"CBS Sunday Morning" in need of a history lesson?

Relatively recently [December 20, 2009], "CBS Sunday Morning" discussed the Louisiana Purchase, illustrating the purchase with a map which included Texas within the purchase. [IPBiz neglected to mention the error at the time.] The connection to Napolean's failure in Haiti was noted as a motivation for France being willing to part with such a large piece of territory.

In light of the focus on Haiti in the last week, it was foreseeable that "CBS Sunday Morning" on January 17, 2010 would re-visit the connection of Haiti to the USA's acquisition of the Louisiana Territory. What was not foreseeable was that "CBS Sunday Morning" would utilize the same [erroneous] map depiction of the Lousiana Purchase as including Texas.

One can obtain a more accurate depiction of the purchase from wikipedia.

Of the Haiti connection, wikipedia writes:

Napoleon had failed to re-enslave Haiti; he therefore abandoned his plans to rebuild France's New World empire. Without revenues from sugar colonies in the Caribbean, Louisiana had little value to him. On April 10, 1803 Napoleon told Treasury minister Barbé-Marbois that he was considering selling the whole Louisiana Territory to the U.S.. On April 11, 1803, just days before Monroe's arrival, Barbé-Marbois offered Livingston all of Louisiana instead of just New Orleans, at a price of $15 million, equivalent to about $213 million in present day terms.

France turned New Orleans over to the USA on December 20, 1803.

For a patent connection, note that IPBiz has repeatedly observed that a patent cannot be valued in the absence of a business plan designed to exploit it. The territory within the Louisiana Purchase [for symbolism call it a patent land grant] was the same whether owned by France of the USA. By 1803, France had no business plan to exploit it; the United States thought that it might [The USA was initially seeking purchase of only New Orleans, which had self-evident value.] The Louisiana Purchase, just as many patents, had a different value to each party. The "patent" had little value to France, but great potential value to the USA.

Returning to "CBS Sunday Morning," see also:
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2010/01/was-1959-year-that-changed-everything.html

Also

RECAP: December 20, 2009


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THE ALMANAC: Louisiana Purchase

**While "CBS Sunday Morning" made the connection between Haiti and the Louisiana Purchase, it did not make the connection between Haiti and John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry. For that, one could review, for example, an essay by Clavin entitled
From Haiti to Harpers Ferry: John Brown's Raid and the Counterrevolution of Secession , including the text:

John Brown's dream of a second Haitian Revolution was for most Americans a nightmare. Following the abolitionist invasion of Harpers Ferry, fear of a second Haitian Revolution turned to hysteria as writers, politicians, and ordinary men and women pondered the likelihood of racial Armageddon below the Mason-Dixon Line.