Worksheets and No Prep Teaching Resources
Worksheets and No Prep Teaching Resources
Reading Comprehension Worksheets
The Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase
Print The Louisiana Purchase Reading Comprehension with Sixth Grade Work

Print The Louisiana Purchase Reading Comprehension


Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 6 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   8.58

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    rebellion, treaty, area, trade, leader, army, conquer, however, empire, news, died, million, square, global, ceremony, country
     content words:    Louisiana Territory, Mississippi River, Rocky Mountains, Napoleon Bonaparte, United States, President Thomas Jefferson, Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase
By Tammy Scarbrough 		  
1     The Louisiana Territory was an area of 828,000 square miles of land that stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. It was owned by France. France had turned this territory over to Spain in 1762. By 1800, France had gotten the territory back by a secret treaty.
 
2     Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to make France the greatest global empire of the world. He wanted to use Louisiana as a trade center for the island of Hispaniola where Haitians lived. The Haitian people had begun a rebellion. Napoleon sent troops to the island to conquer the Haitian people and squash the rebellion. However, his army lost thousands of soldiers. Not all had died at the hands of the Haitians. Most of them died from yellow fever. After a short period of time, Napoleon withdrew all his troops from Hispaniola.
 
3     Hispaniola was a very important part of the reason for owning the Louisiana Territory for Napoleon because of his idea about trade. Since his troops had not conquered the island, he figured that the whole territory was really useless to him. So, in April of 1803, he offered to sell the territory to the United States for $15 million.

Paragraphs 4 to 5:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable
Weekly Reading Books

          Create Weekly Reading Books

Prepare for an entire week at once!

Feedback on The Louisiana Purchase
Leave your feedback on The Louisiana Purchase   (use this link if you found an error in the story)



Copyright © 2018 edHelper