The question of a ghost international tripoint at the intersection of the 31st
parallel and the Mississippi River (or anywhere east of there along the
parallel) all boils down to the evolving status of West Florida as the rest of
what is now Louisiana was ceded, retroceded, transferred, and sold.

One of the first things that any junior-high history student in this state
learns is the definition of the "Isle of Orleans." This is a term that has been
used since colonial times to refer to the land east of the Mississippi that (at
every stage of history) has been united in matters of sovereignty with the west
side of the river. The Isle of Orleans consisted of land east of the
Mississippi from the Gulf to a point just south of Baton Rogue where the river
gave birth to a distributary, historically called the Iberville River (now Bayou
Manchac--severed from the Mississippi by levee in early historic times). From
this point, the northern boundary of the Isle of Orleans passed (with the
distributed waters) to the sea via what are now called Bayou Manchac, the Amite
River, the Blind River, Lake Maurepas, Pass Manchac, Lake Pontchartrain, and The
Rigolets.

In the Treaty of Paris of 1763, the French ceded to the British the lands east
of a boundary that descended the Mississippi "to the river Iberville, and from
thence by a line drawn along the middle of this river and the Lakes Maurepas and
Pontchartrain to the sea." In a treaty with the Spanish signed the same day,
the French ceded to them what remained of "the country known under the name of
Louisiana, as also New Orleans and the island in which that city is situated."

The eight parishes of Louisiana that lie between the Isle of Orleans and the
31st parallel are very commonly known to this day as "the Florida Parishes"
because this region was not part of Spanish colonial Louisiana or the subsequent
retrocession to France, but rather was in the British and then Spanish colony of
West Florida. The same area was only added to the State of Louisiana by a
separate act of Congress six days after statehood.

I have already covered the northward expansion of West Florida under Britain and
its conquest by Spain during the American Revolution.

That brings us to the provisional treaty between Britain and the United States
in 1782 and the definitive treaty in 1783. In both, the Mississippi River and
the 31st parallel are mentioned as boundaries of the United States. In the 1783
treaty, Britain also recognized Spanish sovereignty south of the parallel. Of
the intersection of the river and the parallel, Mike has written "it now seems
to me there was indeed an esgbus there briefly in 1783." Well, perhaps, but
only in a rather convoluted and strictly de jure way. Spain was in de facto
possession of the east bank of the Mississippi up to Vicksburg from 1779 until
the Pinckney Treaty of 1795, and they were not party to any recitation of the
boundaries of the USA in 1783 (that year's "Treaty of Paris" being a pack of
treaties between different parties rather than one between all parties). So, to
anoint this location as a brief tripoint at that time, one would have to
consider the provisional US/British treaty of 1782 as binding upon Spain in
regard to the 31st parallel and recognize Britain as the de jure sovereign over
the portion of West Florida south of the parallel until Spain's de facto
possession became de jure in the 1783 British/Spanish treaty. You may do so if
you wish, but I think you must call it a brief de jure tripoint with a couple of
footnotes.

Now, fast forward to 1800. Louisiana had proved to be a very expensive colony
for Spain. The southwestern corner of the USA was now firmly established at the
corner of 31st and Mississippi. West Florida, the Isle of Orleans, and
Louisiana west of the river were all Spanish. In that year, Napoleon Bonaparte
decided that he wanted Louisiana back for France. On October 1, in the Secret
Treaty of San Ildefonso (in exchange for an enlargement of the Bourbon-ruled
Duchy of Parma), Spain retroceded Louisiana to France "with the same extent that
it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and
such as it should be after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain
and other states." This included Louisiana west of the river and the Isle of
Orleans. It excluded West Florida, which had passed by treaty to Britain in
1763 and was now recognized as Spanish by treaties with Britain in 1783 and the
USA in 1795.

