page_title: Adams–Onís Treaty
section_title: New Spain
hierarchical_section_title: Adams–Onís Treaty / History / New Spain
caption_attribution_description: English: Viceroyalty of New Spain after the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 (Not including the Spanish overseas territories of the Pacific OceanEspañol: Localidad del Virreinato de Nueva España después del Tratado de Adams-Onis en 1819 (Sin incluir los territorios españoles de ultramar del Océano Pacífico
context_page_description: The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, the Florida Purchase Treaty, or the Florida Treaty, was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to the U.S. and defined the boundary between the U.S. and New Spain. 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 related to Spain's territorial boundaries in North America against the United States and Great Britain in the aftermath of the American Revolution; it also came during the Latin American wars of independence.
  Florida had become a burden to Spain, which could not afford to send settlers or garrisons, so the Spanish government decided to cede the territory to the United States in exchange for settling the boundary dispute along the Sabine River in Spanish Texas.
context_section_description: The Spanish Empire claimed all lands west of the Continental Divide throughout the Americas.  Between 1774 and 1779, King Charles III of Spain ordered three naval expeditions north along the Pacific Coast to assert Spain's territorial claims.  In July 1774, Juan José Pérez Hernández reached latitude 54°40′ north off the northwestern tip of Langara Island before being forced to turn south.  On 15 August 1775, Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra reached the latitude 59°0′ before returning south.  On 23 July 1779, Ignacio de Arteaga y Bazán and Bodega y Quadra reached Puerto de Santiago on Isla de la Magdalena (now Port Etches on Hinchinbrook Island) where they held a formal possession ceremony commemorating Saint James, the patron saint of Spain.  This marked the northernmost Spanish exploration in the Pacific Ocean.
  Between 1788 and 1793, Spain launched several more expeditions north of Alta California.  On 24 June 1789, Esteban José Martínez Fernández y Martínez de la Sierra established the Spanish colony of Santa Cruz de Nuca on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island.  Asserting Spain's claim of exclusive sovereignty and navigation rights, Martínez seized several ships in Nootka Sound provoking the Nootka Crisis with the British Empire.  In negotiations to resolve the crisis, Spain claimed that its Nootka Territory extended north from Alta California to the 61st parallel north and from the Continental Divide west to the 147th meridian west.  On 11 January 1794, the Spanish Empire and the British Empire signed the Third Nootka Convention which called for the abandonment of all permanent settlements on Nootka Sound.  Santa Cruz de Nuca was formally abandoned on 28 March 1795.  The Convention also called for joint and exclusive British–Spanish exploitation of the Nootka Territory.  On 19 August 1796, the Spanish Empire joined the French First Republic in war against the British Empire with the signing of the Second Treaty of San Ildefonso, thus ending Spanish and British cooperation in the Americas.
  East of the Continental Divide, the Spanish Empire claimed all land south of the Arkansas River that was west of the Medina River and all land south of the Red River that was west of the Calcasieu River.  The vast disputed region between the territorial claims of the United States and Spain was occupied primarily by native peoples with very few traders of either Spain or the United States.  In the south, the disputed region between the Calcasieu River and the Sabine River encompassed Los Adaes, the first capital of Spanish Texas.  The region between the Calcasieu and Sabine rivers become a lawless no man's land.  The United States saw great potential in these western lands, and hoped to settle their borders.  Spain, seeing the end of New Spain, hoped to employ its territorial claims before it would be forced to grant Mexico its independence (later in 1821). Spain hoped to regain much of its territory after the regional demands for independence subsided.
caption: The Viceroyalty of New Spain in 1821, after the Adams–Onís Treaty took effect.  (NOTE: Many boundaries outside of New Spain are shown incorrectly.)
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