The Louisiana purchase was one of the biggest real estate deals in history. It encompassed all or part of 15 current U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.
The U.S.A. paid Napoleon Bonaparte about 15 million dollars for about 828,800 square miles known as the Louisiana territory and overnight, the United States of America doubled in size.
Of course, France didn't actually own the land, except in their imagination. The People had been living on that since long before there ever was a "France" or a USA and they were living there still, in a way that only centuries later would be called "sustainable".
But Napleon Bonaparte knew that France had acquired imagining rights for this territory from Spain, who were the first Europeans to imagine they owned it. The Spanish also imagined that the French wouldn't fuck them on the deal, which included a clause about never ceding title
said lands to anybody who spoke English. Too bad for you, Spain!
The Americans wanted more whatever and Naploleon was broke, so documents were signed, bullion was shipped and Americans new and old rushed west to get free land!
You can just imagine how upset they were when they got out west and found there were people and bison all over the land they had pioneered in imagining was theirs.
What happened next wasn't pretty, and that ugly still lives. Then, it was called
"winning the west", but nowadays we call it "ethnic cleansing", and "crimes against humanity".
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