Adams-Onis Treaty

February 22, 1819

Secretary of State John Quincy Adams bullied a decaying Spain into ceding Florida and drawing the first line across the continent to the Pacific. In exchange the United States assumed five million dollars of Spanish debts. The swampy peninsula, long a haven for runaway slaves and Seminoles, became American. The transcontinental boundary line gave the United States its first legal claim to the Oregon Country and the Pacific coast.