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#1576 Ten Things About the Louisiana Purchase
Listening to America
English - December 05, 2023 00:49 - 1 hour - 89 MB - ★★★★★ - 910 ratingsHistory Society & Culture american history politics unitedstates Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Previous Episode: #1575 Mind the Gap: Between Presidential Administrations
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This week on Listening to America, Clay Jenkinson’s conversation with regular guest Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky: Ten Things about the Louisiana Purchase. In the spring of 1803 Napoleon sold the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States for three cents per acre. At 525 million acres, or 828,000 square miles, it was the greatest land sale in human history. What was Jefferson’s role in all of this? Why did President Jefferson believe that the purchase might be technically unconstitutional? What about the Native peoples who already lived in that vast territory? Why did Napoleon sell? And why didn’t Jefferson attempt to stop the spread of slavery into the American southwest?