Monday, Last day of April

Hint:

Not a wood question precisely, but significant numbers of woods are included.

Monday Answer

The answer is today is the anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, April 30, 1803.

It doubled the size of the United States and established the concept of manifest destiny. The links are that PIERRE SAMUEL DUPONT (still a resident/citizen of France and a powerful aristocrat but visiting America) worked the �back door� of Napoleon�s situation to seed the thought of selling the ISLAND of New Orleans (Isle D�Orleans) to the Americans. It appeared that the port was to be closed to the Americans (French Mercantilism) largely because of the SMUGGLING going on with river traffic (that and treaty problems with Spain and the fact that the British controlled everything up river). If that happened, the whole navigable Mississippi waterway from what is now Cairo, Illinois would have had no cost effective destination for foreign markets. France, who also attempted to dump prisoners into the territory, was basically a slum lord with a small French New Orleans population, and found its position untenable in the face of the Americans, British, and Spain, problems in the Caribbean and sought money to finance other entanglements and campaigns. The purchase for 15 million dollars for not only New Orleans but the whole territory (actually a little over $23 Million with interest) bought the GRASSLANDS of the mid-west and the greatest food basket the world has seen. It also meant that Native Americans as scattered as the FOX, Osage, Blackfoot, Sioux, Mandan and tens of other tribes would be displaced yet again. The purchase made ST. LOUIS as the starting point for distribution of goods, and a center for westward expansion. Today�s ANNIVERSARY is largely forgotten, but I believe it should be celebrated more. Were it not for Thomas Jefferson�s grasp of a big picture and a fight for economic independence we all might be speaking French and be a part of the whole European way of doing things. Mon Dieu!!!