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Show ACQUISITION OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 79 Madison promptly took possession of the territory and extended American control to the Perdido River. Meantime, claims against Spain were accumulating for alleged un-neutral acts damaging American property. More important was the long-sustained tension, which reached a high point in 1817 and 1818, over trade and Indian raids. Spanish officials could do nothing to maintain respect for their borders. Creek Indians, hopeful of regaining lost territory north of the line and encouraged by English residents, made destructive raids. Andrew Jackson, acting under a general authority to end the Indian menace, crossed swiftly into Florida, defeated the Indians and destroyed a number of their villages, captured two British subjects accused of inciting the Creeks and, after a drumhead court-martial, had them executed. Florida Acquisition and Spanish Claims John Quincy Adams, as Secretary of State in 1818 and 1819, pressed the Spanish officials to cede Florida, at the same time showing some inclination to compromise on other issues. Though Jackson's arbitrary actions did little to soothe Spanish feelings, it was clearly impossible for Spain to retain a territory whose Indian inhabitants it could neither control nor protect from the hostility of advancing Americans. Spain accepted the inevitable, agreeing to surrender all of Florida, East and West, to the United States. Both sides consented to abandon the claims of their nationals against the other and the United States undertook to pay claims of its citizens against Spain to the amount of $5 million. This, in effect, was the cost of Florida. The weak claim of the United States to Texas was surrendered in return for the cession of all Spanish claims to the Oregon country. Spain accepted as the border of its Mexican possessions the Sabine River to the 32d parallel, thence north to the source of the Arkansas River, then north to the 42d parallel and along that to the Pacific. Continuing Land Hunger One of the two northern boundary disputes which had remained unresolved since 1783 was brought to a successful conclusion in 1818 when the United States and Great Britain agreed to extend the border separating the British and American possessions from the northwest point on the Lake of the Woods to the 49th parallel and thence west to the Rocky Mountains. By this convention the United States gained final acknowledgment of that rich portion of the Red River Valley south of the 49th parallel and surrendered any right it may have had to a portion of the watershed of the Missouri north of the parallel.5 The other dispute over the Maine boundary was settled in 1842 by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty which divided the disputed territory but added no public domain to the United States. The addition of 43,342,720 acres of Florida land did not appear important at the time, for the best of the land, as then valued, was in private land claims (at least 6 percent) and the balance was to go begging for years. In fact, it was not until long after the Civil War that there appeared any major interest in Florida lands, and the state was the most laggard in building up its population. The significance of the acquisition of Florida was that it eliminated another Old World power from the area east of the Mississippi and it added greatly to American pride and confidence in the future.6 Florida was balm to the wounded feelings of nationalists or "War Hawks" who had precipitated the War of 1812 partly to bring about the conquest of Canada. Not only had the Canadians (many of them 5 Samuel Flagg Bemis, "Jay's Treaty and the Northwest Boundary Gap," American Historical Review, XXVII (April 1922), 465-84; Clarence A. Alvord, "When Minnesota was a Pawn in International Politics," Minnesota History Bulletin, IV (August 1922), 308-330. 6 Julius W. Pratt, History of the United States Foreign Policy (Englewood, N. J., 1955), passim. |