Explain the source of the territorial dispute between Spain and the United States in the years after the Revolutionary War.
What will be an ideal response?
ANSWER
The ideal answer should include:
1. By 1783, Spain had control of Louisiana, West Florida, and East Florida.
2. Because Spain controlled both banks of the lower Mississippi, the Spanish determined who could use the river for trade.
3. Since 1763, the Spanish had let British subjects navigate freely on the Mississippi.
4. Nonetheless, Spanish authorities feared American expansion into the Mississippi Valley.
5. A 1783 treaty between Britain and the United States established the thirty-first parallel as the southern boundary of the United States.
6. The same treaty also gave Americans the right to navigate on the Mississippi.
7. The Spanish believed that West Florida stretched above the thirty-first parallel and that they alone should grant navigation rights on the Mississippi.
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