Big Picture

Questions

1. By what name was Haiti known in the eighteenth century when it was a French colony?
2. Why was Haiti the crown jewel of the French colonial empire?
3. How was the Haitian Revolution a boon to American expansionist goals?
4. For how much did Napoleon sell the Louisiana Territory to the U.S.?
5. What was the long-term trouble created by the Louisians Purchase?

Answers

1. Saint-Domingue.
2. It was the leading producer of sugar, one of the world's most valuable commodities.
3. Before 1803, the vast territory to the west of the Mississippi River had belonged to France. But when the Haitians defeated the French in 1802, they ended French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's dream of a new French empire in North America. Napoleon had hoped to use the Louisiana Territory to provide food and supplies to the sugar factories on Saint-Domingue. Without Saint-Domingue and its immense sugar profits, Napoleon had no use for Louisiana, and in 1803 he offered to sell it to the United States.
4. $15 million—less than 3 cents an acre.
5. The Purchase created half a century of sectional conflict, as southern slave states and northern free states jockeyed for control of the new territories. In fact, most of the mileposts that marked the country's dark journey toward Civil War related to the question of slavery in the Louisiana Purchase.