded and
said yes, yes, yes, And he's like, in history will
view me that way, right, it's just an average height person, Yes, sir,
absolutely sir. And he said okay, he said, so selling
(19:28):
it won't make me look short, and they nope, not
at all. He said, okay, well we'll proceed. Then I
saw he also thought, chuck that it would be really
great to basically help a fledgling nation become a really
big nation freshly balance out and temper well more more,
to be an enemy of his enemy, which was and
to kind of give the Brits or run for their money.
(19:50):
So he did all these things in one master stroke,
which was selling the Louisiana territory. The boy looking. I mean,
things were just wild back then, with uh world shaping stuff.
I would argue that still goes on today, not like that.
No really, I mean, do you do you think NATO's
(20:15):
fighting a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine right now?
So I would say, so, yeah, well, yeah, I mean,
these things happen. I'm just saying it seemed like back
then it was happening everywhere, all at once. No, yeah,
I still I still think that happens today. I don't
know that not everywhere all at once. Like Canada is
(20:35):
not at war with the US to try and take territory.
And Canada's greatest trick is convincing the world that they're
laid back? Are they? Are they laying in? Wait? Oh boy,
that's all we need? Yeah? A million guns chuck, That's
all I have to say. All right, So this is
(20:58):
um let's call it eighteen oh you, because that was
the year that it was. And Jefferson and you know, Jeffy,
it takes a long time to get word about stuff.
As I realized when I was creating this UM Jefferson
doesn't know, you know that Napoleon's has this plan to
sell us territory back, or not back to us, but
to us. So he orders our minister to France, Robert Livingston,
(21:21):
to go to France to their foreign minister and say
his last name is tally Ran, great name, and say, hey, listen,
we'd like to put a stop to the acquisition of
the territory from Spain unless it's already finalized. And in
the back of the set he was like, if it
is finalized, you know, maybe go over uh and see
(21:42):
if you can buy New Orleans. See if they'll put
New Orleans up for sale. Okay, I'll go over there.
And he took uh he took a future president with him,
right or was he former president? Future? I think we
only had Yeah, I always get the order mixed up
there in the early days. I think Jefferson was the third.
(22:03):
I really hope Jefferson was the third, but yeah, James
Monroe went along to help Livingston too, and UM they
they started negotiating. UM. They were authorized to spend up
to ten million dollars and they started negotiating with UM.
A guy named Barbe Marbois Francois Barbe Marbois, and he
(22:23):
was a politician. I don't think he was the foreign minister,
because I think tally Rand was the foreign minister, right,
tally Rand was the foreign minister. Correct, Okay, So so
Barbe Marbois was a politician who was close to Napoleon,
who was instructed to basically broker the steal. And then
tally Rand came along and and said I'm going to
help out too, And so as they started to talk
and negotiate, I think within the first couple of days
(22:46):
maybe Barbee Marbois and tally Rand said henceforth known as
the French contingent um. They said, hey, how about this
um have you? Would you guys be interested in purchasing
the whole Louisiana? Terry Tory and Monroe and Livi said like,
oh my god, oh my god. Yeah cool, and they're like,
(23:06):
I don't know. I think Monroe like examined his fingernails
and said, well, we'll think about it. We might take
it off of her. Now, how much do you want?
And the Prince said twenty two million bucks, And he
leaned over and said, well, Jefferson wanted chin million for
new Orleans twenty two mill for all of it's not
a bad deal. No, and uh and Monroe said six
(23:30):
nay on the eel day. Wait, what would that be?
Nix the deal, which actually is the opposite of what
he would have said. But anyway, well he said, let's
try and talk him down. Yeah. I think they countered
with eight million. Right, they settled on fifteen, just five
million more than he was authorized to pay for New
Orleans alone. Right, you get another you know, eight hundred
(23:53):
five thousand square miles. Right, that is a bargain. And
that's how this whole thing's gone down in history as
far as as most people look at that the French
made a terrible real estate deal and the Americans made
out like bandits. Because I think National Geographics said it
was equivalent fifteen million dollars at the time, was equivalent
(24:14):
to three two million dollars. I did the methods up
to three four now, but at the time that came
to about nine cents an acre, which is I mean
in today's money, that's nine cents an acre. Um. So
it's an incredible deal. Um. So of course they went
(24:35):
for it. But like you said that, the mail was
really slow at the time, so they couldn't wait to
get authorization from Jefferson. They had to just decide on
their own that this was too spectacular of a deal
to walk away from and they were going to spend
fifty more than they were authorized to to buy the
Louisiana territory. And they did. And it took two months
for Jefferson the President, to find out that this this
(24:57):
deal had gone down two months so yeah, there wouldn't
time to go back. Didn't spend another two months getting
word back to Napoleon's party, the French contingent excuse me right,
and apparently the whole um. They were putting pressure on
the Americans by saying like, well, Napoleon's reconsidering this deal.
