How the States Got Their Shapes Too_ The People Behind the Borderlines - Mark Stein [57]
A primary reason for the delay was the fact that the young United States and England were still not on the best of terms, particularly when relations deteriorated into the War of 1812. Spain, therefore, was in no hurry to dicker, figuring it would do better if it waited, aided the British here and there, and then negotiated its border with a bruised and battered United States.
Adams and Jackson, meanwhile, were taking on increasingly significant roles in what would ultimately determine that Spanish border. Jackson, now a general, became a national hero for his victory during the war at the Battle of New Orleans. Technically, his victory was after the war since, unbeknownst to him, the war had ended two weeks earlier when American emissary John Quincy Adams negotiated the Treaty of Ghent.
Ironically, Spain was now far more battered and bruised. Between 1810 and 1819 (the year of the treaty creating the present-day eastern border of Texas), Spain lost control of Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile. More important, in terms of the United States, twice during this period the United States seized portions of Spanish Florida. At the outset of the war, the Florida Panhandle had extended all the way to the banks of the Mississippi River opposite New Orleans; by the time Adams had concluded the Treaty of Ghent, the Panhandle ended underneath Alabama, where it remains today.
With its empire in the Americas beginning to crumble, Spain decided the time had come to reduce the extent of its colonial claims in order to shore up what remained. Thus in 1818 it commenced negotiations over where the Louisiana Purchase ended and the Spanish colony of Mexico began. To give itself leverage in that negotiation while, at the same time, reducing its colonial claims, Spain also offered to sell Florida to the United States as part of the deal.
John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) (photo credit 18.1)
The United States, meanwhile, had emerged from the War of 1812 far less battered than Spain had hoped. Its new president, James Monroe, was even preparing to draw a boundary around all the Americas, in effect posting a sign—the Monroe Doctrine—saying “Europe Keep Out.” The text of the doctrine would be written by the man with whom Spain was now to negotiate, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams.
Adams and his Spanish counterpart, Don Luis de Onís González Lopez y Vara, had barely said their hellos when Andrew Jackson came crashing through. General Jackson was in Florida, where he had just crushed a rebellion by the Seminole Indians. He had been authorized to cross into Florida, a Spanish possession, since the United States maintained that Spain had not lived up to its agreed-upon obligation to stop Indians in its colony from crossing into the United States to engage in attacks. Jackson now moved his troops to Pensacola—where there were no rebellious Seminoles but there was Spain’s principal fortification—and conquered the fort. He then quickly took control of the Florida Panhandle, claiming it was necessary to keep the Seminoles subdued.
“Last night I received a note from the Spanish Minister,” Adams wrote to President Monroe, “requesting an interview on affairs of the last importance to Spain and the United States.”2 Señor de Onís was furious: General Jackson’s attack was an act of war. Spain demanded to know if the president had authorized the general’s actions. If the president had not, Spain demanded to know what the president intended to do to General Jackson.
The diplomat in Adams viewed Jackson as a loose cannon. In his journal he wrote that the general’s actions in Florida were “embarrassing.” Still, the