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Ellicott's Line GEOGRAPHER'S SPACE Ellicott’s Line How the 31st parallel shaped Louisiana BY Richard Campanella ouisiana’s boot-like shape that watershed, and contemporary of cartography and documentation. is distinct among American maps tended to be vague about It aligned well with the British states, and one of its interior borders. (In fact, only the delineation of the East Florida Ldefining elements is the straight western-most corner of the Florida jurisdiction, while encompassing line at the top of its “toe.” It traces Parishes actually drains into the key coastal waters and adjacent the thirty-first parallel separating Mississippi River; all other portions towns, thus assuring that Gulf access the southwestern tier of Mississippi flow into the Lake Pontchartrain would be under British control. from Louisiana’s “Florida Parishes”— and Pearl River watersheds.) Alas, the 31st parallel didn’t that is, West and East Feliciana, The French and Indian War work on the ground. It gave British East Baton Rouge, St. Helena, radically changed the emerging West Florida too little elbow room, Livingston, Tangipahoa, Washington, political geography. Foreseeing and it excluded the vital river port and St. Tammany Parishes. defeat to the British, the French of Natchez. So in 1764, the Brits Where this arbitrary line came secretly ceded everything west of the moved the West Florida border up from, and how it got surveyed Mississippi to the Spanish, plus the to latitude 32°22ˇ north, roughly into the landscape, entails some “Isle of Orleans” east of the river. This where Jackson, Mississippi, is today. understanding of imperial jockeying made lands south of Bayou Manchac, For the next two decades, British of two to three centuries ago. Pass Manchac, and Lakes Maurepas West Florida occupied the swath Originally, the piney woods of the and Pontchartrain, including New between the 32°22ˇ line and Bayou Florida Parishes were home to various Orleans, part of Spanish Luisiana. Manchac, eastward through Lakes petites nations, as the French perceived Upon winning the war in 1763, the Maurepas and Pontchartrain. To the local indigenous occupants. Tribes British took possession of nearly all the north was Choctaw, Creek, and did not delimit their lands, but they did other North American lands that had Chickasaw territory, claimed but not recognize territories. For example, been French. Spain also took some controlled by the British; to the south when Iberville visited a native village losses, ceding its Florida colony to and west was Spanish Louisiana. along the Mississippi River in 1699, the British. That turned the Florida Once again, war would change he understood that its red pole (bâton Parishes into British West Florida. the map. The Treaty of Paris, which rouge) marked a nearby stream as In the interest of regulating ended the American Revolution the dividing line between the Ouma migration and managing discontented in 1783, made former British (Houma) and Bayogoula hunting French and native inhabitants, the colonies into American territory, grounds. It’s an early record of a sort British put some new lines on their and turned British West Florida of political border in this region, and colonial maps. The Proclamation into “Spanish West Florida.” it gave Louisiana’s capital its name. of 1763 established four separate The United States and Spain were Seventeen years earlier, René- jurisdictions, one of which was called on friendly terms at this time, but Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle laid West Florida, for which they selected their diplomats disputed whether claim to the entire Mississippi River the 31st parallel as its northern the new international border should Valley, which in his mind put French border. Why? This line’s whole- be down along the 31st parallel borders on the map. But no one at integer latitudinal enumeration (better for the United States) or that time understood the extent of made it convenient for the purposes up along the 32°22ˇ line (better 58 SUMMER 2020 // LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES // 64PARISHES.ORG Southern Boundary of the United States from the Journal of Andrew Ellicott, 1803. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, HOWARD-TILTON MEMORIAL LIBRARY, TULANE UNIVERSITY for Spain). The 1795 Treaty of San accompanied by a detachment of explained the experimental strategy Lorenzo, also known as Pinckney’s troops, survey the 31st parallel from of anchoring the boundary: “I set up Treaty, put the boundary at the 31st the Mississippi River across four the clock, and small zenith sector, parallel. Had the other line prevailed, hundred miles of dense forest eastward and proceeded to take the zenith Louisiana today might include all of to the Apalachicola River. The Spanish, distance of [the star] pollux, for five southwestern Mississippi, making meanwhile, had appointed William evenings successively. From the its shape more square than boot-like. Dunbar and Stephen (Esteban) Minor to Result of those observations, it