Pinckney's Treaty

US History Encyclopedia: Pinckney's Treaty

Pinckney'S Treaty of 1795, also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo, between the United States and the Spanish Empire, established the thirty-first parallel as the border between the United States and Spanish West Florida. Spain had ceded that area in 1763 to Great Britain, which had moved the boundary from the thirty-first parallel to a line north of the thirty-second parallel. When the British gave Florida back to Spain after the War of Independence, this boundary was disputed. In addition to meeting the American position on this issue, Spain allowed the United States free navigation of the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico and granted it the right to deposit goods in New Orleans. This was of vital importance to the farmers and merchants who lived in Kentucky and Tennessee and to the settlers of the Ohio Valley, who now could ship their harvests and goods on the waterways to the eastern seaboard of the United States, to Europe, or to other areas. Additionally, both nations agreed not to incite attacks by Native Americans against the other nation. Signed at San Lorenzo El Real on 27 October 1795, the "Treaty of Friendship, Limits, and Navigation Between Spain and the United States" was negotiated by Thomas Pinckney, minister to Great Britain, who had been sent to Spain as envoy extraordinaire.

Bibliography

Bemis, Samuel Flagg. Pinckney's Treaty: America's Advantage from Europe's Distress, 1783–1800. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960.

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US Presidents Q&A: What was the Treaty of San Lorenzo (1796)?

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Spain possessed land in the southeast from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River south of the Thirty-first Parallel (the present-day Georgia-Florida border). Spain used its control of New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi River to obstruct American exporting and to check American expansion. Kentucky had become a state in 1792, and Tennessee in 1796. Both the United States and Spain claimed a large area, called the Yazoo Strip, between the borders of Florida and Tennessee and west of Georgia.

After some reluctance, Spain agreed to the Treaty of San Lorenzo, negotiated by George Washington's secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson. The treaty recognized the Thirty-first Parallel as the southern boundary of the United States, granted access to Americans to all of the Mississippi River, and provided a three-year privilege for Americans to warehouse goods in New Orleans for export.

In his Farewell Address (1796), Washington cited the Treaty of San Lorenzo as an example of how the American government works to help its citizens.

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Wikipedia: Pinckney's Treaty

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Pinckney's Treaty, also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo or the Treaty of Madrid, was signed in San Lorenzo de El Escorial on October 27, 1795 and established intentions of friendship between the United States and Spain. It also defined the boundaries of the United States with the Spanish colonies and guaranteed the United States navigation rights on the Mississippi River. The treaty's full title is Treaty of Friendship, Limits, and Navigation Between Spain and the United States. Thomas Pinckney negotiated the treaty for the United States and Don Manuel de Godoy represented Spain.

The treaty was presented to the United States Senate on February 26, 1796 and after several weeks of debate was ratified on March 7, 1796. It was ratified by Spain on April 25, 1796 and ratifications were exchanged on that date. The treaty was proclaimed on August 3, 1796.

By terms of the treaty, Spain and the United States agreed that the southern boundary of the United States with the Spanish Colonies of East and West Florida was a line beginning on the Mississippi River at the 31st degree north latitude drawn due east to the middle of the Chattahoochee River and from there along the middle of the river to the junction with the Flint River and from there straight to the headwaters of the St. Marys River and from there along the middle of the channel to the Atlantic Ocean^[1]. This describes the current boundary between the present state of Florida and Georgia and the line from the northern boundary of the Florida panhandle to the northern boundary of that portion of Louisiana east of the Mississippi. (The line ceases to be a border from the Pearl River to the Perdido River in order to provide the states of Mississippi and Alabama with seaports.)

This boundary had been in dispute since the British had expanded the territory of the Florida colonies while it was in their possession. They had moved the boundary from the 31st degree latitude northwards to a line drawn due east from the junction of the Yazoo River and the Mississippi, the present day location of Vicksburg, Mississippi. After the American Revolutionary War, Spain claimed the British border at the day of the Treaty of Paris while the United States insisted on the old boundary.

The treaty directed the United States and Spain to jointly survey the boundary line, and Andrew Ellicott served as the head of the U.S survey party. The treaty set the western boundary of the United States, separating it from the Spanish Colony of Louisiana as the middle of the Mississippi River from the northern boundary of the United States to the 31st degree north latitude. The agreement therefore put the lands of the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations of American Indians within the new boundaries of the United States^[2]. The United States and Spain agreed not to incite native tribes to warfare. Previously, Spain had been supplying weapons to local tribes for many years. Spain and the United States also agreed to protect the vessels of the other party anywhere within their jurisdictions and to not detain or embargo the other's citizens or vessels. The treaty also guaranteed navigation of the entire length of the river for both the United States and Spain. The territory ceded by Spain in this treaty was organized by the United States into the Mississippi Territory in 1798.

In 1800, under duress from Napoleon of France, Spain ceded an undefined portion of West Florida to France. When France then sold the Louisiana Territory to the US in 1803, a dispute arose again between Spain and the US on which parts of West Florida exactly had Spain ceded to France, which would in turn decide which parts of West Florida were now US property versus Spanish property.

Citations

^ http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/sp1795.asp Avalon Project of Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University
^ O'Brien, Greg. "Choctaw and Power". Choctaws in a Revolutionary Age, 1750-1830. University of Nebraska Press.

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