¹     The Louisiana Territory was an area of 828,000 square miles of land that stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains that was owned by France. France had turned this territory over to Spain in 1762. By 1800, France had gotten the territory back by a secret treaty.
 
²     Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to make French the great global empire of the world. He wanted to use Louisiana as a trade center for the island of Hispaniola where Haitians lived. The Haitian people had begun a rebellion. Napoleon sent troops to the island to conquer the Haitian people and squash the rebellion. However, his army lost thousands of soldiers. Not all had died at the hands of the Haitians. Most of them died from Yellow Fever. After a short period of time, Napoleon withdrew all his troops from Hispaniola.
 
³     Hispaniola was a very important part of the Louisiana Territory for Napoleon because of his idea about trade. Since his troops had not conquered the island, he figured that the whole territory was really useless to him. So, in April of 1803, he offered to sell the territory to the United States for $15 million.

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