What country sold land including the present-day states of Louisiana,Arkansas, and Oklahoma to the USA in 1803? View the step-by-step solution to: What country sold land including the present-day states of Louisiana,Arkansas, and Oklahoma to the USA in 1803? This question was answered on Jun 08, 2016. View the Answer What country sold land including the present-day states of Louisiana,Arkansas, and Oklahoma to the USA in 1803? TomRamirez posted a question · Jun 08, 2016 at 5:14am Top Answer lewismrk557 answered the question · Jun 08, 2016 at 5:14am Other Answers The best way to approach your question... View the full answer {[ getNetScore(29993647) ]} Let me explain the...

View the full answer {[ getNetScore(29993652) ]} steveaustine answered the question · Jun 08, 2016 at 5:16am France Explanation On April 30, 1803, representatives of the United States and Napoleonic France conclude negotiations for... View the full answer {[ getNetScore(29993667) ]} Let me explain the... View the full answer {[ getNetScore(29993684) ]} During this second great era of empire-building (the first taking place in the Western Hemisphere between 1500 and 1700), how were the Europeans able to Recently Asked Questions Need a World History tutor? anthonymbugua100 3 World History experts found online! Average reply time is less than an hour Get Homework Help Why Join Course Hero? Course Hero has all the homework and study help you need to succeed! We’ve got course-specific notes, study guides, and practice tests along with expert tutors and customizable flashcards—available anywhere, anytime. - - Study Documents Find the best study resources around, tagged to your specific courses.

Share your own to gain free Course Hero access or to earn money with our Marketplace. - Question & Answers Get one-on-one homework help from our expert tutors—available online 24/7. Ask your own questions or browse existing Q&A threads. Satisfaction guaranteed! - Flashcards Browse existing sets or create your own using our digital flashcard system. A simple yet effective studying tool to help you earn the grade that you want! Louisiana Purchase and Map of the Louisiana Purchase Louisiana Purchase and Map of the Louisiana Purchase Print this map Louisiana Purchase In 1800, when the armies of French ruler Napoleon Bonaparte moved across Europe, pressuring Spain into a corner, the Territory of Louisiana (New Orleans) and a huge slice of land controlled by Spain in the now central United States (an estimated 827,987 sq miles in size) was ceded back to France by Spain via the Treaty of San Ildefonso. On April 1, 1803, the United States of America was comprised of lands east of the Mississippi River, including a handful of states (17), and the Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Mississippi Territories.

At that time, besides the French Territory of Louisiana; modern-day Florida was still governed by Spain, and in the far west, excluding the British-controlled Oregon Country in the northwest, all available lands were still in the hands of Spain. In 1801, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson began his pursuit of just the French City of New Orleans (French Orleans Territory) in an effort to gain control of Mississippi River access; his $10 million offer was initially rejected by the French. Over the next year Napoleon was actively involved in his growing European military campaign against Britain, as well as other political conflicts in the Americas; apparently stretched-thin, he tired of his Louisiana Territory (and needing focus and funds) he finally wavered, and on April 30, 1803 he authorized the sale of the entire French Territory of Louisiana for $15 million, which included the City of New Orleans; justifiably, President Jefferson was jubilant. The nation-changing Louisiana Purchase subsequently almost doubled the size of the United States overnight.

This massive transfer of land included all of present-day Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa; most of Colorado, South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, as well as significant parts of North Dakota, Minnesota, Texas and Louisiana. Parts of it also extended into what is now Canada for a short period of time. Eventually Spain ceded (lost) all of its territories to the United States, beginning in Florida in 1819, as the modern-shape of the U.S.A. finally came together. Louisiana Purchase - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com Google Louisiana Purchase: Background Beginning in the 17th century, France explored the Mississippi River valley and established scattered settlements in the region. By the middle of the 18th century, France controlled more of the present-day United States than any other European power: from New Orleans northeast to the Great Lakes and northwest to modern-day Montana . In 1762, during the French and Indian War (1754-63), France ceded French Louisiana west of the Mississippi River to Spain and in 1763 transferred nearly all of its remaining North American holdings to Great Britain.

