Creative Books

By the convention of 1818, with Great Britain,
the northern boundary of the United States was carried from the Lake
of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, along the forty-ninth parallel.
Beyond the mountains, the Oregon country was left open, for a period
of ten years, to joint occupation of both powers, without prejudice
to the claims of either. Having thus postponed the Oregon question,
the secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, turned to his Spanish
relations. Obliged by Monroe to relinquish our claim to Texas in the
treaty of 1819, by which we obtained Florida, he insisted on so
drawing our boundary-line in the southwest as to acquire Spain's
title to the Pacific north of the forty-second parallel, and to the
lands that lay north and east of the irregular line from the
intersection of this parallel with the Rocky Mountains to the
Sabine. Adams was proud of securing this line to the Pacific Ocean,
for it was the first recognition by an outside power of our rights
in the Oregon country.


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