PieFedCame for a bargain, found a fire sale
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PugJesus
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Explanation: The US negotiators for what would become the Louisiana Purchase were initially only going to buy New Orleans for 10 million dollars, which they thought was all that was for sale.
Instead, as Napoleon was attempting to refocus his efforts on Europe, the French offered ALL of their continental claims for only 15 million dollars.
One expects the discount was irresistible, and the US did, indeed, purchase the entirety of the claim.
Did America know where the Louisiana Purchase ended? Had anyone actually explored that far at the time?
Yeah, there was a broad understanding of where the Louisiana Purchase was. In fact, when Lewis and Clark performed their famous expedition, they deliberately overshot the borders of the Louisiana Purchase, quietly and illegally making their way through Spanish claims to the west, just so they could make it a coast-to-coast exploration of North America.
It wasn’t well explored or mapped, but its borders were largely defined by major known geographic features.
Considering that Napoleon used the money for his war chest and achieved the height of his territorial power in Europe a few years later (1807/1812), it wasn’t even that bad of a trade for the French - clearly, central Europe was worth more than a big swath of mostly undeveloped and extremely thinly populated land that was still occupied by unconquered natives.