So, as Louisiana west of the river passes to France, the corner of 31st and
Mississippi does unquestionably become a secret de jure ESFRUS tripoint. It is
secret because the treaty is secret. It is de jure and not de facto because the
secrecy of the treaty left Spain in de facto control of Louisiana. The secrecy
ended in 1802, and the de facto Spanish rule ended on November 30, 1803, when
French officials assumed power in New Orleans. Twenty days later, on December
20, American officials assumed power from those same Frenchmen. So, for twenty
days, the corner of 31st and Mississippi was a fully acknowledged de facto and
de jure tripoint in every sense of the word. It was indeed at that point, and
not somewhere eastward along the parallel.

Despite Jefferson's wishful pretenses that the Louisiana Purchase might possibly
have included lands as far west as the Rio Grande and as far east as the
Perdido, "Florida Occidental" remained Spanish for several more years. During
the British period, the colony had attracted certain American Tories, and the
Spanish had later welcomed an influx of industrious American planters. These
Anglos revolted against Spanish rule in 1810 (along with the vast majority of
Spain's New World colonies), seized Fort San Carlos at Baton Rouge, and
established the Republic of West Florida. It last only days before being
unceremoniously assimilated into the USA by occupation. The region's belated
inclusion in the State of Louisiana is discussed at length in BUS&SS.

Strangely, BUS&SS is entirely silent on any survey of the 31st parallel boundary
between Louisiana and Mississippi. It was probably done by the General Land
Office, since it is the base line of the St. Helena Meridian. That said, the
LAMS boundary appears on topographic maps to be perhaps two to four seconds
south of the actual parallel. Since the ESUS boundary and its ghost tripoint
were never surveyed, I think we should use the actual meridian rather than the
current LAMS boundary. Regardless of the parallel chosen, it will be impossible
to precisely pinpoint where the middle of the river was in 1803. Any class-D
try should be from the west bank of the river, the east side below LAMS being
the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola), and the neighboring area of
Mississippi being accessible by road only through the penitentiary. (What other
state would have the gall to place its maximum-security penitentiary up against
a neighboring state for five miles?)

Lowell G. McManus
Leesville, Louisiana, USA

----- Original Message -----
From: "acroorca2002" <orc@...>
To: <BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 7:48 PM
Subject: [BoundaryPoint] Re: American ghost tripoints

--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Lowell G. McManus" <
mcmanus71496@m...> wrote:
> Mike,
>
> In one of your messages "Re: Grosvenor on maps," you inventoried a small =
but
> intriguing collection of ghost points within the present USA. I commend =
you for
> your ingenuity in rooting these out

thanx lowell
i have been savoring your appreciation all this time because i happen
to agree with it
& am exuberant about zeroing in further on all of these ghost
tricountry points of the usa

& commend such national fun to nationals of all nations

more below

, but I must differ with your interpretation
> of one. You wrote:
>
> > btw
> > the one other de jure ghost tricountry point possibility in the usa
> > 1783esgbus1803
> > may fall at the point where the full mississippi river descends into
> > louisiana
> > if i have it all right
>
> As I understand you, the point that you intend is the southwestern corner=
of
> Mississippi. For the reasons that I will give below, I do not believe th=
at this
> point was ever an international tripoint.

yes you may well be right
& your analysis below does show my first guess above was indeed off
target
at least in point of its time frame & constituency

but what does appear to have obtained in this general location
if not at the exact point i mentioned
then somewhere east of it upon nlat31
was the de facto but secret 1802esfrus1803

thats the point i was looking for amidst the entire 1783 to 1803
maelstrom of cessions & retrocessions etc that circulated about this
point
or perhaps about somewhere just east of it
not sure

but do you agree so far

for it is not so much that you have struck an item from this precious
little inventory
as that you have helped to track & pin it down further

for i am happy to report that in my view this ghost still lives albeit
considerably transformed from my first sketch of it

& if you do agree then where exactly did this 1802esfrus1803 fall

in other words how much of west florida did spain secretly retrocede to
france with the secret greater louisiana retrocession of 1802

