{"id":1789,"date":"2026-02-06T20:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/1789\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T20:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:54:12","slug":"the-lessons-for-greenland-from-louisiana-sold-for-next-to-nothing-by-napoleon-in-1803","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/1789\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lessons for Greenland From Louisiana, Sold for Next to Nothing by Napoleon in 1803"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The United States purchased 40% of its current territory from other nations, and the purchase of Louisiana from France was the best deal in its entire history.<\/p>\n

For the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence in July 2026, Donald Trump dreams of winning a 51st star on the American flag. Since the annexation, in 1975, of the Northern Mariana Islands (477 km\u00b2 and 50,000 inhabitants) in the Philippine Sea in the Western Pacific, the world\u2019s leading economic and military power has not seen any further expansion of its territory<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland,\u201d the man from the White House host, a real estate developer by profession, hammered home while pledging not to use force to achieve his goals.<\/p>\n


\n Passer la publicit\u00e9
\n<\/a> <\/p>\n

Greenland and its 2,186,066 km\u00b2 (four times the size of metropolitan France), that is the area of the Louisiana Territory (2,\u200a144\u200a,478 km2) that France, under Napoleon Bonaparte sold to the Americans in 1803.<\/p>\n

The Louisiana Purchase encompassed not only what would become the current state bearing its name, but also about 10 other states. In reality, all the land stretching from both sides of the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mountains, represents 22.3% of the Union\u2019s current area. With a single stroke of the pen, the Treaty of Paris of 1803 was signed; and its principal negotiators being Talleyrand for France and U.S. President James Monroe, the union of the 13 British colonies doubled its original area.<\/p>\n

$7 per square kilometer<\/p>\n

As for the price of the transaction, 80 million Franc Germinals, or a little over $15 million (approximately 342 million today\u2019s greenbacks), obtained through a loan from Barings Bank \u2014 it made everyone very happy. Having become Emperor of the French the following year, Napoleon was able to finance his military campaigns and conquer continental Europe. For their part, the Americans recognized that at $7 per square kilometer, they had made a very good deal, the best in their history. \u201cThe greatest bargain in our history,\u201d wrote in The New York Times in 1953, at the time of the 150th anniversary of the agreement.<\/p>\n

Our New York colleague was thus pleading France\u2019s case to American taxpayers, pleading for financial aid from the IMF and Uncle Sam. In 1953, the Fourth Republic was bankrupt.<\/p>\n

Louisiana, ceded at a bargain price, it is now acknowledged, inaugurated a very long list of land purchases from the former European colonizing nations established in America. Among the most notable transactions, Florida was bought from Spain in 1819. Having become independent in 1821, after 11 years of war with the Spanish armies, Mexico ceded a vast portion of its country to its northern neighbor in 1848 (1.37 million km\u00b2) for $15 million. Beset by financial difficulties, Russia under Alexander II agreed to relinquish the 1.7 million km2 from Alaska for the modest sum of $7.2 million in 1867.<\/p>\n


\n Passer la publicit\u00e9
\n<\/a> <\/p>\n

Sometimes the sale of territories took place at the end of armed conflicts, as with the Philippines, bought from Spain, and which did not become independent until 1946. In total, the current geography of the United States was formed by 40% of land purchases with hard cash.<\/p>\n

A few acres of snow<\/p>\n

Very quickly, this mercantile expansionist policy became part of an explicit strategy. The “Monroe Doctrine” of 1823 (named after the 5th president of the United States) prohibits any European intervention”in the affairs of the Americas.”Alongside this, another body of doctrine emerged: the notion of the United States\u2019 “Manifest Destiny,” which appeared in 1845 to justify the conquest of the West. It was a quasi-messianic mission. This is also the founding myth of the “new frontier,” which the pioneer was tasked with pushing back. The concept of the “frontier” was created at the end of the 19th century by the historian Frederick Jackson Turner, which defined the line of encounter between “civilization and savagery”.<\/p>\n

Denmark was not spared from the systematic purchase of territories from the old European nations that had colonized the Western Hemisphere. In 1917, Copenhagen agreed to sell the Danish Virgin Islands, deemed strategic by the Americans for controlling the Caribbean, for $25 million in gold. However, the numerous requests to buy Greenland \u2014 dating back to 1867, the year Alaska was ceded \u2014 never came to fruition. In 1946, at the dawn of the Cold War, President Harry Truman made a firm offer, putting $100 million on the table, payable in gold bullion. Given the soaring price of gold, from $35 per ounce to over $5,000 last week, this would value Greenland at $14.3 billion today.<\/p>\n

This is, to date, the only official estimate ever made by a U.S. government. What are these really worth? “A few acres of snow,” as Voltaire described Canada in the 18th century? Washington think tanks are having a field day. Based on natural resources, the American Action Forum, a center-right group, estimates the world\u2019s largest island (excluding Australia) at $4.4 trillion in a study published in January 2025. Or, based on land wealth, using Iceland as a benchmark, at $2.8 trillion.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump says he wants the island for security reasons. The geographical saga of the liberated former British colonies began with the Louisiana Purchase, and it must end, according to him, with the acquisition of “this piece of ice.” Is it pure coincidence that Trump appointed Jeff Landry, governor of the state of Louisiana, as special envoy to Greenland? Quite a symbol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States purchased 40% of its current territory from other nations, and the purchase of Louisiana from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[184,57,2156,2154,2155],"class_list":{"0":"post-1789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-greenland","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-greenland","10":"tag-groenland","11":"tag-louisiane","12":"tag-napoleon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}