Question: When did Congress pass the Mobile Act which recognized West Florida as being part of the United States?
About the article "Louisiana Purchase", section "Boundaries".

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Spain entered the American Revolutionary War on the side of France and the United States.
Bernardo de Gálvez, governor of Spanish Louisiana, led a military campaign along the Gulf Coast, capturing Manchac and Baton Rouge from the British in 1779, Mobile in 1780, and Pensacola in 1781.
In the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the war, the British agreed to a boundary between the United States and West Florida at 31° north latitude between the Mississippi and Apalachicola Rivers.
Britain also ceded both Florida provinces back to Spain, which continued to maintain them as separate colonies.
However, the treaty did not specify the boundaries, sparking the West Florida Controversy.
Spain claimed the expanded 1764 boundary, while the United States claimed that the boundary was at the 31st parallel.
Negotiations in 1785–1786 between John Jay and Don Diego de Gardoqui failed to reach a satisfactory conclusion.
The border was finally resolved in 1795 by the Treaty of San Lorenzo, in which Spain recognized the 31st parallel as the boundary.
In the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso of 1800, Spain returned Louisiana to France; however, the boundaries were not specified.
After France sold the Louisiana Purchase to the United States in 1803, another boundary dispute erupted.
The United States laid claim to the territory from the Perdido River to the Mississippi River, which the Americans believed had been a part of the old province of Louisiana when the French had ceded it in 1763.
The Spanish insisted that they had administered that portion as the province of West Florida and that it was not part of the territory returned to France in 1800. 
A dispute immediately arose between Spain and the United States regarding the extent of Louisiana.
The territory's boundaries had not been defined in the 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau that ceded it from France to Spain, nor the 1800 Third Treaty of San Ildefonso ceding it back to France, nor the 1803 Louisiana Purchase agreement ceding it to the United States.
The United States claimed Louisiana included the entire western portion of the Mississippi River drainage basin to the crest of the Rocky Mountains and land extending southeast to the Rio Grande and West Florida.
Spain insisted that Louisiana comprised no more than the western bank of the Mississippi River and the cities of New Orleans and St. Louis.
The dispute was ultimately resolved by the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, with the United States gaining most of what it had claimed in the west.
The relatively narrow Louisiana of New Spain had been a special province under the jurisdiction of the Captaincy General of Cuba while the vast region to the west was in 1803 still considered part of the Commandancy General of the Provincias Internas.
Louisiana had never been considered to be one of New Spain's internal provinces.
If the territory included all the tributaries of the Mississippi on its western bank, the northern reaches of the Purchase extended into the equally ill-defined British possession—Rupert's Land of British North America, now part of Canada.
The Purchase originally extended just beyond the 50th parallel.
However, the territory north of the 49th parallel (including the Milk River and Poplar River watersheds) was ceded to the UK in exchange for parts of the Red River Basin south of 49th parallel in the Anglo-American Convention of 1818.
The eastern boundary of the Louisiana purchase was the Mississippi River, from its source to the 31st parallel, although the source of the Mississippi was, at the time, unknown.
The eastern boundary below the 31st parallel was unclear; the U.S. claimed the land as far as the Perdido River, and Spain claimed the border of its Florida Colony remained the Mississippi river.
In early 1804, Congress passed the Mobile Act which recognized West Florida as being part of the United States.
The Adams–Onís Treaty with Spain (1819) resolved the issue upon ratification in 1821.
Today, the 31st parallel is the northern boundary of the western half of the Florida Panhandle, and the Perdido is the western boundary of Florida.
Because the western boundary was contested at the time of the Purchase, President Jefferson immediately began to organize three missions to explore and map the new territory.
All three started from the Mississippi River.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804) traveled up the Missouri River; the Red River Expedition (1806) explored the Red River basin; the Pike Expedition (1806) also started up the Missouri, but turned south to explore the Arkansas River watershed.
The maps and journals of the explorers helped to define the boundaries during the negotiations leading to the Adams–Onís Treaty, which set the western boundary as follows: north up the Sabine River from the Gulf of Mexico to its intersection with the 32nd parallel, due north to the Red River, up the Red River to the 100th meridian, north to the Arkansas River, up the Arkansas River to its headwaters, due north to the 42nd parallel and due west to its previous boundary.
