Until the 1830s, the Disputed Territory along the Red River, where today's Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana meet, was a "no man's land" —a place without governmental authority.
Today, when historians write about the "No Man's Land" that existed between New Spain and the United States after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, they refer to the "neutral ground" along the Sabine River in western Louisiana. That's cool, because it definitely was a place from 1806 to 1821 where no governmental authority existed. But the interpretations of "no man's land" leave out the Great Bend region of the Red River -- the "disputed territory" where today's northwestern Louisiana, southwestern Arkansas, southeastern Oklahoma, and northeastern Texas meet. But that's why I'm here, to let you know about it.
French or Spanish or... Comanche and Wichita?
While the Louisiana Purchase would become known as a considerable boon for the United States, the territory was not well defined. Because it butted against Spanish claims in the New World, the southern boundaries could not simply be acknowledged by geographic features, such as rivers; if that were the case, technically the Sulphur River would have comprised the southern boundary of the Louisiana Territory, and Western Louisiana would have been claimed by the Spanish.
Instead, the boundaries had to be established by cultural affiliation. One of Indian agent Dr. John Sibley's important tasks when he came to Natchitoches in 1805 was to depose French Creole people, who could explain how far French settlements had expanded west of the Red River. The purpose of the Custis and Freeman expedition of 1806 was to ascertain geographically how far west French influence could be found. The expedition was halted by Spanish troops, however, because the Spanish government did not want Americans to claim anything south of the west-east flow of the Red River, regardless of the cultural affiliation.
That's actually only half the story, though. With the loss of the Battle of the Twin Villages along the Red River in 1758 (today's Montague County, Texas and Jefferson County, Oklahoma), the Spanish never did much with what is now considered "North Texas" and the "Texas panhandle;" they stayed away from the "Nortenos," their description for Comanche and Wichita people who claimed the region for themselves. Therefore, to make a complicated story short, the Americans sought to gauge colonial affiliation where there wasn't any. The native people owned the banks of the Red River, and would continue to do so, until an all-out-war was fought and won by the Americans in 1875.
The Great Bend
With the Custis and Freeman expedition halted in 1806, the extent of French colonial reach towards the west could not be fully gauged. No matter, because Americans began streaming into the eastern region of the Red River. This was the homeland of the Caddos, where French influence had been documented for at least eight decades. Many white settlers, who brought enslaved people with them, streamed into the area below the Great Bend and above the Great Raft, bounded by the Red River to the north and the Sulphur River to the south.
But there was a big problem. Just a half hour west of Natchitoches, the center of French activity along the Red River, stood Los Adaes, the former governmental seat of Spanish Texas. Los Adaes was a decidedly Spanish mission and presidio, and its existence west of the Red River complicated the questions of colonial claims. The Spanish may acknowledge French claims along the eastern and northern banks west of the Great Bend, but not along the western and southern shores. So, what to do with this "disputed territory" that both the US and Spain claimed?
Filibusters!
A filibuster is an action "that delays and prevents other actions." We tend to know it as a political tactic done to stop the passing of legislation. However, it is also a deliberate geographical strategy. A "land filibuster" is an attempt to claim land by preemption, meaning to simply squat on the land and legitimize presence after gaining the political upper hand.
Philip Nolan was an early filibusterer into North Texas. An Irish-born, American trader from Natchez (MS) who was contracted to obtain horses between the French, Spanish, Caddo, Comanche, and Wichita, he frequented Spanish Texas often at the turn of the 19th century. He also worked for James Wilkinson, who later became the Governor of Louisiana Territory and has been exposed by historians as a double-agent-spy for the Spanish and the U.S. Wilkinson connected Nolan to a variety of government officials, who gave Nolan passports for trading expeditions. However, relations soured between Nolan and the Spanish officials, who believed that Nolan was acting on behalf of the United States. During an unauthorized trading expedition into North Texas in March of 1801, which included a contingent of armed men, he was captured and killed by Spanish troops to prevent further incursions.
Another filibuster happened when Henry Glass, a Natchez man who received official permission from the US for an Indian trading expedition along the western Red River, returned there without and stole a Comanche/Wichita medicine stone, a 1-ton meteorite.
