What Was The Louisiana Purchase

When Louisiana was under Spanish Rule the US was able to negotiate a treaty that allowed US farmers to be able to use the waterways, specifically the Mississippi River, as a means of transporting crops and other goods. When the US decided to negotiate this same deal when Louisiana came under French rule again, the French offered the United States the option to purchase all of Louisiana. So, in 1803 the United States government purchased the 828,000 square miles of land known as Louisiana from France.
This purchase known as the Louisiana Purchase cost the United States $15 million and it significantly increased the size of the United States. Other than having access to the waterways this purchase helped ease the worries of President Thomas Jefferson and other slaveholders. Slaveholders were worried that more slave rebellions would happen under French rule and that US slaves would be inspired to have rebellions of their own. So, by purchasing Louisiana Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the United States government were able to calm US slaveholders fears of there being US slave rebellions as destructive as the rebellions in French territories. The Louisiana Purchased helped grow the number of United States slaves and the slave trade.
This resulted in many white farmers in the lower Mississippi Valley to switch from growing indigo and tobacco to sugar and cotton because sugar and cotton were the more profitable crops. As the demand for sugar and cotton grew, more and more farmers came to this area to grow these crops. The new and old farmers needed more slave labor to work their fields to keep up with the increasing demand for these crops. So, these farmers bought many slaves to help in the cultivation of these crops. As more farmers kept purchasing slaves the slave population grew from over 5,000 in 1770 to over 149,000 in