# Is there some disagreement the dollar amount paid for the Louisiana territory? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 10, 2015, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-disagreement-the-dollar-amount-paid-for-the-louisiana-territory/730507 "2015-09-10T11:31:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-disagreement-the-dollar-amount-paid-for-the-louisiana-territory/730507/1 "2015-09-10T11:31:31Z")
Hi Is there some disagreement the dollar amount paid by the US government for the Louisiana territory in 1803? The amount I’ve always seen is 15 million (or 4 cents on the dollar). I’ve never seen it in francs until I opened the link below. This link says > **[Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos](https://www.yahoo.com/)** > > Latest news coverage, email, free stock quotes, live scores and video are just the beginning. Discover more every day at Yahoo! “U.S. finally paid $23,213,568” What was the official amount paid to France? And how much would it be in US dollars today? I look forward to your feedback. davidmich ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-disagreement-the-dollar-amount-paid-for-the-louisiana-territory/730507/2 "2015-09-10T11:34:30Z")
> **[Everything You Need to Know about the Louisiana Purchase](https://www.thoughtco.com/louisiana-purchase-1435017)** > > An overview and history of the Louisiana Purchase, including the Lewis and Clark expedition. The Louisiana Purchase was an incredible deal for the United States, the final cost totaling less than five cents per acre at $15 million (about $283 million in today’s dollars). France’s land was mainly unexplored wilderness, and so the fertile soils and other valuable natural resources we know are present today might not have been factored in the relatively low cost at the time. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-disagreement-the-dollar-amount-paid-for-the-louisiana-territory/730507/3 "2015-09-10T11:36:23Z")
Sorry I miswrote. I meant to write 4 cents per acre. But I would be interested to know if anyone else has seen inconstancies and why that is. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-disagreement-the-dollar-amount-paid-for-the-louisiana-territory/730507/4 "2015-09-10T11:38:07Z")
Sorry I miswrote. I meant to write 4 cents per acre. But I would be interested to know if anyone else has seen inconsistencies and why that is. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-disagreement-the-dollar-amount-paid-for-the-louisiana-territory/730507/5 "2015-09-10T11:45:05Z")
Interest. From [here](http://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-louisiana-purchase) > [@](#): > > On April 30, 1803, U.S. representatives in Paris agreed to pay $15 million for about 828,000 square miles of land that stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. This deal, known as the Louisiana Purchase, nearly doubled the size of the United States… > > Napoleon wanted the money immediately in order to prepare for war with Great Britain. But despite landing Louisiana for less than three cents an acre, the price was more than the United States could afford. As a result, it was forced to borrow from two European banks at 6 percent interest. It did not finish repaying the loan until 1823, by which time the total cost for the Louisiana Purchase had risen to over $23 million. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-disagreement-the-dollar-amount-paid-for-the-louisiana-territory/730507/6 "2015-09-10T11:50:54Z")
Zut your link states “less than 3 cents an acre”. Most sources I’ve seen state less than 4 cents an acre. It’s a significant difference when you add it up. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-disagreement-the-dollar-amount-paid-for-the-louisiana-territory/730507/7 "2015-09-10T15:10:02Z")
The direct purchase cost was under three cents an acre (about 2.8 cents). The _financed_ cost ($23 million) equates to 4.3 cents per acre (828,000 square miles is 529,920,000 acres). So France sold the Lousiana Territory for less than 3 cents per acre but we effectively _paid_ more than that. In reality, we didn’t, because 6% is a pretty good interest rate, but history books are rarely troubled by present value conversions. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-disagreement-the-dollar-amount-paid-for-the-louisiana-territory/730507/8 "2015-09-10T15:30:23Z")
6% has been a pretty good interest rate for most of our lives. Rates are much lower now. It wasn’t a great rate in 1800. Interest rates are determined by three things primarily: (i) the expected real rate of growth, (ii) the expected rate of inflation, and (iii) default risk. I don’t know what (i) was back then for the U.S. Looking back it was quite high, but that easily might not have been imagined. (ii) was pretty low as we and most countries were on a gold standard. (iii) is essentially zero now for the U.S. as we can always print money to pay off debt. Back in 1800 the dollar was redeemable in gold which we could not print. The UK’s borrowing rate in 1800 was about 5% so the US had a default premium of about 1%. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-disagreement-the-dollar-amount-paid-for-the-louisiana-territory/730507/9 "2015-09-10T19:29:10Z")
So the US government borrowed $ 15 million(+) at 6% interest rate. Who bought the US bonds? Would those bonds have been issue to mostly European countries or other states? What kinds of bonds were they? I’ve searched that information but couldn’t find any specifics. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-disagreement-the-dollar-amount-paid-for-the-louisiana-territory/730507/10 "2015-09-10T19:30:22Z")
> **[United States and France conclude the Louisiana Purchase](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/louisiana-purchase-concluded)** > > On April 30, 1803, representatives of the United States and Napoleonic France conclude negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase, a massive land sale that doubles the size of the young American republic. What was known as Louisiana Territory comprised... “Negotiations moved swiftly, and at the end of April the U.S. envoys agreed to pay $11,250,000 and assumed claims of its citizens against France in the amount of $3,750,000.”