The Americans were like, okay, all right, classic move. Yeah,
(25:19):
he's not really sure now the offer might be off
the table. So they announced the deal fourth of July
eighteen o three. Um. Most people in the United States
were obviously super psyched um, but not everyone. It seems
that people in New England were, uh, they had a
problem with it. They were like, hey, listen, we are
(25:40):
kind of broke anyway, and we've already got enough land,
Like who wants eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles
to have to take care of when we're a fledgling
nation and what we need now is to keep our
coffers full. And Massachusetts Congressman Joseph Quincy said, you know,
we should succeed because of this. There was a lot
of threats to succeed. Thank goodness, that doesn't happen anymore, right, right,
(26:04):
but they you know that was that didn't happen obviously. Um,
there was another issue, which which was that Jefferson was
a real strict constitutionalist and did not believe in a
president just sort of exceeding their power. And he was like,
you know what, I don't even know if what we
did was strictly legal. This guy helped, Yeah, he was like,
(26:28):
can you have someone check that? But I don't. I
don't think we're allowed to even do this, are we?
I mean he was right, No, there's no if you
if you limit the presidential powers to a strict reading
of the Constitution, No, nowhere in there it doesn't say
the president is allowed to acquire land for the nation, right,
I mean they can go by a condo or something
(26:48):
if they want to privately. Sure, you know, the condo
White House, that's what they call that White House West,
nice little place on the Pacific Ocean, right. But but
he was he was worried about this, so he said like, hey,
maybe we should pass the constitutional amendment about this. Yeah,
And they and you know, everyone was kind of debating.
(27:10):
They're like, you know what, I don't think we need
to add a constitutional amendment. I think it's probably okay. Uh,
you know, all the all the like the early brilliant
minds and early US government. We're trying to figure this out,
kind of thinking that, hey, we got to move through
with the purchase and we'll kind of figure it out later.
If we need to add an amendment, maybe we can
do that retroactively. Uh. And then his Treasury Secretary, Albert H.
(27:35):
Gallatin said, you know what, Um, this should be allowed
under your authority to make treaties. That's how I read it,
at least, And Jefferson said that sounds good. Let's debate it.
They debated it in eighteen oh three in October, and
the Senate voted twenty four to seven that it was
all good. Yeah, um, which makes sense. I think it
(27:58):
was upheld later on in three by the Supreme Court
by no less than Jefferson's political rival John Marshall. Justice
John Marshall Um said, yeah, actually, this is totally correct.
The presidents allowed to make treaties under the Constitution, and
you can acquire land through treaties ipso facto, the president
can acquire land. And ever since then that's just been
(28:20):
you know, part of America, although it'll probably be reversed
in the next couple of years. How about a break, Yes,
all right, let's take a break and we'll talk about
the fact that this really wasn't a purchase outright, Okay,
(28:53):
Chuck so Um. Up to now, we've basically just been
laying down the general, the generally understood Louisiana purchase, maybe
with a few more details, and most people know more
than I knew before we started researching this, I should say,
But at this point we reached like the actual geopolitical,
um like layer of this, this historical event of how
(29:18):
the people at the time understood what was going on.
Because in retrospect, like I said, everybody looks at the
Louisiana purchase like the greatest real estate deal of all time.
If you look up greatest deal in history, the Louisiana
purchases cited as the greatest deal ever in almost every
return on whatever search engine use. Right, So at the
(29:41):
time they didn't really consider it that it wasn't like
a purchase of land. Instead, it was a transfer of
what the French had acquired through the doctrine of discovery,
which is essentially this kind of again a geopolitical layer
of the legal fiction that's laid over actual land that
(30:03):
basically says, um, if you go to an area and
you find people there but they're not Christians, you can
claim that land as yourself and deal with the people
who are indigenous as you see fit without interference from
the other European powers. Right, So that's what they purchase. Um,
you could call it a preemption or a territorial abstraction,
but yeah, it basically meant your we almost bought the
(30:26):
right to steal that land from Native Americans without uh yeah,
like without Spain or France laying any claim to it.
