The history of the various transactions by which the territory of North America was exchanged by wholesale among the different world powers several times during the period of exploration and conquest in the new world needs only such reference in the history of Oklahoma as will preface and afford the proper setting for those events which actually concern this state. Oklahoma having once been territorially a part of the French and Spanish Louisiana, which came to our nation under the name of the "Louisiana Purchase," a brief account of that territory up to the purchase will intorduce the more specific history of the "Indian Country."
   The title of France to the Mississippi valley, particularly the region in which we are interested, originated in the daring and ambitious explorations and schemes of empire-building of LaSalle,who fo all the Frenchmen of his time has left the most enduring impress on American history. In 1684 he endeavored to found a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, but missing his destination, built Fort St. Louis on the Texas coast. His enterprise was disastrous, and he himself perished at the hands of assassins while endeavoring to find his way to the Mississippie river and bring succor from the French settlements in Illinois. On his futile attempt the French based, in part, their claim to the region west of the Mississipi, and in sending an expedition from Mexico to thwart his colony the Spanish took the first step in the contest for this intermediate country that was not finally settled until the treaty between the United States and Mexico in the vicinity of Mobile bay in 1699, and twenty years later New Orleans had become the principal town of the colony.
  The French retained "La Louisiane" until 1763. Four years before, General Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abraham at Quebec had broken French power in America, and the treaty of Paris, at the close of the Seven Years' war in Europe, closed the French era in the history of the new world. By that treaty all the country east of the Mississippi, except the Floridas, passed to England, and in turn, except Canada, after the American Revolution, became the new nation of the United States. But to the west of the Mississippi, in the treaty of 1763, the French ceded all their claims to Spain as reward for the latter's alliance during the Seven Year's war.¹
  From 1763 practically until the Loiusiana Purchase, the western half of the Mississippi valley, including the present Oklahoma

 ¹The words of the grant were: "His Most Chrisitan Majesty cedes in entire possession, purely and simply, without exception, to his Catholic Majesty and his successors in perpetuity, all the country known under the name of Louisiana, as well as New Orleans and the island in which that place stands.

was Spanish territory, and Spanish laws and civilization prevailed and long left their impress on the country about the mouth of the Mississippi. In the meantime Daniel Boone and other frontiersmen had piloted the American pioneers from the original colonies across the mountains to the Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio country, and before the close of the century the Spanish on the west of the Mississippi were confronted by the determined front of the American colonists on the east bank. The demands of the Kentucky colonists for the free use of the river, including commercial privileges at the Spanish town of New Orleans, almost brought on war between American and Spain. The Jay treaty of 1795 was only a temporary stay to the American advance westward, and the continued presence of a foreign power on the other side of the river would have resulted in a conflict between the two civilizations. As it was, the Louisiana Purchase merely delayed the contest until it was involved in the Texas question; otherwise, a war of conquest against the Spanish territory of the southwest might have preceded the acquisition of the Oklahoma country instead of a peaceable bargain of sale.
  Louisiana, at the time of its transfer to the United States, was not actually in the possession of the French—a fact that is not generally recognized by most persons who refer to "our purchase of Louisiana territory from France in 1803."² The inordinate ambitions of Napoleon, whose position as master of Europe was assured by the end of the eighteenth century, involved the recovery of the territory of Louisiana lost to France by the cession of 1763 and the reconquest of Santo Domingo, which had revolted against French rule under the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture. In exchange for an Italian kingdom the king of Spain signed away, at the treaty of San Idlefonso, October 1, 1800, the territory of Louisiana to Napoleon with the same limits it had had before 1763. The treaty was secret, and its provisions were not known for a certainty in America for nearly a year. In the meantime a French army proceeded to Santo Domingo. Following the conquest of that island, it was the intention to extend French occupation to Louisiana and re-establish New France in western America. The army was beaten down by the genius of the negro Toussaint and the scourge of fever. Hard pressed by his enemies at home, and unable to continue a war in a distant island, Napoleon had to witness the complete collapse of his schemes for a western empire, and in the possession of Louisiana had a title that he could never reinforce by actual occupation. Furthermore, he feared that England's navy might, without obstacle, seize the territory and gain a vast addition to its growing world empire.³