The Tombigbee District, also known as the Tombigbee settlements, was one of two areas, the other being the Natchez District, that were the first to be colonized by British subjects from the Thirteen Colonies and elsewhere in what was West Florida and later became the Mississippi Territory.
The district was also the first area in what would become the state of Alabama, outside of the colonial outpost of Mobile, that was opened to white settlement.
The Tombigbee and Natchez districts were the only areas populated by whites in the Mississippi Territory when it was formed by the United States in 1798.
The Tombigbee District was an area mostly on the west side of the Tombigbee River in Alabama that was first opened to settlement by the Treaty of Mobile, negotiated between the British government of West Florida and the Choctaw at a Native American congress held in Mobile in March–April 1765.
The British had acquired the territory that they organized into West Florida from France in 1763s Treaty of Paris.
The boundaries of the district were roughly limited to the area within a few miles of the Tombigbee River and included portions of modern extreme southern Clarke County, northernmost Mobile County, and most of Washington County. 
In the late 1800's, the unrestricted slaughter of wildlife for food, fashion and commerce was systematically destroying an irreplaceable national heritage.
So in January, 1902, members of the Boone and Crockett Club, a conservation group founded in 1887 by a group of leading explorers, writers, scientists, sportsmen and political leaders, including Theodore Roosevelt, drafted a plan to create a series of wildlife refuges across the United States.
And by Executive Order of March 14, 1903, President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt established Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, along Florida's central Atlantic coast, as the first unit of the present National Wildlife Refuge System.
The first Federal action aimed in part at protecting wildlife resources on a designated area appears to be an Act of Congress on June 30, 1864, that transferred the Yosemite Valley from the public domain to the State of California.
One of the terms of the transfer was that State authorities "shall provide against the wanton destruction of the fish and game found within the said reservation and against their capture and destruction for purposes of merchandise or profit.
"Yosemite Valley was later returned to the Federal government.
In 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established, primarily to protect the area's hot springs and geysers, but again, the "wanton destruction" of wildlife was forbidden.
Establishment as a national park did not, however, produce the desired wildlife protection effect until passage of the Yellowstone Park Protection Act of 1894.
The earliest effort to set aside an area of Federally owned land specifically for wildlife occurred in 1868 when President Ulysses S. Grant took action to protect the Pribilof Islands in Alaska as a reserve for the northern fur seal.
In 1869, the Congress formally enacted legislation for this purpose.
These remote islands in the Bering Sea were the site of the world's largest rookery of this commercially valuable animal, and the Federal government was prompted in its action primarily due to interest in obtaining revenue from the management of the fur resource.
Fundamentally, this action marked a formal recognition of the need to protect and manage wildlife resources for their renewable values.
Under provisions of the Forest Reserve Act of March 3, 1891, President Benjamin Harrison created by an Executive Order the Afognak Island Forest and Fish Culture Reserve in Alaska, "including its adjacent bays and rocks and territorial waters, including among others the sea lion and sea otter islands."
The action showed, in its executive history, that wildlife concerns were a paramount element in the proposal.
However, possibly because of the emphasis on forest and fish resource protection, the value of this area as a wildlife refuge often escapes deserved recognition.
This order also established the first reservation for fish.
As a result of an increasing awareness of the importance of fish and wildlife resources, in 1871 the Federal Office of Commissioner of Fisheries and in 1886 the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy (Department of Agriculture) were established to gain better information about the Nation's fish and wildlife resources.
From studies performed by these agencies it became evident that the resources were in jeopardy and conservation, sportsmen's and scientific organizations began to lobby the Congress.
One such organization was the Boone and Crockett Club, founded in 1887 by a group of leading explorers, writers, scientists and political leaders, including Theodore Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's activities during the 1880s and 1890s placed him in the mainstream of events concerning the plight of fish and wildlife and other natural resources from coast to coast.
He was acquainted with resource management needs and with the many individuals, organizations and agencies that were in the forefront of efforts to stem the losses.
Thus, when he became President in 1901, he was singularly well suited to the task of natural resource protection.
By the turn of the 20th century the nation had witnessed the near extinction of the bison, increasing devastation of wading bird populations by plume hunting in Florida, and severe reductions in the populations of other once abundant forms of wildlife such as the passenger pigeon.
