A Once In A Lifetime Opportunity...
Now On View At The Historic New Orleans Collection

Key Documents and Artifacts of the Louisiana Purchase

In celebration of the Bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase, The Historic New Orleans Collection is presenting an exhibition that focuses upon the domestic and international events and personalities that surrounded the purchase. The exhibition, entitled "A Fusion of Nations, A Fusion of Cultures: Spain, France, the United States, and the Louisiana Purchase," opened January 14 and runs through June 7, 2003. The exhibition is free and open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 am until 4:30 pm at 533 Royal Street.

The names of Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon Bonaparte are well known as the heads of state who orchestrated the Louisiana Purchase treaty. But other players, treaties, and agreements from centuries before helped set in motion the 1803 transfer of Louisiana to the United States. Brought together for the first time, the documents that made the Louisiana Purchase possible will be exhibited in "A Fusion of Nations, A Fusion of Cultures." From the earliest 16th-century maps showing what would become Louisiana, to the famed Livingston letter that *purchased a continent,* the exhibition unites more than 100 items from museums and archives of France, Spain, the Netherlands, the United States, and The Historic New Orleans Collection. Accompanying the documents are maps of the territory, portraits of principal figures involved in the negotiations, and paintings depicting the European sites associated with many of the treaties. Also displayed are the financial papers from British and Dutch banking firms that were used in the purchase of Louisiana. In one of history*s ironies, it was this funding, secured from an English banker, that Napoleon used to continue his war against the British.

Running concurrently in an adjoining gallery is the exhibition "Napoleon*s Eyewitness: Pierre Clement Laussat." Laussat, Napoleon*s newly appointed colonial prefect of Louisiana, arrived in New Orleans to assume his post and discovered that France had decided to sell Louisiana to the United States. The exhibition, of more than 75 maps, documents, paintings, and artifacts, traces Laussat*s activities in the transfer of Louisiana from one nation to another.

The purchase of this vast land of Louisiana was a momentous event in the history of the United States. It effectively doubled the size of the country and insured western expansion, economic growth through undisputed waterways, and a population with a diverse cultural background.

For more information concerning the exhibitions and program schedules, call The Historic New Orleans Collection at 523-4662 or go to their website at www.hnoc.org.