Adams–Onís Treaty

Map showing results of the Adams–Onís Treaty.

The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819, settled a border dispute in North America between the United States and Spain. The treaty was the result of increasing tensions between the U.S. and Spain regarding territorial rights at a time of weakened Spanish power in the New World. In addition to ceding Florida to the United States, the treaty settled a boundary dispute along the Sabine River in Texas and firmly established the boundary of U.S. territory and claims through the Rocky Mountains and west to the Pacific Ocean in exchange for the U.S. paying residents' claims against the Spanish government up to a total of $5,000,000 and relinquishing its own claims on parts of Texas west of the Sabine River and other Spanish areas under the terms of the Louisiana Purchase.

History

East and West Florida.

The treaty was negotiated by John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State under U.S. President James Monroe, and the Spanish foreign minister Luis de Onís.

Spain's Colonies

Spain had long rejected repeated American efforts to purchase Florida. But by 1818, Spain was facing a troubling colonial situation where the cession of Florida made sense. Spain had been exhausted by the European wars of Napoleon and needed to rebuild its credibility and presence in its colonies. Revolutionaries in Central and South America were beginning to demand independence. Spain was also unwilling to make any further investment in Florida and it worried about the border between its colony of Mexico and the United States. Spain had almost no military or government presence in Florida and was unable to stop Seminole warriors who routinely crossed the border and raided U.S. villages and farms. By 1819 Spain was forced to negotiate because it was losing its hold on its American empire, with its western colonies primed to revolt. While fighting escaped African-American slaves, outlaws and Native Americans in U.S.-controlled Georgia during the First Seminole War, Andrew Jackson had pursued them into Spanish Florida, but at the same time, he attacked and captured Spanish forts in Florida that he felt were assisting the raids into American territory. Spain requested British intervention, but Britain declined to assist Spain in the negotiations. Some of President James Monroe's cabinet demanded Jackson's immediate dismissal, but Adams realized that it put the U.S. in a favorable diplomatic position. Although Spanish power in the New World had long been in decline, Jackson's attacks had exposed how weak Spain was in the New World to the U.S., Latin American revolutionaries, and the other European powers. Taking an aggressive stance, Adams was able to negotiate very favorable terms. The Spanish had a very restrictive view of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, considering it to comprise the west bank of the Mississippi and the city of New Orleans. The United States on the other hand claimed that the land they bought extended all the way to the Rio Grande and the Rocky Mountains. Eventually the U.S. conceded in their claim to only go as far west as the Sabine River but Spain insisted upon the Arroyo Hondo boundary.

Details of the treaty

Following the Treaty, the U.S. received the territorial rights to Spanish Florida (British East and West Florida) in exchange for payments by the United States of residents' claims against the Spanish government up to a total of $5,000,000 and relinquishing its own claims on parts of Texas west of the Sabine River and other Spanish areas. The treaty was concluded on February 22, 1819, in Washington, D.C., ratifications were exchanged, and the treaty was proclaimed on February 22, 1821. The U.S. commission established to adjudicate claims considered some 1800 claims and agreed that they were worth $5,454,545.13. Since the treaty limited the payment of claims to $5 million, the commission reduced the amount paid out proportionately by 8 1/3 per cent.

The Adams-Onís Treaty settled the dispute by attempting to draw clearer borders, roughly granting Florida and Louisiana to the U.S. while giving to Spain everything west of Louisiana from Texas to California. The new boundary was to be the Sabine River north from the Gulf of Mexico to the 32nd parallel north, then due north to the Red River, west along the Red River to the 100th meridian west, due north to the Arkansas River, west to its headwaters, north to the 42nd parallel north, and finally west along that parallel to the Pacific Ocean. Informally this has been called the "Step Boundary."

