Wednesday, May 21, 2008

An Essay on the Louisiana Purchase

Did you ever think that the biggest real estate deal ever happened here in our country, years ago? That deal is known as the Louisiana Purchase, which gave us the whole Louisiana territory, an unimaginably huge chunk of land just east of our growing Union. Bought by President Thomas Jefferson, the Louisiana territory doubled the size of our small yet powerful nation. The purchase of that land cost Jefferson 15 million dollars, but at the same time, put us in a very good position. If it wasn't for Jefferson buying all of that land, there might not of even been a westward expansion!

The whole Louisiana territory was amazingly huge, 828,000 square miles to be exact! All of the land that was bought from Napoleon Bonaparte was bigger than Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal combined! All of that land led our growing nation to many great historical events, including the westward expansion. As ground-breaking as all of this may sound, the Louisiana Purchase did even better things, after it was explored and inhabited by the people of that time though, which was a while after it was bought.

Even though the Louisiana territory cost Thomas Jefferson 15 million dollars, the position that it put his young nation in was worth it all. Since it was a time of war in France, we gave them the money that they needed by buying the Louisiana territory. This helped both sides, because now the French had more money to fight their enemies and we had more land to live on. With an ever-expanding population, a lot of land like that is extremely helpful. If only all deals were as good as this one!

If the Louisiana territory was not bought by Thomas Jefferson, then there might not ever have been a westward expansion or a manifest destiny. Imagine if our nation stayed that small forever; some people may not even be here today if it wasn't for the Louisiana Purchase! The land bought from France gave us a lot of extra farmland and let many other people follow their dreams that were impossible to follow while in the smaller United States of America. The positive effects of the Louisiana Purchase range much farther than the few I just provided you with.

Few negative effects if any at all came from purchasing the Louisiana territory from the French. Imagine all of the good things that would have never happened if Louisiana was never bought. Where would we be today? Would we have settled our ties with the French another way, like possibly by having a war? Let us thank Jefferson for being such a wise president and buying Louisiana.

1 comment:

Ms. Sackstein said...

Good facts about the louisianna Purchase for this essay... As you mentioned in your reflection, repetition at the end here is a little bit of an issue, but it is still well written.