Spain, no longer a dominant European power, did little to develop Louisiana during the next three decades. In 1796, Spain allied itself with France, leading Britain to use its powerful navy to cut off Spain from America. Did You Know? President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery Expedition (1804-06), led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, to explore the territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase, among other objectives. In 1801, Spain signed a secret treaty with France to return Louisiana Territory to France. Reports of the retrocession caused considerable uneasiness in the United States. Since the late 1780s, Americans had been moving westward into the Ohio River and Tennessee River valleys, and these settlers were highly dependent on free access to the Mississippi River and the strategic port of New Orleans. U.S. officials feared that France, resurgent under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), would soon seek to dominate the Mississippi River and access to the Gulf of Mexico . In a letter to U.S.

minister to France Robert Livingston (1746-1813), America’s third president, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), stated, “The day that France takes possession of New Orleans…we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.” Livingston was ordered to negotiate with French minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand (1754-1838) for the purchase of New Orleans Louisiana Purchase: U.S.-France Negotiations France was slow in taking control of Louisiana, but in 1802 Spanish authorities, apparently acting under French orders, revoked a U.S.-Spanish treaty that granted Americans the right to store goods in New Orleans. In response, Jefferson sent future U.S. president James Monroe (1758-1831) to Paris to aid Livingston in the New Orleans purchase talks. In mid-April 1803, shortly before Monroe’s arrival, the French asked a surprised Livingston if the United States was interested in purchasing all of Louisiana Territory.

It is believed that the failure of France to put down a slave revolution in Haiti, the impending war with Great Britain and probable British naval blockade of France, and financial difficulties may all have prompted Napoleon to offer Louisiana for sale to the United States. Negotiations moved swiftly, and at the end of April the U.S. envoys agreed to pay $11,250,000 and assume claims of American citizens against France in the amount of $3,750,000. In exchange, the United States acquired the vast domain of Louisiana Territory, some 828,000 square miles of land. The treaty was dated April 30 and signed on May 2. In October, the U.S. Senate ratified the purchase, and in December 1803 France transferred authority over the region to the United States. Louisiana Purchase: Aftermath The acquisition of the Louisiana Territory for the bargain price of less than three cents an acre was among Jefferson’s most notable achievements as president. American expansion westward into the new lands began immediately, and in 1804 a territorial government was established.

On April 30, 1812, exactly nine years after the Louisiana Purchase agreement was made, the first state to be carved from the territory–Louisiana–was admitted into the Union as the 18th U.S. state. Tags VSA Jeopardy Template This element has the symbol Au. 100 This state was the 49th state to be added to the United States. 100 What is Vanderbilt, the best team ever. This team won the 2014 Baseball College World Series. 100 What is The Fault in Our Stars? This popular novel about 2 cancer patients became a cinematic hit in 2014. 100 This is the largest state in the United States. 200 This organelle is commonly called the powerhouse of the cell. 200 What is France? This country sold land including the present-day states of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma to the USA in 1803? 200 What is The Walking Dead? This popular horror drama TV series, based off a comic book of the same name, features a ragtag group of survivors led by a Sheriff. 200 What is The Lord of the Flies?

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GACHET SOLD FOR $82.5 MILLION The Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase Quiz The Louisiana Purchase Did you know that the Louisiana Purchase was the largest land purchase in American History? At the turn of the 19th Century, Americans were moving to the west. More land was needed to live and farm. The Louisiana Territory at that time was owned by France. New Orleans was a huge French settlement. Many Americans were already living in and around New Orleans Due to the Mississippi River, many American ships sailed back and forth on the river. The U.S. Government wanted to protect American shipping and settlements. So the third US President Thomas Jefferson sent someone to France to buy New Orleans and the surrounding area. Napoleon, who was the Emperor of France said no at first. Later however, Napoleon French leader did sell all of the Louisiana Territory. The area was more than 828,000 square miles. The United States paid a little more than twenty three million dollars for the purchase. Both sides agreed, and in 1803, the Louisiana Territory became American. With that purchase, the size of the country doubled. What did the land include?

Of course at that time, the Louisiana Purchase was more than just a portion of Louisiana. The land purchased included all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. It also included parts of Minnesota, most of North Dakota, nearly all of South Dakota, northeastern New Mexico, northern Texas, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide, and Louisiana on both sides of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans. The Louisiana Purchase was a great sale for the United States! Can you imagine what America would be like if that sale had never happened? Show all questions What was the largest land purchase in US History? ? Can you name the French Emperor that sold the Louisiana Purchase to the US? ? Who was the President at the time of the Louisiana Purchase? ? Was Louisiana the only state involved in the Louisiana Purchase? ? Did the Louisiana Purchase double the land in the US? ? ? no At the turn of the 19th Century, Americans were moving to the west. Why did they move west? ? They wanted to run away from home. ? They wanted to find new animals. ? They wanted get away from the east coast. ? They wanted to find more land to live and farm.

The Louisiana Territory in the early 1800's was owned by what other country. ? What famous city was in the Louisiana Purchase area? ? What was the reason the Government wanted to own the Louisiana Purchase area? ? The U.S. Government wanted to buy it for Spain to have. ? The U.S. Government wanted decided they wanted the Indians to have it. ? The U.S. Government wanted to sell it to England and make money. ? The U.S. Government wanted to protect American shipping and settlements. How did the Louisiana Purchase help the United States? ? America got more land and grew. ? America just wanted the French to sell. ? The Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase Gap-fill exercise Fill in all the gaps, then press "Check" to check your answers. Use the "Hint" button to get a free letter if an answer is giving you trouble. You can also click on the "[?]" button to get a clue. Note that you will lose points if you ask for hints or clues! The Story of the Louisiana Purchase Did you know that he Louisiana Purchase was the largest land purchase in American History? At the turn of the 19th Century, Americans were moving to the west. More land was needed to live and farm.

The Louisiana Territory at that time was owned by France. New Orleans was a huge French settlement. Many Americans were already living in and around New Orleans Due to the Mississippi River, many American ships sailed back and forth on the river. The U.S. Government wanted to protect American shipping and settlements. So the third US President Thomas Jefferson sent someone to France to buy New Orleans and the surrounding area. Napoleon, who was the Emperor of France said no at first. Later however, Napoleon French leader did sell all of the Louisiana Territory. The area was more than 828,000 square miles. The United States paid a little more than twenty three million dollars for the purchase. Both sides agreed, and in 1803, the Louisiana Territory became American. With that purchase, the size of the country doubled. What did the land include? Of course at that time, the Louisiana Purchase was more than just a portion of Louisiana. The land purchased included all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska.

It also included parts of Minnesota, most of North Dakota, nearly all of South Dakota, northeastern New Mexico, northern Texas, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide, and Louisiana on both sides of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans. The Louisiana Purchase was a great sale for the United States! Can you imagine what America would be like if that sale had never happened? 1803 land Louisiana Louisiana Purchase Napoleon shipping and settlements size Thomas Jefferson 1. The Louisiana Purchase concluded - Apr 30, 1803 - HISTORY.com Louisiana Purchase concluded Publisher A+E Networks On April 30, 1803, representatives of the United States and Napoleonic France conclude negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase, a massive land sale that doubles the size of the young American republic. What was known as Louisiana Territory comprised most of modern-day United States between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, with the exceptions of Texas, parts of New Mexico, and other pockets of land already controlled by the United States. A formal treaty for the Louisiana Purchase, antedated to April 30, was signed two days later.

Beginning in the 17th century, France explored the Mississippi River valley and established scattered settlements in the region. By the middle of the 18th century, France controlled more of the modern United States than any other European power: from New Orleans northeast to the Great Lakes and northwest to modern-day Montana. In 1762, during the French and Indian War, France ceded its America territory west of the Mississippi River to Spain and in 1763 transferred nearly all of its remaining North American holdings to Great Britain. Spain, no longer a dominant European power, did little to develop Louisiana Territory during the next three decades. In 1796, Spain allied itself with France, leading Britain to use its powerful navy to cut off Spain from America. In 1801, Spain signed a secret treaty with France to return Louisiana Territory to France. Reports of the retrocession caused considerable uneasiness in the United States. Since the late 1780s, Americans had been moving westward into the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys, and these settlers were highly dependent on free access to the Mississippi River and the strategic port of New Orleans. U.S.

officials feared that France, resurgent under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, would soon seek to dominate the Mississippi River and access to the Gulf of Mexico. In a letter to Robert Livingston, the U.S. minister to France, President Thomas Jefferson stated, “The day that France takes possession of New Orleans…we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.” Livingston was ordered to negotiate with French minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand for the purchase of New Orleans. France was slow in taking control of Louisiana, but in 1802 Spanish authorities, apparently acting under French orders, revoked a U.S.-Spanish treaty that granted Americans the right to store goods in New Orleans. In response, President Jefferson sent future president James Monroe to Paris to aid Livingston in the New Orleans purchase talks. On April 11, 1803, the day before Monroe’s arrival, Talleyrand asked a surprised Livingston what the United States would give for all of Louisiana Territory. It is believed that the failure of France to put down a slave revolution in Haiti, the impending war with Great Britain and probable Royal Navy blockade of France, and financial difficulties may all have prompted Napoleon to offer Louisiana for sale to the United States.

Negotiations moved swiftly, and at the end of April the U.S. envoys agreed to pay $11,250,000 and assumed claims of its citizens against France in the amount of $3,750,000. In exchange, the United States acquired the vast domain of Louisiana Territory, some 828,000 square miles of land. In October, Congress ratified the purchase, and in December 1803 France formally transferred authority over the region to the United States. The acquisition of the Louisiana Territory for the bargain price of less than three cents an acre was Thomas Jefferson’s most notable achievement as president. American expansion westward into the new lands began immediately, and in 1804 a territorial government was established. On April 30, 1812, exactly nine years after the Louisiana Purchase agreement was made, the first of 13 states to be carved from the territory–Louisiana–was admitted into the Union as the 18th U.S. state.

Related Videos Result Effectively Doubled The Size of The United States Louisiana Purchase summary: The United States bought 828,000 square miles of land from France in 1803. The French controlled this region from 1699 until 1762 when it became Spanish property because France gave it to Spain as a present, since they were allies. But under Napoleon Bonaparte, France revived the aspirations to build an empire in North America so the territory was taken back in 1800. However, those big plans were not meant to be because Napoleon needed to concentrate on preparations for war with the British Empire and so the land was sold to the United States. The price was 15 million dollars. The purchased territory included the whole of today’s Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska, parts of Minnesota and Louisiana west of Mississippi River, including New Orleans, big parts of North and northeastern New Mexico, South Dakota, northern Texas, some parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado as well as portions of Canadian provinces Alberta and Saskatchewan. Read More in Wild West Magazine Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!! Thomas Jefferson was the American president at the time of the Louisiana Purchase.

The United States initially wanted to buy only New Orleans and the land around it. The purchase met with the strong opposition in the States on account of being unconstitutional. Those accusations were accurate, at least to some extent. President Jefferson couldn’t deny that the Constitution of the United States did not provide for acquiring new territories but still he decided to proceed with the purchase since the removal of French presence in the region was such an important issue. Louisiana Purchase Map The History of the Louisiana Purchase Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition The 2005 U.S. nickel, issued for the 100th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Louisiana Purchase. Getty Images By Colin Stief, Geography Intern On April 30, 1803 the nation of France sold 828,000 square miles (2,144,510 square km) of land west of the Mississippi River to the young United States of America in a treaty commonly known as the Louisiana Purchase. President Thomas Jefferson, in one of his greatest achievements, more than doubled the size of the United States at a time when the young nation's population growth was beginning to quicken.

The Louisiana Purchase was an incredible deal for the United States, the final cost totaling less than five cents per acre at $15 million (about $283 million in today's dollars). France's land was mainly unexplored wilderness, and so the fertile soils and other valuable natural resources we know are present today might not have been factored in the relatively low cost at the time. The Louisiana Purchase stretched from the Mississippi River to the beginning of the Rocky Mountains. Official boundaries were not determined, except that the eastern border ran from the source of the Mississippi River north to the 31 degrees north. continue reading below our video 10 Best Universities in the United States Present states that were included in part or whole of the Louisiana Purchase were: Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. Historical Context of the Louisiana Purchase As the Mississippi River became the chief trading channel for goods shipped among the states it bordered, the American government became greatly interested in purchasing New Orleans, an important port city and mouth of the river.

Beginning in 1801, and with little luck at first, Thomas Jefferson sent envoys to France to negotiate the small purchase they had in mind. France controlled the vast stretches of land west of the Mississippi, known as Louisiana, from 1699 until 1762, the year it gave the land to its Spanish ally. The great French general Napoleon Bonaparte took back the land in 1800 and had every intention of asserting his presence in the region. Unfortunately for him, there were several reasons why selling the land was all but necessary: A prominent French commander recently lost a fierce battle in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) that took up much needed resources and cut off the connection to the ports of North America’s southern coast. French officials in the United States reported to Napoleon on the country's quickly increasing population. This highlighted the difficulty France might have in holding back the western frontier of American pioneers. France did not have a strong enough navy to maintain control of lands so far away from home, separated by the Atlantic ocean. Napoleon wanted to consolidate his resources so that he could focus on conquering England.

Believing he lacked the troops and materials to wage an effective war, the French general wished to sell France's land to raise funds. And so, Napoleon rejected America's proposal to purchase New Orleans, choosing instead to offer the entirety of France's North American possessions as the Louisiana Purchase. Led by U.S. Secretary of State James Madison, American negotiators took advantage of the deal and signed on the President's behalf. Back in the United States the treaty was approved in Congress by a vote of twenty-four to seven. The Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Louisiana Purchase Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led a government-sponsored expedition to explore the vast wilderness of the west soon after the signing of the Louisiana Purchase. The team, also known as the Corps of Discovery, left St. Louis, Missouri in 1804 and returned to the same spot in 1806. Traveling 8,000 miles (12,800 km), the expedition gathered huge amounts of information about the landscapes, flora (plants), fauna (animals), resources, and people (mostly Native Americans) it encountered across the vast territory of the Louisiana Purchase.

The team first traveled northwest up the Missouri River, and traveled west from its end, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Bison, grizzly bears, prairie dogs, bighorn sheep, and antelope were just a few of the animals that Lewis and Clark encountered. The pair even had a couple of birds named after them: Clark’s nutcracker and Lewis’s woodpecker. In total, the journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition described 180 plants and 125 animals that were unknown to scientists at the time. The expedition also led to the acquisition of the Oregon Territory, making the west further accessible to the pioneers coming from the east. Perhaps the biggest benefit to the trip, though, was that the United States government finally had a grasp on what exactly it had purchased. The Louisiana Purchase offered America what the Native Americans had known about for years: a variety of natural formations (waterfalls, mountains, plains, wetlands, among many others) covered by a wide array of wildlife and natural resources. BOUNDARIES | The Handbook of Texas Online| Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) Site BOUNDARIES BOUNDARIES.

