This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

THE COASTAL. RT'~ION DESCRIBED --* ~'i'°	GEOGRAPHY	--	LAND	CLAIMS —
POLITICAL ACTS -- FRENCH, BRITISH, SPANISH LAND GRANTS 180h to 1813
"American Beginnings in the Old Southwest:	The	Kississippi"
by W. B. Hamilton -	1937
id. 82 - 87
THE COASTAL REGION
From the time of the cession of Louisiana by the French, "with the same extent that it now has.in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it...," the United States claimed to the Perdido River.
The act erecting the Territory of Orleans, and the District of Louisiana, declared void all Spanish grants in the territory ceded by France subsequent to the treaty of San Idelfonso, save the bona fide settlers prior to December 20, 1803". This act, unsupported by any positive action of the United States government, put an end to neither the immigration of settlers, nor the granting of lands by the Spanish government, so that the proclamation of Madison, October 27? I8l0, following the West Florida revolution, which declared the territory to the Perdido annexed to the United States, opened the question of claimants under grants of the past seven years.
The President promised the inhabitants protection "in the enjoyment of their liberty, property, and religion...!' A petition from over four hundred of the inhabitants of West Florida (whose main object was to pray annexation to the Mississippi Territory, with which they shared common climate, soil, people, manners, and politics) asked confirmation of titles acquired between cession and seizure.
The first effort of Congress to attack the land problem in the new region was simply a provision for ascertaining what claims existed there The President was authorized to appoint a commissioner in each of the two districts, one west of the Pearl River, and the other ss.±¥ east, who should travel about from parish to parish, and receive notices of claims founded on any kind of conveyance from the French, Spanish, or British governments, and who should also list those settlers who had no claim from any of those governments. It is the territory east of the Pearl River and west of the Perdido that concerns this study.
In spite of the rietition which indicated sentiment in the parishes on the Kississippi for annexation to Kississippi, which was reported upo: favorably by a committee of which George Poindexter	was	chairman,	there
was a division of the spoils, as	Governor Claiborne	had	proposed to
Poindexter, and the land east of	Pearl River was by	statute added	to
the Mississippi Territory. (Act	of Kay 14-, 1812)