Adams-Onis Treaty

Transcontinental Treaty, the Florida Purchase Treaty, or the Treaty of 1819.

It was a treaty between the US and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to the US and defined the boundary between the US and Spanish Mexico. It settled a standing border dispute between the two countries and was considered a triumph of American diplomacy.

The treaty came in the midst of increasing tensions related to Spain's territorial boundaries in North America against the US and Great Britain in the aftermath of the American Revolution; and also during the Latin American Wars of Independence.

Florida had become a burden to Spain, which could not afford to send settlers or garrisons.

Madrid decided to cede the territory to the US through the Adams-Onís Treaty in exchange for settling the boundary dispute along the Sabine River in Spanish Texas

It established the boundary of US territory and claims through the Rocky Mountains and west to the Pacific Ocean, in exchange for the US paying residents' claims against the Spanish government up to a total of $5,000,000 and relinquishing the US claims on parts of Spanish Texas west of the Sabine River and other Spanish areas, under the terms of the Louisiana Purchase.