Thursday, April 11, 2013

What a real estate deal!

"Napoleon sold the Louisiana Territory [to the USA in 1803]  because he was waging war with Britain and was strapped for cash. He wrongly believed the area a wasteland and hence strongly preferred to retain instead the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which occupied the western half of the island of Hispaniola (the eastern half being the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo). Saint-Domingue boasted a population of 500,000 and plantations of sugar cane, indigo, coffee, and cocoa rich enough to fill 700 ships a year. The French then promptly lost the colony when, in 1804, a successful revolution by black slaves led to the independence of the new nation of Haiti.”

image

From Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich (2006)

No comments: