{"product_id":"2940013836174","title":"FIRST ACROSS THE CONTINENT","description":"Chapter I -- A Great Transaction in Land\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe people of the young Republic of the United States were greatly\u003cbr\u003eastonished, in the summer of 1803, to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte,\u003cbr\u003ethen First Consul of France, had sold to us the vast tract of land known\u003cbr\u003eas the country of Louisiana. The details of this purchase were arranged\u003cbr\u003ein Paris (on the part of the United States) by Robert R. Livingston and\u003cbr\u003eJames Monroe. The French government was represented by Barbe-Marbois,\u003cbr\u003eMinister of the Public Treasury.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe price to be paid for this vast domain was fifteen million dollars.\u003cbr\u003eThe area of the country ceded was reckoned to be more than one million\u003cbr\u003esquare miles, greater than the total area of the United States, as the\u003cbr\u003eRepublic then existed. Roughly described, the territory comprised all\u003cbr\u003ethat part of the continent west of the Mississippi River, bounded on the\u003cbr\u003enorth by the British possessions and on the west and south by dominions\u003cbr\u003eof Spain. This included the region in which now lie the States of\u003cbr\u003eLouisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, parts of Colorado, Minnesota, the\u003cbr\u003eStates of Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, a part\u003cbr\u003eof Idaho, all of Montana and Territory of Oklahoma. At that time, the\u003cbr\u003eentire population of the region, exclusive of the Indian tribes that\u003cbr\u003eroamed over its trackless spaces, was barely ninety thousand persons,\u003cbr\u003eof whom forty thousand were negro slaves. The civilized inhabitants\u003cbr\u003ewere principally French, or descendants of French, with a few Spanish,\u003cbr\u003eGermans, English, and Americans.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe purchase of this tremendous slice of territory could not be complete\u003cbr\u003ewithout an approval of the bargain by the United States Senate. Great\u003cbr\u003eopposition to this was immediately excited by people in various parts\u003cbr\u003eof the Union, especially in New England, where there was a very bitter\u003cbr\u003efeeling against the prime mover in this business,--Thomas Jefferson,\u003cbr\u003ethen President of the United States. The scheme was ridiculed by persons\u003cbr\u003ewho insisted that the region was not only wild and unexplored, but\u003cbr\u003euninhabitable and worthless. They derided \"The Jefferson Purchase,\" as\u003cbr\u003ethey called it, as a useless piece of extravagance and folly; and, in\u003cbr\u003eaddition to its being a foolish bargain, it was urged that President\u003cbr\u003eJefferson had no right, under the constitution of the United States, to\u003cbr\u003eadd any territory to the area of the Republic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNevertheless, a majority of the people were in favor of the purchase,\u003cbr\u003eand the bargain was duly approved by the United States Senate; that\u003cbr\u003ebody, July 31, 1803, just three months after the execution of the treaty\u003cbr\u003eof cession, formally ratified the important agreement between the two\u003cbr\u003egovernments. The dominion of the United States was now extended across\u003cbr\u003ethe entire continent of North America, reaching from the Atlantic to the\u003cbr\u003ePacific. The Territory of Oregon was already ours.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis momentous transfer took place one hundred years ago, when almost\u003cbr\u003enothing was known of the region so summarily handed from the government\u003cbr\u003eof France to the government of the American Republic. Few white men had\u003cbr\u003eever traversed those trackless plains, or scaled the frowning ranges of\u003cbr\u003emountains that barred the way across the continent. There were living in\u003cbr\u003ethe fastnesses of the mysterious interior of the Louisiana Purchase many\u003cbr\u003etribes of Indians who had never looked in the face of the white man.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNor was the Pacific shore of the country any better known to civilized\u003cbr\u003eman than was the region lying between that coast and the Big Muddy, or\u003cbr\u003eMissouri River. Spanish voyagers, in 1602, had sailed as far north as\u003cbr\u003ethe harbors of San Diego and Monterey, in what is now California;\u003cbr\u003eand other explorers, of the same nationality, in 1775, extended their\u003cbr\u003ediscoveries as far north as the fifty-eighth degree of latitude. Famous\u003cbr\u003eCaptain Cook, the great navigator of the Pacific seas, in 1778, reached\u003cbr\u003eand entered Nootka Sound, and, leaving numerous harbors and bays\u003cbr\u003eunexplored, he pressed on and visited the shores of Alaska, then called\u003cbr\u003eUnalaska, and traced the coast as far north as Icy Cape. Cold weather\u003cbr\u003edrove him westward across the Pacific, and he spent the next winter at\u003cbr\u003eOwyhee, where, in February of the following year, he was killed by the\u003cbr\u003enatives.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47174732480752,"sku":"2940013836174","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013836174_p0.jpg?v=1763595362","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013836174","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}