I would agree with what you just said, fully, but
I would remove almost from it. Fully I guess the
word I mean, yeah, it's crazy. And that whole doctrine,
the discovery thing, by the way, came from people bull
(30:48):
Papal decree from coincidentally, where the Pope said essentially that like,
if you find a place that's considered Tera Nolus, which
is unpopulated, essentially unpopulated by Christians, that's your that's your land.
So it was basically legal cover for the genocide that
followed from that point on. Yeah, and it's at this
(31:10):
point that I'm gonna recommend again. I know mentioned it before,
but the great documentary series from one called Exterminate All
the Brutes. Uh, you, of all people would love it. Uh,
it's really good, you would love it. Um. Raoul Pecks
series Explorers Basically that was on HBO. I think just
(31:31):
sort of the history of um colonialism, but but more
than that, um the way he tells it through a
modern lens and um just sort of from the dawn
of time once people started um being mean to each other.
Basically really really tough, heavy documentary series. So yeah, it
(31:51):
sounds like my Friday night for sure, well several Friday nights,
but yeah, sure if you watch that all on one
Friday night and then very dark Saturday of so, um, Okay,
I'll check it out. What's it call again the Brutes? Okay,
I'll check it out because I happen to have HBO Max.
Oh well too, maybe it's on there for my money,
(32:13):
one of the best streaming services. So um, the just
to kind of button this whole thing up. Basically, what
happened under the doctrines of discovery and the preemption that
America bought from France said that you can go do
whatever you want with this land. You can acquire it
(32:33):
however you want to. We're not going to do like
you don't actually get any land from us. You get
us saying this is yours now and the rest of Europe.
We have to leave these guys alone while they do
whatever they want. This is now part of their sovereign territory,
from one Christian nation to another. Basically exactly that's right.
So Um, the thing is is that I guess the
(32:55):
Americans that were running the show at the time, led
by Jefferson, we're well aware like this is this is
there's plenty of people out there, and probably even more
than we realize. I'm sure there's indigenous groups that we've
not even encountered yet. He sent Lewis and Clark out
in eighteen o four, like the the year after the
purchase was announced. Um, but they had to get that
(33:16):
land somehow, and this this preemption gave them the right
to either to do however they pleased treaty paying people off,
just straight up extermination however America wanted to do it.
From that point on, that was Europe was just going
to sit back and let it happen. Yeah, And it
was kind of a mix of all those things. Um,
(33:37):
the US did pay you know, uh, I mean it's
a lot of money, but it's still not a lot
of money, you know, uh, about eight point five billion
dollars in modern dollars two Native Americans for the land
within the Louisiana territory. But as we'll see, that happened
in a lot of different ways, and there were some
(33:59):
modern sort of repartitions that happened as a result here
and there. Um, there was a land deal and these
are just some examples. Um, there was you know, there
was always sort of the threat of violence hanging over
every deal that was made, so you have to factor
that in. Um, there was a land deal with a
native nation. This was after you know, we made the
(34:19):
deal with France and the sac and Fox Nation sent
uh some people to St. Louis sent a delegation there
to say, hey, you know, uh, we murdered three squatters
on our land. I would really like you to not retaliate,
retaliate on us, because that would start a big mess.
And so William Henry Harrison, who was the governor um
(34:40):
of the Indiana Tory territory and now Louisiana, which was
this is a lot of area that William Henry Harrison
was covering, uh signed you know, put a lot of
heat on them, and they signed away three point six
million acres of land along the Mississippi, including about one
point six million that was part of the Louisiana purchased
here Tory for three thousand three dollars in goods. And
(35:05):
if that if that sounds like a paltry amount, you're right.
But even at the time it was like the Salk
and the Fox would have considered it paltry because I
read that they made something like sixty thousand dollars a
season just from selling furs alone. So this was an
insulting amount of money. Supposedly, William Henry Harrison was like
(35:25):
particularly adept at creating these treaties, and this was the
first one, and uh, they ended up basically negotiating with
this this contingency of this contingent of um Sac and
Fox leaders, but also not people who were recognized in
those tribes as having the authority to sign away their land.
