8 Things You May Not Know About the Louisiana Purchase
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When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark departed from St. Louis in May 1804 to explore the northern portion of Louisiana, the exact boundaries of the newly acquired territory had yet to be hashed out. Based on an analysis of old French maps, the United States claimed West Florida, an area along the Gulf Coast in present-day Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Spain disputed this until 1819, when the Adams-Onís Treaty gave the United States all of Florida in exchange for surrendering its claim to Texas. In the north, Great Britain and the United States agreed in 1818 to establish the 49th parallel as the border between them from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains.
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This was probably a great day at the office or
bureau when the US got Florida for giving up its claims on Texas (unless your are a Texan, of course). Florida certainly has more attractive
flora if not fauna. They still had to contend with the swamps and their
soupy mix of dangers from alligators to panthers to disease carrying mosquitoes. Maybe, they should have
asked for a discount?