& so exactly where on the 31st parallel did the true if fleeting ghost
tricountry point i was & am still looking for actually fall

i mean if it isnt the same point i have incorrectly specified the
1783esgbus1803 above

but maybe another & still more careful reading of bus&ss will suffice

also i believe i am making a little progress pinning down the 17th
century de facto frgbnls

the dutch map i mentioned probably overstated things

my sense is that these points really fell somewhere between cooperstown
& amsterdam new york in the west
& at roughly springfield mass in the east

beyond in both case were brits on the one hand
& howling indians & their french allies on the other

>
> The east-west boundary between southeastern Louisiana and Mississippi fol=
lows
> the 31st parallel. This line was first mentioned as a boundary in 1763. =
In
> that year's Treaty of Paris, by which French sovereignty was expunged fro=
m North
> America, the Spanish (as allies of the French) had also lost their Florid=
as.
> Thus, a 1763 royal proclamation created two new British provinces, East F=
lorida
> and West Florida, divided at the Apalachicola River, with the 31st parall=
el
> specified as the northern boundary of West Florida to the Mississippi Riv=
er.
> West of the Mississippi was Spanish Louisiana, and north of the 31st para=
llel
> was, presumably, the Georgia colony (under its charter reaching to the So=
uth
> Sea).
>
> The very next year (1764), however, the British extended the northern bou=
ndary
> of West Florida to an east-west line running through the mouth of the Yas=
sous
> [Yazoo] River (just above present-day Vicksburg). Land north of this lin=
e was
> given to the new Province of Illinois. This, of course, was one of the i=
rksome
> British actions calculated to deprive the people of Britain's Atlantic co=
astal
> colonies of the western lands for which they felt they had fought the Fre=
nch and
> Indians--one of the festering seeds of the coming American Revolution.
>
> The British province of West Florida was governed from Fort George at Pen=
sacola.
> The British presence also included Fort Charlotte at Mobile, Fort Bute on=
the
> Mississippi below Baton Rouge, Fort New Richmond at Baton Rouge, and Fort=

> Panmure at Natchez.
>
> During the American Revolution, Spain declared war on Britain in May 1779=
Don
> Bernardo de Gálvez, the Spanish Governor of Louisiana (and later Viceroy =
of New
> Spain) personally led Spanish forces up the Mississippi from New Orleans =
and
> captured Forts Bute, New Richmond, and Panmure in September 1779. He the=
n
> sailed eastward along the Gulf Coast, capturing Fort Charlotte in March 1=
780,
> and besieging Fort George with 3,500 men. The British authorities at Pen=
sacola
> formally surrendered West Florida to the Spanish on May 10, 1781. (The
> Daughters of the American Revolution admit to membership the descendants =
of all
> Spanish forces who fought under Gálvez!)
>
> So, by the time the British recognized American independence in the Treat=
y of
> Paris of 1783, West Florida was in Spanish hands. In the treaty, the Br=
itish
> recognized the boundary of the United States in the west as extending dow=
n the
> Mississippi River to the 31st parallel and Spanish sovereignty south of t=
hat.
> The Spanish, however, claimed the whole of the former British West Florid=
a
> northward to the Yazoo as theirs by conquest. They established Fort Noga=
les at
> Vicksburg in 1791. This matter was not settled between the US and Spain =
until
> 1795, when the Pinckney Treaty (Treaty of San Lorenzo el Real) finally cl=
arified
> the boundary as the 31st parallel. (The discussion above relies upon the=
first
> several paragraphs of the Florida section of BUS&SS plus various works on=
the
> histories of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.)
>
> So, at whatever time one considers US sovereignty to have arrived de jure=
at the
> corner of the Mississippi River and the 31st parallel (whether 1783 or 17=
95),
> both the land to the west of the river and to the south of the parallel b=
elonged
> to Spain. Thus, there was no international tripoint.
>
> Lowell G. McManus
> Leesville, Louisiana, USA

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