page_title: Adams–Onís Treaty
section_title: Louisiana
hierarchical_section_title: Adams–Onís Treaty / History / Louisiana
caption_attribution_description: English: A more accurate Map of the Mississippi River Basin, intended to replace File:Mississippirivermapnew.jpg. Made using USGS data.
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: In 1521, the Spanish Empire created the Virreinato de Nueva España (Viceroyalty of New Spain) to govern its conquests in the Caribbean, North America, and later the Pacific Ocean.  In 1682, La Salle claimed La Louisiane for France.  For the Spanish Empire, this was an intrusion into the northeastern frontier of Nueva España.  In 1691, Spain created the Province of Tejas in Nueva España in an attempt to inhibit French settlement west of the Mississippi River.  Fearing the loss of his American territories in the Seven Years' War, King Louis XV of France ceded La Louisiane to King Charles III of Spain with the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau in 1762.  The Treaty of Paris of 1763 split La Louisiane with the portion east of the Mississippi River becoming a part of British North America and the portion west of the river becoming the District of Luisiana of Nueva España.  This eliminated the French threat to Nueva España, and the Spanish provinces of Luisiana, Tejas, and Santa Fe de Nuevo México coexisted with only loosely defined borders.  In 1800, French First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte forced King Charles IV of Spain to cede Luisiana to France with the secret Third Treaty of San Ildefonso.  Spain continued to administer Luisiana until 1802, when Spain publicly transferred the district to France.  The following year, Napoleon sold La Louisiane to the United States to raise money for his military campaigns.
  The United States and the Spanish Empire disagreed over the territorial boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.  The United States maintained the claim of France that Louisiana included the Mississippi River and "all lands whose waters flow to it."  To the west of New Orleans, the United States assumed the French claim to all land east and north of the Sabine River.  Spain maintained that all land west of the Calcasieu River and south of the Arkansas River belonged to Tejas and Santa Fe de Nuevo México (see #New Spain.)
caption: The Mississippi River Basin
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