Answer:French and American representatives faced a vexing issue when they met in Paris in April 1803 to negotiate a treaty by which the United States would purchase the province of Louisiana from France. Since most of the territory to be exchanged had never been explored, surveyed, or mapped by any European nation or the United States, the negotiators were unable to include within the treaty any accurate delimitation or precise definition of the boundaries of Louisiana.
Previous treaties transferring ownership of Louisiana between France and Spain never included any boundary delineation. For those reasons, no one knew what the Purchase meant in size, nor did anyone have a realistic conception of how its overall terrain should appear on a map.
All that the representatives knew was that the territory historically had been bordered on the south by the Gulf of Mexico and on the east by the Mississippi River between its mouth and its uncertain headwaters. Undeterred by the prospects of such a limitation, or perhaps inspired by the possibilities it offered, the American representatives agreed, according to the ambiguous language of the treaty of cession, to receive on behalf of the United States "the Colony or Province of Louisiana with the same extent it now has in the hands of Spain and that it had when France possessed it."
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