The Cabildo: The Louisiana Purchase Transfer

Why is it significant?

Walk under the Spanish colonial stone arches of The Cabildo and rest your hand against one of the massive stuccoed pillars.

Key Facts

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Walk under the Spanish colonial stone arches of The Cabildo and rest your hand against one of the massive stuccoed pillars. Erected between seventeen ninety-five and seventeen ninety-nine following the great city fires, this building was the seat of the Spanish cabildo, or city council, when Spain governed Louisiana.

Look up at the second-floor Sala Capitular, the grand council chamber. Inside that room on December twentieth, eighteen zero three, history shifted forever: American commissioners James Wilkinson and William C.C. Claiborne signed the final transfer papers for the Louisiana Purchase! For fifteen million dollars, President Thomas Jefferson bought eight hundred and twenty-eight thousand square miles from Napoleon Bonaparte, doubling the size of the United States overnight.

The museum inside holds extraordinary relics: including the authentic bronze death mask of Napoleon Bonaparte, cast by his personal physician Dr. Antommarchi on the lonely island of Saint Helena just days after the emperor's death in eighteen twenty-one.

Walk down Saint Peter Street toward the weathered wooden shutters of Preservation Hall.