What Did I Just Purchase?

As most real estate transactions go you never really know what you've purchased until you have had a chance to live in it for awhile. That's when you find out your neighbor likes to run around in the back yard every midnight barking at the moon and the water pipes under the concrete slab are leaking.

Seems President Thomas Jefferson found himself in sort of a similar situation when he purchased Louisiana on behalf of the people of the USA back on July 4, 1803, the new Nation's 27th birthday. What the hell have I just done? What have I purchased?

Now getting to the end of this remarkable transaction is quite the story in itself - suffice to say, we purchased it from Napolean Bonaparte and France. Seems that Napolean ended up with Louisiana from Spain in a convoluted deal - like I said this was a real estate transaction, aren't they all convoluted?
It's important to understand that the geographical boundaries of Louisiana at the time were defined as the watershed of the Mississippi River - one enormous tract of land. Since the Missouri River, the longest river in America (and much longer than the Mississipi) is a tributary to Ole Man River you're talking a major expanse of land, rich in natural resources, of what is now the north, south and central chunk of the USA.
Napolean was ready to unload it because he had other fish to fry and Lousiana was not big on his current list of conquests. Further he knew that the US could swoop in at any minute and simply take it from him - his Armies/Navies were spread so thin at the time he wouldn't have stood a chance. So he basically has a territory that he owns but can not control. He wanted to get rid of it so badly he would have given it away. But he was French and the French just don't give things away, they want a little something you know, for the effort.
Plus, Napolean and the people of France loved America and he saw this as an opportunity to forge good relations with an up and coming Nation that also hated the British and Spanish. Napolean may have been a bit of a nut but he was right on the money with this one.

Now all TJ ever wanted out of the deal was to purchase the area surrounding New Orleans to protect US commerce and trade from the British, French and Spanish thru the port city. He sent James Monroe over to Paris to negotiate and got Congressional approval for money to purchase New Orleans.

One can only imagine TJ's excitement when he got the message from Monroe that France wanted to sell ALL of Louisiana for the budget he got approved for New Orleans! Done deal, where do I sign mon ami?

Now TJ's thinking - what the hell have I/we bought?

Let's back up a couple of years - hang in there folks, this is going somewhere related to our trip, trust me.....

TJ was always fascinated with the west. In addition to being a world class expert in architecture, botany, ethnology, philosophy and a host of ther esoteric studies he was an avid student of geography....oh yeh, he was also one damn shrewd politician, one of the best and one of my favorite Presidents.

He started discussions with confidant Merriweather Lewis a couple of years earlier to lead an expedition west to find the most practicable, all weather, all water route across to the Pacific Ocean - remember this was way before the Louisiana Purchase discussions. This would essentially rule out any European nation from ruling the high seas as the USA would now have the quickest way to transport goods to the Orient from our West coast ports.

He and Lewis knew everything east of the Mississippi and a little about the Missouri River west to present day Bismark, ND from fur traders. They further knew a little about the Pacific Northwest and Columbia River from merchant seaman and traders along the North American west coast. But they had no idea what lay between ND and the Columbia River. They knew there were mountains but these guys were used to the Appalachians with many river systems crossing them so the Rockies couldn't be so bad, right? Wrong!
Let's go exploring, shant we Mr. Lewis?
So TJ gets Congress to pony up the dough to cover the costs of the expedition and off Lewis goes with his associate Clark and a 32 man expedition team called the Corps of Discovery. It was an enormous undertaking and one fraught with peril right from the beginning.
They finally make it to where I'm writing this post from - the very fine Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Cape Disappointment, WA - and they see the glorious Pacific Ocean for the first time.



It was November, 1805 and they decided to head a bit further south and establish a winter camp near present day Astoria, OR.
Fort Clatsop was built in about 2 weeks and the conditions were about as miserable as you can imagine. They were here until March 23, 1806 (and couldn't wait to leave) when they started their 4000 mile journey BACK to St. Louis. During this time it rained every day except for 16 days, the local stock of elk meat was down to nothing and sickness was starting to deplete the Corps.



Miraculously they made it back but had bad news for TJ - sorry sir, but there is no practicable, all weather, all water route across the west but it is doable. The Continental Divide prevented the all water crossing idea but, based on the journey, there were options to keeping the west coast trading post concept alive and well.

Since TJ sold this expedition on the all water route concept to Congress his political adversaries, notably the Federalists, were all over him labeling it a failure and a waste of taxpayer expenditures because no all water route had been discovered. The Feds did not hold a majority in Congress and were looking for any reason to discredit the current administration for the upcoming Presidential elections. Ah politics, ain't it great?
They failed to see the substantial benefit this expedition achieved for the future of our great Nation. They also failed to appreciate the huge balls that these guys had in undertaking what is arguably the most daring exploration of all time - liken it to sending a manned mission to Mars and then multiply that by 100.

So here we sit at the mid point of their expedition and they have 4000 more miles to go back to St. Louis...about the distance we are travelling from San Diego to Anchorage - under much better conditions and accoutrements I must say.

I walked a bit of the Fort Clatsop to Beach trail yesterday. A 6.5 mile walk that Lewis' men walked just about everyday while here. It crosses the busy highway 101 corridor with strip malls, Burger Kings, grocery stores, tatoo parlors, smoke shops and Kia dealerships. It occured to me, what would Messr's. Lewis and Clark think about all of this some scant 200 plus years later? Certainly they would be asking what in God's name is a Kia?
Or maybe they might be thinking what the hell have we done? I don't know about that but I do know this - this is one big and beautiful country we call home and we owe our forefathers for their vision and most importantly their cajones. What we do with it is up to us and that's exactly the way they would want it to be.

By the way if you want to learn more about this fascinating voyage and early American history check out Stephen E. Ambrose's  book entitled Undaunted Courage. It would make an excellent read for the upcoming Memorial Day holiday.

Take care everyone and thanks for your patience in indulging me with a subject I love.
Stay tuned...we're heading for the land of fairies...hoh, hoh, hoh.