The April 11 Offer of All of Louisiana
- When
- April 11, 1803
- Where
- Paris
On April 11, 1803, days before Monroe's arrival, Barbé-Marbois offered Livingston all of Louisiana for $15 million.
On April 11, 1803, just days before Monroe's arrival in Paris, Treasury Minister François Barbé-Marbois offered Robert R. Livingston all of Louisiana for $15 million, averaging less than three cents per acre. Jefferson had sent Monroe to negotiate a settlement, with instructions to go to London if the Paris talks failed. The Americans feared Napoleon might withdraw the offer at any time, preventing the United States from acquiring New Orleans, so they agreed to the terms.
Sources
- Louisiana Purchase Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-02
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.