Napoleon's Rise to Power

The Corsican Outsider Who Sold America Its Middle

In 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the island of Corsica. Corsica had been sold to France by the Genoese a year before. The family was minor nobility, but they had little money. Napoleon spoke Italian, not French. He was poor. He was an outsider. He was not supposed to become anything.

He became Emperor of France. He conquered most of Europe. He defeated the armies of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. He reformed the French legal system, established the Napoleonic Code, and reshaped the continent. He also sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States for 15 million dollars. The sale doubled the size of the United States. It ended French ambitions in North America. It gave Napoleon the money to fight the wars that would eventually destroy him.

The sale was not a gift. It was a calculation. Napoleon needed money. He needed to focus on Europe. He did not want to fight a war with the United States over territory he could not defend. He sold the land. The Americans bought it. The deal was done. The man who had started as an outsider had sold the heart of the continent to the nation that would become the world's greatest power.

What Everyone Knows

Napoleon is remembered as a military genius, a conqueror, a man who reshaped Europe. His battles are studied in military academies. His reforms are studied in law schools. His life is the subject of thousands of books, films, and documentaries. He is one of the most famous figures in history.

What is less often emphasized is that Napoleon was also a salesman. The Louisiana Purchase was the largest land sale in history. It was also a fire sale. Napoleon needed money. He sold the land. The price was 15 million dollars. The land was 828,000 square miles. The price was 3 cents an acre. The deal was a bargain. It was also a necessity.

What History Actually Shows

Napoleon came to power in 1799, after a coup that overthrew the Directory. He was 30. He had been a general, a hero of the Italian campaigns, a man who had fought his way out of poverty and obscurity. He was ambitious. He was ruthless. He was also practical.

The Louisiana Territory had been claimed by France in 1682. It was vast. It stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. It was mostly empty. France had lost it to Spain after the Seven Years' War. Napoleon had taken it back in 1800. He had plans for it. He wanted to create a French empire in North America. The plans were expensive. The wars in Europe were more expensive.

In 1803, Napoleon was preparing to invade England. He needed money. The French treasury was empty. The war in Haiti, where the French army was trying to put down a slave rebellion, was costing more than it was worth. Napoleon decided to cut his losses. He sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States. The deal was negotiated by Robert Livingston and James Monroe. The price was 15 million dollars. The money was wired to Paris. Napoleon used it to build his army.

The Part That Got Buried

The Louisiana Purchase was not a sale that Napoleon wanted to make. He wanted to keep the territory. He wanted to build an empire in North America. He could not. The war in Haiti was unwinnable. The war in Europe was more important. He sold the land because he had to.

The Americans did not know what they were buying. The territory was not mapped. Its boundaries were not defined. Its resources were not known. The Americans were buying land that they had never seen, that they did not control, that was full of Native American tribes who had not agreed to sell it. They bought it anyway. The price was too good to pass up.

Napoleon did not regret the sale. He needed the money. He got it. He used it to build the army that would win the Battle of Austerlitz, that would destroy the Austrian and Russian armies, that would make him the master of Europe. The sale was a transaction. It was also a turning point. The land that Napoleon sold became the United States. The country that bought it became a continent.

The Ripple Effect

The Louisiana Purchase changed the United States. The country that had been confined to the Atlantic coast now had the Mississippi River, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains. It had room to grow. It had resources. It had a future. The purchase was the foundation of American expansion. It was also the end of French power in North America.

Napoleon did not live to see what his sale had wrought. He was defeated in 1814, exiled to Elba, returned, was defeated again at Waterloo, and spent the last years of his life on Saint Helena, a prisoner of the British. He died in 1821. He was 51. The United States that he had sold the Louisiana Territory to was already a different country. It would become the country that would surpass France, that would surpass England, that would become the power that he had wanted France to be.

The Line That Says It All

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on an island that had been sold to France the year before he was born, grew up poor, spoke Italian as his first language, and became Emperor of France—and when he needed money to fight the wars that would make him the master of Europe, he sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States for 3 cents an acre, and the country that bought it grew into the country that would, a century later, be the power that he had wanted France to be.