In the middle of the twentieth century the boundaries of Texas were 2,845.3 miles long, counting the great arc of the Gulf Coast line and only the larger river bends. If the smaller meanderings of the rivers and the tidewater coast line were followed, the boundary was 4,137 miles long and enclosed 263,644 square miles of land and 3,695 square miles of water surface. The location of Texas boundaries has been the subject of international and interstate conflict resulting in treaties, litigation, and commissions from 1736 to the present. Controversy over details continues, as the tidelands controversy and the Chamizal disputeqqv illustrate. In 1995 the state legislature authorized a Red River Boundary Commission to fix the boundary between Oklahoma and Texas, where the still-shifting Red River has frequently changed course and muddied the issue for two centuries. The eastern boundary was the first to become the subject of controversy and the first to be marked definitely.

Both Spain and France claimed the area of present Texas, and by 1716 Spanish presidios at Los Adaes and French trading posts at Natchitoches were separated by only a few miles. In 1736 the commanders at the two outposts agreed on the Arroyo Hondo, a Red River tributary between the Sabine River and Natchitoches, as the boundary between Louisiana and New Spain. After Louisiana was ceded to Spain in 1762, the Arroyo Hondo continued to be regarded as the boundary between the province of Louisiana, a subdivision of the captaincy-general of Cuba, and the province of Texas, a subdivision of the commandancy-general of the Provincias Internas . When the United States purchased Louisiana in 1803, the boundary of the purchase was not defined, but early in 1804 President Thomas Jefferson decided that the territory extended to the Rio Grande . To refute this claim Spain began to investigate her historic claim to the Texas area; Father Melchor de Talamantes and later José Antonio Pichardoqqv made detailed studies of the limits of Louisiana and Texas.

While they made academic investigations of the historic boundaries, Spanish forces, in 1806, moved east of the Sabine River to repel an anticipated invasion by Aaron Burr . In order to avert a clash, James Wilkinson and Simón de Herrera,qqv the United States and Spanish military commanders, entered into an agreement that established the Neutral Ground , the area between the Arroyo Hondo and the Sabine River, as a buffer. The makeshift arrangement lasted until 1819, when the Adams-Onís Treaty between Spain and the United States defined the eastern boundary of Texas as beginning at the mouth of the Sabine River, continuing along the west bank of the river to its intersection with the thirty-second parallel, and running due north from that intersection to the Red River. Spain delayed ratification of the Adams-Onís Treaty until 1821. By that time Mexico had declared her independence of Spain and refused to recognize the treaty boundary line. In 1828, after repeated efforts by the United States, the Mexican administration agreed to a survey of the 1819 line, but the Mexican congress refused to confirm the survey treaty until 1832, and then the line remained unsurveyed.

Meanwhile, between 1819 and 1836 the Neches River was occasionally advanced as the eastern boundary of Texas. In 1840–41 a survey was made of that portion of the line between the Republic of Texas and the United States from the Gulf of Mexico to the Red River by a joint commission representing the two countries. On July 5, 1848, the United States Congress passed an act giving its consent to the state of Texas to move its eastern boundary from the west bank of the Sabine River (including Sabine Pass and Sabine Lakeqqv to the middle of that stream, and on November 24, 1849, the Texas legislature enacted a law to that effect. The boundary was unchallenged from that time until November 27, 1941, when Louisiana governor Sam Jones wrote Texas governor Coke Stevenson , asserting that Louisiana's western border was the west bank of the Sabine River.