(35:46):
But they signed something. William Henry Harrison said, good enough,
this is legal. We now own that that land. Please
get out. And this all this is one of those
that um was brought up. Later in three there was
a commission, federal commission that look back on this land
deal and said, you know what it was worth about
(36:07):
sixty cents an acre at the time. We purchased it
for a half cent an acre. So here's what we're
gonna do. We're gonna pay you back now here in
the early nineteen seventies that fifty nine and a half cents. Uh,
here's two million dollars. And they said, we'll wait a minute, though,
this is this is nineteen seventy three. You're not including
(36:27):
inflation or interest like you're you're paying us for what
you owed us in eighteen o four using nineteen seventy
three money. And excuse me, what, here's your check. Just
go about your go about your day. And that's exactly
what happened. And that was the first deal, the first
treaty that was that was formed after the Louisiana purchase
(36:48):
that affected land from Louisiana territory, right, and it just
kind of went on from there. Some some tribes were
giving money, some tribes were forced out for no money whatsoever.
I think the black Feet famously lost twelve million acres
and were given no money at all. Um And what's
They weren't exactly like the indigenous tribes, weren't exactly treated
(37:11):
like royalty by the French or the Spanish, but they
weren't forced off of their land on mass um like
they were once America owned the Louisiana territory, like it
was a brand new a brand new show that they
had not been prepared for. They they lived and worked
(37:33):
and you know, follow their traditional ways among the French
and the Spanish, who you know, made concessions to them
and recognized a lot of their their um, their tribal
territory and their tribal customs um. But they were they
still considered the land belonging to France or belonging to Spain.
But they weren't moved off. And then America came along
and we're like, get out we've got a lot of
(37:55):
people back east, and we are spreading westward. And essentially
what they did was just continue to push and push
and push the Native Americans all the way into the Pacific. Basically. Yeah,
and you know, one of the things they would do
is like they would clear out one tribe and the
you know we call it the West, it was the
Louisiana territory to make room to move like an East
(38:18):
Coast tribe or a Southeastern tribe or a Northeastern tribe.
Then they would move them into that land and say here,
you can have this, but not for long because we're
also going to remove you. And it was just like
you said, it was just sort of shuffling these tribes
one at a time further and further west, which you
know obviously culminated in the Trail of tears Um, which
(38:41):
we had a I think that was a two parter, right, Yeah,
that was one of one of the best Um two
parters we've done. I think it rivaled Evil Kinneval. Even
Mark Ruffalo tweeted out about that episode. I forgot Hulk himself.
That's right, he did Hulk himself, Polk himself. So it
was it was just sort of the beginning of uh,
(39:05):
beginning of a new day for Indigenous Americans, h no more,
you know, basically sort of living with Europeans and kind
of sharing the land. It was like, now this is ours,
and and we're removing you, you know, permanently. Yeah, And
I mean, just like that papal decree of the Doctrine
of Discovery, America kind of formulated its own stuff, like
(39:26):
the manifest Destiny, which essentially said, like we were we
were given this land to take it over from coast
to coast. This is America was meant to do this,
to become this continental nation and become a superpower. And
that was used as a reason like just we were
supposed to do it. We were, we were destined to
do this, so let's just keep doing it. And another
(39:49):
one that was used is that the Native Americans weren't
weren't using the land, they weren't putting it to use,
So we're going to put it to more productive use
and make money off of it, which if so facto,
means we should have it. So these were kind of
like the rationals for pushing further and further west, and
we did it with such gusto Chalk that the Louisiana
purchase was signed in eighteen oh three. Fifty years later,
(40:14):
the Gadsden Purchase purchased southern Arizona in southwest New Mexico
from Mexico. I believe, and at that moment, fifty years
after Louisiana purchased double the size the contiguous forty eight
states as they are today was set. Fifty years is
all it took for us to take over the entire
North American continent aside from Canada and Mexico. Wow, that
(40:39):
puts it into perspective. We were vigorous, I should say so.
Like you mentioned earlier, Lewis and Clark were then sent
out because we didn't really know even what we had
as far like the borders were very hazy. Uh. They
were hazy when Spain had it. They were hazy when
France had it. They knew the northern and southern borders
because you had the Gulf of Mexico and you had
(41:02):
the you know, Canada and the northern territories. But as
far as west goes, they're like, I don't know. And
everyone would look at each other, they would look at
mat makers and they would all shrug and go I
don't know so. Uh. In fact, in the purchase it said, uh,
they refer to the land the colony or province of Louisiana,
with the same extent it now has in the hands
(41:22):
of Spain and then it had when France possessed it.
