A Complex Legacy
As historian Ben Weber noted, the Louisiana Purchase was a dream for some but a nightmare for others. The government encouraged westward migration, and the incoming population to the new territory soared. The newcomers claimed—and often seized—the land and its resources for farming, development, and trade.
— Felix Cohen, legal scholar, 1941
Sioux and Arapaho diplomats meet with U.S. government officials (ca. 1865–1880). Photograph by Mathew B. Brady.
African American men, women, and children being auctioned off to new slaveowners. This illustration by Theodore R. Davis appeared in Harper's Weekly magazine in 1861.
For Native Americans, the eventual outcome of the Louisiana Purchase was disastrous. Throughout the nineteenth century, tribal leaders tried to defend their homelands through negotiations and warfare, but were forced to retreat into reservations. The effects of war, disease, and the loss of hunting and farming lands would prove devastating to Native American tribes.
Since the Louisiana Purchase Treaty did not expressly forbid slavery, plantation owners moving into the territory brought an increasing number of enslaved African Americans. Tensions over the status of slavery in the new territories and states would dominate national politics for over 50 years and eventually become one of the causes of the Civil War.
Take Notes
What were some of the negative consequences of the Louisiana Purchase over time?
Calderwood Writing Course: U.S. History