 ²Napoleon did not have possession of Louisiana when he sold it to the United States, or even, for that matter, when the ratifications of the treaty were exchanged at Washington." Channing, The Jeffersonian System, pp. 81, 82
.  ³De Marbois, one of the negotiators of the treaty effecting the Louisiana Purchase, in his History of Louisiana (1828), attributed to Napoleon these reasons for disposing of the territory: "I wish to repair the fault of the French negotiator who abandoned it in 1763. Some lines of treaty have restored it to me, and I have scarcely recovered when I must expect to lose it. But if it slips from me it will one day cost dearer to those who oblige me to deprive myself of it than to those to whom I wish to deliver it. The English have successively taken from France, Canada, Isle Royal, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the richest parts of Asia. They are at work to agitate St. Domingo. They shall not have the Mississippi, which they covet. Louisiana is nothing in comparison with their acquisitions throughout the globe, and yet the jealousy which

This was the situation when Jefferson and his administration became factors in the disposition of this territory. The Mississippi settlers, already irritated by their contact with a Spanish government, were not less displeased when they learned that Louisiana had been turned over to the French. The Spanish authorities at New Orleans, in 1802, by again closing the port to American commerce, kindled indignation throughout the west, and Jefferson, whose political support was strongest among the Kentuckians, at once took measures to remove the dangers that threatened either political disruption of the west or an international war. The negotiations cannot be described in detail, however interesting the story is as a part of American history. Napoleon was willing to sell for a few million francs territory that he could not protect. Jefferson was convinced of the political wisdom, regardless of constitutional restrictions, of securing the port of New Orleans to the free use of American commerce. Negotiations were undertaken in Paris between Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe, the American representatives, and Marbois, the agent of Napoleon. For the sum of fifteen million dollars the western half of the most valuable river valley in the world was ceded to the United States, the treaty being dated April 30, 1803.⁴ On the following November 30, Napoleon's agent, Laussat, received possession of the territory from the Spanish governor. For seventeen days only the nominal possession to the territory rested in France, and then, (Dec. 16, 1803), William C. C. Claiborne accepted it in turn under the dominion of the stars and stripes.⁵
  The limits of the Louisiana Purchase were never definitely defined. By the treaty of 1800, Spain ceded to Napoleon "the colony or province of Louisiana, with the same extent it now has in the hands of Spain and other states." This clause was copied into the convention with the United States. What extent the purchases had neither the American ambassadors knew, nor could they find out from the French. It remained for a subsequent treaty with Spain to define the western boundary as the Sabine and Red rivers. All of the present state of

the return of this colony under the French dominion causes them proves to me that they desire to get possession of it, and it is thus they will begin the war. They have twenty vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. They overrun those seas as sovereign, whilst our affairs in St. Domingo grow worse and worse since the death of LeClerc. The conquest of Louisiana would be easy if they only took the trouble of making a descent there. I have not a moment to lose in putting it out of their reach. I do not know whether they are not there. It is according to their practice, and were I in their place I would not have waited. I wish, if there is yet time for it, to take from them even the idea of ever possessing the colony. I think of ceding it to the United States. I can scarcely say that I cede it to them; for it is not yet in our possession. If I leave ever so little time to our enemies I shall only transmit an empty title to these republicans whose friendship I seek. They only ask of me one town [New Orleans] in Louisiana, but I already consider the whole colony as entirely lost, and it appears to me that in the hands of this growing republic it will be more useful to the policy and even to the commerce of France that if I attempt to retain it."

 ⁴After he signed the treaty, Livingston is reported to have said,a s he took the hand of Marbois, "We have lived long, but htis is the noblest work of our lives."

 ⁵During the brief period of French occupancy, a code of French laws was published for the government of Louisiana. Though it contained many features of provisions of the celebrated Code Napoleon, that system as such never did prevail as a basis for legal procedure, since the Code wasnot promulgated in France until March, 1804.