The claims of Spain on the Oregon Country dated to the papal bull of 1493 which had granted to Spain the rights to colonize the western coast of North America and to the actions of Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513, when he claimed all the "South Sea" (the Pacific Ocean) and the lands adjoining the Pacific Ocean for the Spanish Crown. To solidify these 250-year old claims, in the late 1700s Spain established a military and trading outpost in today's British Columbia and performed "acts of sovereignty" in today's Alaska. As a result of the Adams-Onís Treaty, the United States acquired the claims of Spain to the Oregon Country north of the 42nd parallel.

Perceived impact on territories

For the United States, this treaty meant that its claimed territory now extended far west from the Mississippi, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. For Spain, it meant that it kept its colonies in Texas and also kept a buffer zone between its colonies in California and New Mexico and the US territories. Adams considered this to be his greater achievement, as he foresaw that Oregon would allow trade with the Orient and economic powers in the Pacific.

Implementation

Washington set up a commission, 1821 to 1824, that handled American claims against Spain. Many notable lawyers, including Daniel Webster and William Wirt, represented claimants before the commission. During its term, the commission examined 1,859 claims arising from over 720 spoliation incidents, and distributed the $5 million in a basically fair manner. The treaty reduced tensions with Spain (and after 1821 Mexico), and allowed budget cutters in Congress to reduce the army budget and reject the plans to modernize and expand the army proposed by Secretary of War John C. Calhoun.

The treaty was honored by both sides until it was replaced by the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo in 1848, after the U.S. defeated Mexico. Inaccurate maps from the treaty meant that the boundary between Texas and Oklahoma remained unclear for most of the 19th century.

Later problems with the treaty

An 1833 map of the United States in the shape of an eagle

The treaty was ratified by Spain in 1820, and by the United States in 1821 (during the time that Spain and Mexico were engaged in the prolonged Mexican War of Independence). The Adams-Onís treaty was concluded with Spain, and war with Spain was delayed for 77 years. While Mexico was not initially a party to the treaty, in 1831 Mexico had ratified the treaty, including setting the 42nd parallel as the northern boundary of California. However, by the mid-1830s, a controversy developed regarding the border with Texas, during which the United States demonstrated that the Sabine and Neches rivers had been switched on maps, moving the frontier in favor of Mexico. As a consequence, the eastern boundary of Texas was not firmly established until the independence of the Republic of Texas in 1836, and not agreed upon until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 which concluded the Mexican-American War. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo also formalized the cession by Mexico of Alta California and today's American Southwest except for the territory of the Gadsden Purchase.

Another dispute occurred after Texas joined the Union. The treaty stated that the boundary between the French claims on the north and the Spanish claims on the south was Rio Roxo de Natchitoches (Red River) until it reached the 100th meridian as noted on John Melish's map published in 1818. The problem was that the 100th meridian on the Melish map was some 90 miles east of the true 100th meridian and the Red River forked about 50 miles east of the 100th meridian. Texas claimed the land south of the North Fork and the United States claimed the land north of the South Fork (later called the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River). In 1860 the area was organized as Greer County, Texas. The matter was not settled until a United States Supreme Court ruling in 1896 upheld federal claims to the territory, after which it was added to Oklahoma.

See also

• List of treaties
• Spanish-American relations
• Spanish Cession

Bibliography

• Bailey, Hugh C. "Alabama's Political Leaders and the Acquisition of Florida." Florida Historical Quarterly 1956 35(1): 17-29. Issn: 0015-4113 online version
• Bemis, Samuel Flagg. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy. (1949), the standard history
• Cash, Peter Arnold. "The Adams-Onís Treaty Claims Commission: Spoliation and Diplomacy, 1795-1824." PhD dissertation U. of Memphis 1998. 368 pp. DAI 1999 59(9): 3611-A. DA9905078 Fulltext: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Weeks, William E. John Quincy Adams and American Global Empire (2002)

Sources

• Avalon Project – Treaty Text
• Text of the Adams-Onís Treaty

External links

• PBS' The Border: Adams-Onís Treaty
• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture – Adams-Onis Treaty