With emigration expected into oversee the Spanish surveying crews. appeared that we were three miles the region and orderly land-titling Ellicott arrived in Natchez on . too far north. [We] traversed with a concern, both parties deemed it February 24, 1797, only to be delayed a common surveying compass and necessary to survey the 31st parallel a year by political wrangling with chain, to the south, [to find] a proper into the landscape. Leading the the Spanish commanders, who were place to encamp, to determine the American effort was a Pennsylvania reluctant to leave this new American first point in the line with accuracy.” mathematician named Andrew territory. Finally, in the spring of 1798, At subsequent stations, Ellicott Ellicott, who had surveyed a number Ellicott got to work, accompanied would set up a shelter with an open view of important state boundaries in the by American and Spanish crews. of the night sky. Using two large zenith- Mid-Atlantic region, including the The surveying process began with sector telescopes and a high-precision Mason–Dixon Line and the plan for the establishment of astronomical astronomical clock, he measured the the District of Columbia. On May 4, field stations along the route, the angles traced by selected stars as they 1796, President George Washington first one being the most important. moved around the highest point (zenith) commissioned Ellicott to sail down At Clarksville near present-day of the sky. The mathematician then to the southwestern frontier and, Fort Adams, Mississippi, Ellicott corrected the figures for refractions, 59 SUMMER 2020 // LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES // 64PARISHES.ORG repeated the process nightly, compared the results to star charts, and calculated from these data the exact latitude and longitude of the station. Hundreds of such stations were established, starting in West Feliciana in the summer and fall of 1798, then over to the Pearl River, Mobile, and Pensacola in spring 1799, and into the Apalachicola region by year’s end. What resulted was an array of known latitude and longitude coordinates connecting the southern wilds to the mapped geodetic sphere. After establishing each point came the task of measuring, by compass and chain, the 31st parallel as it crossed the landscape. Workers cut vegetation along the swath and erected mounds every mile. At one key spot north of Mobile, crews placed a stone that would later demarcate St. Stephens Meridian and the baseline for all public land surveys in Alabama and Mississippi. Known as “Ellicott’s Stone,” and still in place today, workers inscribed “U.S. Lat. 31 1799” on one side and the Spanish equivalent on the obverse. By early 1800, the astronomical measurements were complete, and the United States now had an established, mapped international border with Spain. That same year, Spain secretly retroceded Louisiana to France, and Andrew Ellicott by Jacob Eichholtz, 1809. Oil on wood panel. three years later, France sold the colony NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, GIFT OF MRS. THOMAS CLAPHAM to the United States. West Florida, not included in either deal, now formed a Adams–Onís Treaty, the deal not only gave Louisiana the top of its “toe,” by slender possession of Spain wedged annexing the Florida Parishes, but also the back of its “heel,” by designating between American soil and Gulf waters. the Sabine River as the state’s (and the nation’s) southwestern border. Many Anglo residents, who had The Ellicott–Dunbar–Minor survey of the 31st parallel, shown to be less than settled in the western corner of the eight hundred feet off from modern satellite-based measurements, remains colony starting in British colonial evident today in the lines of properties, the edges of fields and forest, and the times, were generally hostile to Spanish borders of six southern states. The 31st parallel also became the baseline for rule. In 1810, they rebelled to form the Louisiana’s two prime meridians, forming the X–Y grid to which every square independent Republic of West Florida, inch of Louisiana is legally documented in terms of townships, ranges, and its borders encompassing today’s eight sections. It’s referenced in the paperwork of millions of house deeds and land Florida Parishes. After three months of titles, and appears distinctively on every map of the United States made over the factious turmoil, legally questionable past two centuries. The 31st parallel is, quite literally, a part of Louisiana life. diplomacy, and some violence, the tiny republic acquiesced to American RICHARD CAMPANELLA, a geographer with the Tulane School of Architecture, occupation, pending further negotiations. is the author of Cityscapes of New Orleans, Bienville’s Dilemma, Bourbon Street: Spain, an empire in decline with A History, The West Bank of Greater New Orleans, and other books. He may be bigger problems elsewhere, agreed reached through richcampanella.com, [email protected], or @nolacampanella in 1819 to cede all of Florida, from the on Twitter.
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