The map that I promised was a map of the 1806-1819 de facto Neutral
Ground, worked out as a practical solution between the American and
Spanish military officers in the field (quite independent of their
political bosses higher up). It is found in the BP Files section with
the name neutral.jpg and is explained in the last two paragraphs of BP
post 14285 at your third link below.
I did not indicate any tripoint between the Neutral Ground and the
remainders of American Louisiana and Spanish Texas because of
uncertainty in the location of the international boundary north of the
Neutral Ground. Indeed, it was that same uncertainty that necessitated
both the Neutral Ground in the first instance and the Adams-de Onís
treaty that would replace it with a de jure boundary in the second. The
only reason that the de facto Neutral Ground was not erected farther
north was that the land north of the 32nd parallel was not yet the
subject of much interest (navigation on the Red River being blocked by
the "Great Raft," a 150-mile log jam that was removed by 1839).
However, if you are driven to find a tripoint (which you undoubtedly
are), I, as a resident of the former Neutral Ground, can offer some
analysis that might be helpful.
In the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the USA bought from France the French
claim to Louisiana, without specifying any western boundary. Most
strictly, that could be interpreted historically as the land west of the
Mississippi River that drained into the same. This means that the
drainage divide between the basins of the Red and Sabine rivers would
have been the boundary. The USA was desirous of the most liberal
(western) interpretation of the boundary of Louisiana as it could put
over on the Spanish. Thus, the 1804 creation of the Territory of
Orleans was "to extend west to the western boundary of the said
cession." In 1812 when Louisiana was admitted to the Union, its western
boundary was specified at the middle of the Sabine River to the 32nd
parallel, and from there due north. Note that this was in the midst of
the life span of the de facto military Neutral Ground and was seven
years before the 1819 Adams-de Onís treaty would place the de jure
US-Spanish boundary on the west bank of the Sabine River to the 32nd
parallel and thence northward. So, it is clear that, in 1812, the
Congress was admitting into the Union prospectively the western fringes
of Louisiana that it hoped eventually to obtain de jure. The US waited
until after the 1819 treaty was fully ratified in 1821 before it
occupied the erstwhile Neutral Ground militarily with the establishment
of Fort Jesup in 1822.
So, if you forced me to draw you a tripoint at the northern end of the
Neutral Ground, I would place it in De Soto Parish at the intersection
of the Sabine-Red drainage divide with the 32nd parallel, centered
roughly six miles southeast of Mansfield. Actually, the complexity of
the drainage divide in that vicinity seems that it would produce three
tripoints, with a Spanish exclave surrounded by the USA and the Neutral
Ground. Of course, it never came to that.
Of more fascination to me is the anomaly that existed in the western
half of the Sabine River. Since the 1812 admission of Louisiana had
prematurely placed its western boundary at the middle of the river, and
the 1819 treaty placed the international boundary on the west bank, that
left the western half of the Sabine as unorganized territory of the
United States until 1848. That's when the Congress authorized the State
of Texas (annexed three years earlier) to extend its jurisdiction to the
middle of Sabine Pass, Sabine Lake, and the Sabine River to the 32nd
parallel. That narrow part of the State of Texas, in which I swam three
weeks ago, was never part of the Republic of Texas!
Lowell G. McManus
Leesville, Louisiana, USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "aletheia kallos" <aletheiak@...>
To: <boundarypoint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 11:52 AM
Subject: [BoundaryPoint] stretching the quest for a real stretchable
latex tripoint to stretch
> this fresh news item about an imminent neutral ground
> cleanup party
> http://www.2theadvocate.com/features/travel/4201376.html
> jogged my memory back to this excellent golden oldie
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BoundaryPoint/message/14259
> which you may also recall
> along with its equally illustrious second shoe
> dropping
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BoundaryPoint/message/14285
>
> but which still left one guessing & reaching &
> stretching for any handle at all on the elusive but
> allegedly real
> de facto latex neutral ground tripoint
> which actually lived
> or else was really stillborn
> if thats not stretching it in this case too
> during the first decades of the 19th century
>
> my guess is
> the quest got stretched into an unresolved sawanabori
> of the calcasieu
> which however interesting & possibly even contributory
> to an ultimate resolution of this supposed lalatxtx
> tripoint
> came to a dead stop there in any case
> like a snapped elastic band
>
> but all efforts to pin la latex tex down thus far
> reported here
> i believe
> & all my subsequent efforts too
> have resulted only in establishing a vague triarea &
> triline at the farthest reaches of the lalatxtx condo
> or nondo
> extending perhaps all the way from about zwolle to
> about logansport
> & thus perhaps comprising several hundreds of square
> miles of 1806lalatx1819 territorial uncertainty too
> rather than any specific & exact 1806lalatxtx1819
> tripoint
>
> like say very roughly all the sabine riverfront on
> this map
> http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=31.93501&lon=-93.93668&s=250&size=l&u=4&datum=nad27&layer=DRG
> or better yet if zoomed out once or twice
>
>
> but did i miss the promised tripoint treasure map
> or hasnt it surfaced yet
>
>
>
>
>
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