The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819,[1] also known as the Transcontinental Treaty or the Purchase of Florida,[2] was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that gave Florida to the U.S. and set out a boundary between the U.S. and New Spain (now Mexico). It settled a standing border dispute between the two countries and was considered a triumph of American diplomacy. It came in the midst of increasing tensions between the U.S. and Spain regarding territorial rights at a time of weakened Spanish power. 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.
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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.[3]
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 Peninsular War and needed to rebuild its credibility and presence in its colonies. Revolutionaries in Central America 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 New Spain (today's 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 American villages and farms.[4]
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.
To stop the Seminole Indians based in East Florida from raiding Georgia settlements, and offering havens for runaway slaves, U.S. Army led increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish territory, including the 1817–1818 campaign by Andrew Jackson that became known as the First Seminole War. The United States now effectively controlled East Florida. Control was necessary according to Secretary of State John Quincy Adams because Florida had become "a derelict open to the occupancy of every enemy, civilized or savage, of the United States, and serving no other earthly purpose than as a post of annoyance to them.".[5] Spain requested British intervention, but London 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. Adams was able to negotiate very favorable terms.[6]
Florida had become a burden to Spain, which could not afford to send settlers or garrisons. Madrid therefore decided to cede the territory to the United States through the Adams–Onís Treaty.
Spain and the United States disagreed over the territory of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Spain considered it to comprise the west bank of the Mississippi River 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 Summit of the Rocky Mountains.[7] 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.
The treaty was signed at Washington, February 22, 1819, by John Quincy Adams, secretary of state, and Luis de Onís, Spanish minister. Ratification was postponed for two years, because Spain wanted to use the treaty as an incentive to keep the United States from giving diplomatic support to the revolutionaries in South America. As soon as the treaty was signed, the U.S. Senate ratified unanimously; because of Spain's stalling, a new ratification was necessary and this time there were objections. Henry Clay and other Western spokesman demanded that the Spain also give up Texas. This proposal was defeated by the Senate, which ratified the treaty a second time on February 19, 1821. Ratifications were exchanged three days later and the treaty was proclaimed on February 22, 1821, two years after the signing.[8]
The Treaty closed the first era of United States expansion by providing for the cession of East Florida, the abandonment of the controversy over West Florida (which had been seized by the United States), and creation of a boundary with the Spanish province of Mexico that clearly made Texas a part of Mexico, thus ending the vagueness of the boundary of the Louisiana Purchase. Spain also ceded to the United States its claims to the Oregon Country.
The U.S. did not pay Spain for Florida but did agree to pay the legal claims of American citizens against Spain, to a maximum of $5 million.[9] Pinckney's Treaty of 1795 between the U.S. and Spain was to remain in force. Spanish goods received certain tariff privileges in Florida ports.
The U.S. received ownership of Spanish Florida (British East and West Florida 1763-1783). The U.S. relinquished its own claims on parts of Texas west of the Sabine River and other Spanish areas.
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", although the step-like shape of the boundary was not apparent for several decades—the source of the Arkansas, believed to be near the 42nd parallel, was not known until John C. Frémont located it in the 1840s, hundreds of miles south of the 42nd parallel.
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 18th century Spain established a military and trading outpost in today's British Columbia and performed "acts of sovereignty" in 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.[10]
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 U.S. territories. Historians consider the treaty to be a great achievement for the U.S., as time validated Adams's vision that it would allow the U.S. to open trade with the Orient across the Pacific.[11]
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.[12] 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, although inaccurate maps from the treaty meant that the boundary between Texas and Oklahoma remained unclear for most of the 19th century. The American boundary was expanded in 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with Mexico.
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). Spain finally recognized the independence of Mexico with the Treaty of Córdoba signed on August 24, 1821. While Mexico was not initially a party to the treaty, in 1831 Mexico ratified the treaty.[13] 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.[14]
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 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.
This article incorporates material from the Citizendium article "Adams–Onís Treaty", which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License but not under the GFDL.