Along the "Neutral Strip" of the Sabine River in western Louisiana, where French and Spanish colonial influence collided, Aaron Burr, the then-vice president of the United States who had left Washington, DC after his infamous victory in a duel with Alexander Hamilton, attempted to filibuster the neutral ground. Whether he wanted to claim it as a sovereign nation, or claim it for the United States, is still up for debate. His "plan" was either fabricated or uncovered by James Wilkerson, the governor of Louisiana Territory who was also a double-spy for the US and Spain. Ultimately, Aaron Burr was arrested for the filibuster attempt and had to face a treason trial at the Supreme Court.
The Disputed Territory
By 1812, the state of Louisiana had been established from the New Orleans Territory, and the Louisiana Territory became the Missouri Territory. The northwestern and western boundaries of the new state were not surveyed adequately, though, and were considered "disputed territory." This included the lands in today's southwestern Arkansas, southeastern Oklahoma, northeastern Texas, and northwestern Louisiana. In northwestern Louisiana, displaced native villages had re-organized themselves and occupied a large share of the lands.
In southwestern Arkansas, southeastern Oklahoma, and northeastern Texas below the Great Bend, Americans poured into the disputed territory. They established plantations and farms and grist mills, and brought enslaved people with them. They also conducted illegal trade in whiskey and fire arms. By 1815, some settlements were established along the Red River in this lawless and dangerous place: Pecan Point (today's McCurtain County, Oklahoma), which settlers located as either on the northern or southern shores of the Red River, depending on the settler's need or national loyalty; and Jonesborough (today's Red River County, Texas), a ferry landing along a Caddo trading path that also could be either on the north bank (US) or south bank (Spain, then Mexico). By 1819, the town of Fulton (today's Hempstead County, Arkansas), was a border town with an illegal ferry and gambling houses.
The Spanish government, alarmed by the influx of what they considered illegal settlers, transferred Florida to the United States in exchange for the the US to stop the settlements by way of the Adams Onis Treaty in 1819. This treaty did not mathematically establish the boundaries of the "disputed territory," however, and the question of colonial dominance continued throughout the next decade, even after Mexico became its own nation in 1821 after its first revolution.
Immigration
By the 1820s, the Mexican government had begun granting legal immigration to Americans. The first empressario, as this scheme was called, was held by Moses Austin. While in Mexico City to obtain the grant, Austin became acquainted with a Scottish-turned-Spanish seafarer, Arthur Wavell. Wavell helped Moses's son Stephen transfer the empressario after Moses's death, who in turn accepted Wavell's investments in the colonization scheme. Wavell then applied for his own empressario in 1825, which was granted the next year.
Wavell's empressario stretched along the southern banks of the Red River from the Kiamichi to the Sulphur RIver confluences. This was the "disputed territory" where many people already dwealt, and Wavell himself never actually visited this land. He instead hired Benjamin Milam, an American-turned Mexican citizen, to connect with the settlers to legitimize their claims by paying a filing fee, converting to Catholicism, and swearing an oath of loyalty. James Bowie, also an American-turned-Mexican citizen, forged the filing documents and absconded with the cash and the land titles.
By 1830, the US government had accurately defined the "Index Line," or the 1819 treaty boundary. This led to Mexico voiding Wavell's grant because its eastern half was located in the United States. In the meantime, the United States removed American squatters from today's southeastern Oklahoma to make way for the Choctaw land cession, which had begun in 1820 and would continue well into the 1830s.
Dispute by another Name
The disputed territory remained in dispute because white Americans desired the land for themselves. They blatantly ignored their Mexican citizenship by continuing to own and traffic people. They were extremely hostile against native people, who had poured into the disputed territory to take up Mexican land grants after losing their homelands to the states, naively believing that here, they could be safe from Anglo violence and deceit. The Americans were so outraged by their own removal from their pre-emptions inside Indian Territory (carved in 1824 from Arkansas Territory (1819)) by the US government in favor of the Choctaw land cession that they burned down Fort Towson, which was established to protect the native people from exactly this kind of violence.
This is why so many of the American immigrants into the disputed territory signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, lent troops and money, and why southwestern Arkansas became the entry point for men like Sam Houston and David Crockett to commandeer and join the Texas revolution.
One could argue that the disputed territory still exists in the form of state boundaries between Texas and Oklahoma due to the shifting banks of the Red River. It's a story without an end!
Sources:
Link to the 1810 Map from "First Part of Captain Pike's Chart of the Internal Part of Louisiana"
Link to the 1819 Map of Mexico, Louisiana, and the Missouri Territory
Link to the 1828 Map of Arkansas
