DeSotoSky
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- Mar 21, 2011
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Hello and welcome to the Sunday Picture Show. Share your Buck knives with others by posting pictures of them here. New or old, plain or custom, user or safe queen, one or a collection, we love to see them all. This weekly tradition was started in 2010 by ItsTooEarly (Armand Hernandez) and Oregon (Steve Dunn). Help keep the tradition alive. Feel free to click that 'LIKE' but lets not let it replace discussing and complimenting each others knives. DeSotoSky (Roger Yost)
On This Day, October 20, 1803, the Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty.
"In this transaction with France, signed on April 30, 1803, the United States purchased 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. For roughly 4 cents an acre, the United States doubled its size, expanding the nation westward."
France controlled/claimed what was known as the Louisiana Trerritory from 1682 to 1762 when it was ceded to Spain at the end of the 7 Years War. As the United States expanded Westward the Mississippi River was becoming more and more strategically important and whoever controlled New Orleans controlled the Mississippi. Not getting into all the intrigue and complexities but France regained control of the Louisiana Territory from Spain in 1800. Spain had been somewhat friendly to our navigation of the Mississippi River and use of the New Orleans ports for shipping of our agricultural goods. But with France in control of New Orleans there was concern as Napoleon was looking to re-establish an Empire in the Americas. Jefferson sent 2 delegates to France authorized to offer $10 million for New Orleans. France was having problems in the Caribbean and a war with Britain was looming and suprisingly offered to sell the whole of the territory for $22 million, negotiated to $15 million with some concessions concerning matters in the Caribbean. Jefferson's delegates quickly jumped on the deal even though it exceeded the authorized $10 million. Keep in mind that the Louisiana Territory was a huge and largely unexplored area not really controlled by France so much as "claimed". What we purchased in a sense was the right to claim it for ourselves. There were lots of complex issues, the native populations, British to the North, and Spanish claims to the West and South. The borders of the territory were not well defined but roughly between the Mississipi and the Stony Mountains (Rockies) and whatever the British were claiming above and the Spanish below. The 49th parallel was established with British Canada by treaties in 1818 and 1846. The Mexican-American war was basically a war of territorial expansion on our part, forcing Mexico into capitulation by our military capture of the Mexican Capitol. (not unlike the present day Russian war of expansion into Ukraine thinking it could capture the Capitol Kiev in 3 days). In the 1848 Treaty ending the war we paid Mexico $15 million in reparations. The greatest land deals in history, we picked up Louisiana Territory($15M), Alaska($10M), and the Southwest/California($15M) for a paltry total of $40 million!!!
Louisiana Purchase - Wikipedia
This week my opening shot is a model 180 Crosslock Hunter with gold BuckCote blades. C180-Z2-0 cat # 2505 c.1997
BuckCote was introduced in the 1997 catalog. The name was changed to Ion Fusion in the 2000 catalog. The reason was to emphasize that it was not a coating but an actual molecular bonding or infusion into the blade metal. I think the single bevel sharpening was not well understood by some as I have seen knives that had been resharpened to a double bevel.
1997 Catalog introduction of BuckCote.
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