In France and Spain both shrugged. So they sent Lewis
and Clark out, and Jefferson said, Hey, when it comes
to that western border, just go nuts. Um. You don't
don't feel like you got to really be too restrictive
on where that on where this Louisiana territory ends. And
so they said, how about the Rocky Mountains and they said, great,
(41:45):
that's they sound lovely perfect. Right. In America's tactic strategy,
national strategy, you could say, it was just to keep
pushing westward, right, so when you reached America's border, just
keep going. And we would show up in mass and
these British, like the British apparently controlled Oregon Territory, which
I didn't realize, but it explains Washington and British Columbia's names. Um,
(42:08):
and we would just show up along the Oregon Trail,
and enough of us would show up that the Brits
would finally be like, fine, forget it here, just take this.
We want British Columbia. You take Washington and Oregon. And
we did that in Texas. And that's how we just
kept acquiring more and more land, just just by virtue
of showing up in numbers and being willing to shed blood,
(42:29):
pay money, um, and do you know all sorts of
stuff to acquire that land. That's right, yeah, And I
mean there's it's not like this is all just a
nothing but a negative story. I mean, depending on your perspective. Yeah,
it's pretty negative in a lot of ways. But also,
I mean it's not like America is just like the
(42:51):
worst country that ever existed. Like America has done a
lot of really great stuff for the world, spread democracy,
spread peace, done a lot of shady stuff too. I
think everybody who has ever listening to the podcast knows
that I am aware of that. But it's also done
a lot of really cool stuff for the world. So
in one sense, the Louisiana purchase helped kickstart that country
(43:11):
that would go on to do some really cool, important things. Unfortunately,
on the other hand, it gave us the Midwest. Oh Man,
I had a feeling that was building towards a joke,
a punchline. I meant everything, get Bay off. Okay, so
you got anything else about the Louisiana purchase. No, I
(43:32):
think I'm well armed for Jeopardy though. Okay I am too.
Let's get it on. As Alex Trebek used to say, uh,
if you want to know more about the Louisiana purchase,
you can search that on um well on your favorite
search bar. But also, I'm sure How Stuff Works has
some good stuff on it, so why not start there?
And since I said how Stuff Works and it's two
(43:52):
thousand and ten again, it's time for listener mail. I'm
gonna call this support for you. Okay, thank you for
the whole songs. Sarah Tobacco when I in retrospect was
a little unfair When I was like, what you never knew? Stand?
Sarah meant no, Sarah's I didn't take it that way
(44:15):
at all. But I know how you feel right now
because I just cueate our How Vampires Works Episode Worked
episode from back then. Yes, and you said you didn't
like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, And I was like, what,
all right, here we go. I just listened to the
life of played episode guys, it felt like I had
to back up Josh in regards to do Sarah and Sarah.
(44:35):
I'm an architect and endured many grueling years of architectural school,
during which we primarily prepare graphic and architecture role presentations
in lieu of exams and paper so so you can
imagine the aesthetic mind of a young architect can get
obsessed with selecting the perfect font to align with the
architectural concept they're about to present. I wasted many hours
selecting the perfect font, and as did most other students
(44:58):
in my class. I mean now my thirties and have
been practicing for over twelve years, and made no connection
to the twelve years. Would you hire twenty four year
old architect? Mm hmmm. I don't know if if he
was okay, coacious and went he or she, you know,
started started attending Harvard at fifteen. May look at me.
(45:18):
I'm being agents. Uh now mid thirties, have been practicing
for twelve years. Made no connection to the meaning of
Sarah until two or three years ago. Like Josh, I
was well aware of the idea of songs, but never
put the two and two together. You could take everything,
Josh stated word for word and apply it to me.
You guys make me laugh a lot, but this is
(45:39):
one of the better chuckles I've had while listening to
Josh go on about San Saraf, his San Sarah revelation
and the likeness to my own Unlike Josh, though I
never admitted it, allowed uh, and I felt it was
about time to Josh. Thanks for sharing and letting me
know that I'm not alone. Kind regards from Tim. Tim,
thank you for that support. That is very nice of you,
(46:00):
and I feel like I'm I'm the midwife of helping
you birth your own um admission, it just got weird
for sure, as Bob new Heart would put in, yeah, um.
Thanks again, Tim, and if you want to be like Tim,
you can send an email to stuff podcast at iHeart
(46:21):
radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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