Louisiana's claim rested on United States treaties of 1819 with Spain, 1828 with Mexico, and 1838 with the Republic of Texas, all of which designated the west bank of the Sabine as the boundary of the United States. However, the boundary of the United States at the west bank of the Sabine River was not identical to that of the Louisiana boundary, which extended only to the middle of the river. The state of Louisiana contended that the United States was negotiating on Louisiana's behalf and consequently had no authority to grant Texas the western half of the river in the act of 1848. It was more than twenty-seven years after Governor Jones's letter to Governor Stevenson before Louisiana participated in any legal proceedings. United States district judge Robert Van Pelt, special master for the United States Supreme Court, heard the claims and recommended to the court, in a report filed in May 1972, that the boundary between Texas and Louisiana should be the geographic middle of the Sabine River, Sabine Lake, and Sabine Pass.

He also recommended that Louisiana be awarded all islands that existed in the river on April 8, 1812 (the date Louisiana was admitted to the Union), subject, however, to any claims that Texas might make to any such islands by reason of acquiescence and prescription; that all islands formed in the eastern half of the Sabine River since 1812 be awarded to Louisiana; and that all islands formed in the western half of the river since 1812 be awarded to Texas. Sixty-one square miles of the river and lake was involved in the dispute; at stake were more than 35,000 acres of land, four producing oil wells, and $2.6 million in oil lease bonuses collected by Texas. Both states filed exceptions to the recommendations by the special master in July 1972, and after answers to each state's exceptions the Supreme Court was to rule on the master's report. The case was argued before the court in December 1972; the court's ruling came early in March 1973, saying, in effect, that the boundary was the geographic middle of the Sabine River.

However, the case was sent back to the special master for further study in regard to the ownership of islands and also to determine the extension of the boundary into the Gulf of Mexico. Except for the possible claim of the Rio Grande as the western boundary for the Louisiana purchase, the western boundary of Texas had no significance in international relations and practically no mention in Mexican interstate relations before Texas independence. In 1721 the Medina River was considered the boundary between Texas and Coahuila; in 1811 the Nueces River was the boundary between Texas and Tamaulipas. Provisions of the secret treaty of Velasco, which bound the Mexican army to retreat beyond the Rio Grande and Texas not to claim land beyond that river, was the beginning of the Texas claim to the Rio Grande as the western boundary. On December 19, 1836, the First Congress of the republic declared the southern and western boundary of Texas to be the Rio Grande from its mouth to its source and thence a line due north to the forty-second parallel. The Texan Santa Fe expedition of 1841 was an unsuccessful attempt to assert Texas authority in the New Mexico area embraced in that land claim.

Texas claimed the same western limits after annexation . The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) affirmed the Rio Grande boundary to El Paso as the international boundary, but the Texas claim to New Mexico, then occupied by United States troops, remained in dispute. Texas decreed a county, Santa Fe County, to include the area, but the people of New Mexico protested the Texas claim. After prolonged debate in Congress and the Texas newspapers and near-armed dispute, an adjustment was reached in the Compromise of 1850 . The compromise line ran the Texas western boundary from El Paso east along the thirty-second parallel to the 103d meridian, up that meridian to 36°30" latitude, and along that line to the 100th meridian, thence down the 100th meridian to the Red River. The thirty-six-thirty line was chosen since Texas was a slave state and that line had been established in 1820 as the Missouri Compromise line between slave and free territory in the Louisiana Purchase. After 1850 the line was apparently fixed, but the boundary was not.

An error in the surveying of the western line gave Texas a strip about two miles wide west of the 103d meridian; Congress confirmed the boundary, as surveyed, in a joint resolution of February 16, 1911. Shifts in the channel of the Rio Grande necessitated other changes. In 1929 the Supreme Court assigned to Texas 25,000 acres of former New Mexican land lying on the western side of the channel of the river. The Rio Grande Rectification Project , authorized in 1933, provided for the exchange of 3,500 acres of land, part of it in the El Paso area, between the United States and Mexico. The International Boundary and Water Commission is a permanent agency with jurisdiction over the boundary questions on the Rio Grande. As defined in the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, the northern and northwestern boundary of Texas followed the course of the Red River westward to the 100th meridian and north along that meridian to the Arkansas River, the whole line as depicted in the Melish map of 1818.

