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It began with negotiations between the US and France to allow the US to purchase the port and city of New Orleans from France. However Napoleon decided he needed more money than the US was offering to help finance his wars in Europe and countered with an offer to sell all of France's remaining territory in North America if the US offered a larger sum of money.

Nobody had surveyed these territories and neither the US or France really knew what lands were involved in the deal nor their boundaries. This was why the US had to send the Lewis and Clark Expedition after the purchase to evaluate and estimate the lands they had purchased and their potential resources.

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8y ago

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