Public support increased for more vigorous actions on the part of the government to reverse this downward slide.
In Florida, in an effort to control plume hunting, the American Ornithologists Union and the National Association of Audubon Societies (now the National Audubon Society) persuaded the State Legislature to pass a model non-game bird protection law in 1901.
These organizations then employed wardens to protect rookeries, in effect establishing colonial bird sanctuaries.
Such public concern, combined with the conservation-minded President Roosevelt, resulted in the initial Federal land specifically set aside for a non-marketable form of wildlife (the brown pelican) when Pelican Island was proclaimed a Federal Bird Reservation in 1903.
Thus, it is said to be the first bona fide "refuge."
The first warden employed by the government at Pelican Island, Paul Kroegel, was an Audubon warden whose salary was $1 a month.
Following the modest trend begun with Pelican Island, many other islands and parcels of land and water were quickly dedicated for the protection of various species of colonial nesting birds that were being destroyed for their feathers.
Such refuge areas included Breton, Louisiana (1904), Passage Key, Florida (1905), Shell Keys, Louisiana (1907), and Key West, Florida (1908).
The need for sound management of these reservations or refuges had become apparent as the knowledge of preservation and conservation requirements grew.
In 1905, the Bureau of Biological Survey was established in the Department of Agriculture, replacing the old Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy, with responsibility for new reservations and "set-aside" areas.
During this period of time, on the Pacific coast sea bird populations were declining due to their extensive exploitation for eggs, feathers and guano.
In response to this growing bird resource threat, Federal reserve status was granted to Quillayute Needles, Washington in 1907 and to Farallon Islands, California and areas of the Hawaiian Islands in 1909.
Establishment of Lower Klamath, California in 1908 then marked the beginning of the practice of creating wildlife refuges on Bureau of Reclamation reservoirs.
Seventeen such western "overlay" refuges were established on one day alone in 1909 by Executive Order 1032 of February 25.
By the end of his administration in 1909, Roosevelt had issued a total of 5l Executive Orders that established wildlife reservations in 17 states and three territories.
Congress also had continued to respond to the public mood recognized by Roosevelt in establishing the Wichita Mountains Forest and Game Preserve in 1905, the National Bison Range in 1908, and the National Elk Refuge in 1912.
The latter was the first unit of the present system to be referred to as a "refuge."
The Izaak Walton League had initiated establishment of the National Elk Refuge by purchasing lands which they then donated to the government as a nucleus for the refuge.
At the time it was said that elk were so plentiful that they were killed for their prized teeth alone, which brought as much as $1,500 a pair.
Then in 1913, some 2.7 million acres (11,000 km²) were set aside in one action by President William Howard Taft when the vast Aleutian Island chain was added to the system.
The Federal government first exerted authority over migratory birds by legislation, the Migratory bird act, enacted in 1913 to protect migratory bird species.
An interesting historical footnote is that this landmark legislation was attached as a rider to an agricultural appropriation bill and signed unknowingly by outgoing President Taft.
Subsequently, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 was concluded between the United States and Great Britain (for Canada) in 1916.
This treaty, implemented by Congress in 1918, created an even larger role for the Federal government in managing migratory birds. 
The respective state National Guards are authorized by the Constitution of the United States.
As originally drafted, the Constitution recognized the existing state militias, and gave them vital roles to fill: "to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasion."
(Article I, Section 8, Clause 15).
The Constitution distinguished "militias," which were state entities, from "Troops", which were unlawful for states to maintain without Congressional approval.
(Article I, Section 10, Clause 3).
Under current law, the respective state National Guards and the State Defense Forces are authorized by Congress to the states and are referred to as "troops."
Though originally state entities, the Constitutional "Militia of the Several States" were not entirely independent, however, because they could be federalized.
According to Article I, Section 8; Clause 15, the United States Congress is given the power to pass laws for "calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions."
Congress is also empowered to come up with the guidelines "for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress" (clause 16).
The President of the United States is the commander-in-chief of the state militias "when called into the actual Service of the United States."
(Article II, Section 2).
The traditional state militias were redefined and recreated as the "organized militia"—the National Guard, via the Militia Act of 1903.
They were now subject to an increasing amount of federal control, including having arms and accouterments supplied by the central government, federal funding, and numerous closer ties to the Regular Army.