Then the Compromise of 1850 placed the north line of the Panhandle at 36°30". No problem arose over this boundary until 1858, when A. H. Jones and H. M. Brown, who had been employed to locate the 100th meridian in making surveys of grants to various Indian tribes, discovered that the Melish map had erroneously located that meridian 100 miles too far east. In 1852 Randolph B. Marcy discovered that there were two main branches of the Red River lying between the Melish line and the 100th meridian. The supposedly correct meridian was surveyed in 1860, the same year that the Texas legislature decreed Greer County . Because of the Civil War and Reconstruction,qqv Greer County was not organized until 1886 and was in process of being settled when the United States land commissioner protested the Texas claim to the land north of the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River.

The controversy went to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled on March 16, 1896, that the Texas boundary was the south or Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River and the astronomical 100th meridian. The northern boundary again became controversial in 1919, when Texas drillers discovered oil in the bed of the Red River just north of Burkburnett. Oklahoma claimed the bed of the river and sued Texas for title in the Supreme Court. The Greer County case had defined the Texas boundary as the south bank of the Red River, but Texas claimed that the south bank in 1919 was not the same as the south bank at the time of the Melish map and the treaty of 1819. The contest became a three-cornered suit, with Oklahoma claiming the entire riverbed, Texas claiming title to the south half, and the United States disputing both claims and asserting ownership of the south half as trustee for the Indians. The decision in the four-year suit was rendered on January 15, 1923.

In it the Supreme Court defined a riverbank as the bank cut by the normal flow of water, or where vegetation stopped, gave Oklahoma the north half of the bed and political control of the entire bed, and gave the United States the south half of the bed as trustee for the Indians, but allowed Texas to retain control of the oil wells in the floodplain between the riverbanks. To prevent further dispute, the court ordered a survey of the south bank as it was in 1819 and the placing of concrete markers along the survey line. The report of Arthur Kidder and Arthur H. Stiles, the commissioners who made the survey, was accepted on April 25, 1927. In the meantime, in 1920 Texas sued Oklahoma on the grounds that the surveys of the 100th meridian made in 1858 and 1860 had erroneously placed that meridian a half mile too far west. Surveys made in 1892 and 1902 had not solved the problem of ownership of an area 134 miles long and between 3,600 and 3,700 feet wide.

One Oklahoma resident complained that she had not moved a foot in forty-five years but had lived in one territory, two states, and three counties. In 1927 the Supreme Court ordered Samuel S. Gannett to survey the meridian. He worked from 1927 to 1929, largely at night to avoid the aberrations of heat waves, and placed concrete markers at every two-thirds of a mile. The court ruled in 1930 that the Gannett line was the true meridian. Oklahoma tried unsuccessfully to buy back the strip that the Texas legislature incorporated in 1931 in Lipscomb, Hemphill, Wheeler, Childress, and Collingsworth counties. Higgins was the only town in the ceded area. See also NECHES RIVER BOUNDARY CLAIM , TREATIES OF VELASCO . BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bunyan H. Andrew, "Some Queries Concerning the Texas-Louisiana Sabine Boundary," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 53 (July 1949). Jacqueline Eckert, International Law and United States-Mexican Boundary Relations (Ph.D.

Thesis, University of Texas, 1939). Grant Foreman, "Red River and the Spanish Boundary in the Supreme Court," Chronicles of Oklahoma 2 (March 1924). Herbert P. Gambrell and Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas (Dallas: Southwest Press, 1932). Charles W. Hackett, ed., Pichardo's Treatise on the Limits of Louisiana and Texas (4 vols., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1931–46). J. Evetts Haley, The XIT Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado (Chicago: Lakeside, 1929; rpts., Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953, 1967). Webb L. Moore, The Greer County Question (San Marcos, Texas: Press of the San Marcos Record, 1939). What

Question: What country sold land including the present-day states of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma to the USA in 1803?
Answer: France