Spanish Louisiana

In 1763, the Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years’ War, between Great Britain and France and their allies. As a result, France withdrew from North America, and the seven-year global war between the two nations came to a close. All lands west of the Mississippi River were now part of Spanish Louisiana. Native tribes established and strengthened ties with their new trading partners. The Caddos, for instance, quickly made peace with the Spanish. The Spanish, in turn, supplied them with trade goods just as the French had. And the Caddos helped negotiate a treaty between the Spanish and the Wichitas. Though France no longer claimed the region, French trappers and traders remained. The Osages and other Native nations determined their own kinship and trade relationships and decided to include European traders in the larger fur trade network.

MAP 2.2

The Louisiana Purchase and the Adams-Onís Treaty Boundaries

The Louisiana Purchase and the Adams-Onís Treaty boundaries. The purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 included the area that became Indian Territory.

Courtesy of University of Oklahoma Press. Copyright 2020 University of Oklahoma Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Louisiana continued to change hands. It returned to French control in 1800. In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France, sold all of Louisiana to the United States for $15 million. By acquiring this vast amount of land, the United States doubled in size. The area soon to be known as Indian Territory, much of present-day Oklahoma, was part of Louisiana Territory. As a result, President Thomas Jefferson and the US government were now in control of the land where they would eventually force Native nations from the east to resettle.

The Louisiana Purchase and Its Aftermath

Upon signing the Louisiana Purchase, President Jefferson wrote to members of Congress to congratulate them, describing the purchase as “favorable to the immediate interests of our western citizens.” He said it was important to “the peace and security of the nation.” The president concluded that the purchase of the land from France “adds to our country territories so extensive and fertile and to our citizens new brethren to partake of the blessings of freedom and self-governance.” Jefferson quickly began organizing expeditions to explore this newly acquired land. He had high hopes for its future and how the young country could benefit from it.

This purchase also had its critics, though. There was concern that the territory was too large to be controlled and defended. Another concern, which arose after the purchase, was the impact that western settlement and the creation of new states might have on the balance of political power between the North and the South. By the early nineteenth century, the institution of slavery was increasingly a southern institution, with northern states moving away from or abolishing slavery altogether. This addition of new territory complicated that issue, and, as we will see, eventually led to the American Civil War. Moreover, President Jefferson’s assertion that the new land would allow more people the opportunity to enjoy freedom and self-government failed to consider that freedom and self-government were the very rights taken from the Indigenous people already living in Louisiana Territory.