Neutral Ground (Louisiana)

The Neutral Ground (also known as the Neutral Strip, the Neutral Territory, and the No Man's Land of Louisiana; sometimes anachronistically referred to as the Sabine Free State) was a disputed area between Spanish Texas and the United States' newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. Local officers of Spain and the United States agreed to leave the Neutral Ground temporarily outside the jurisdiction of either country. The area, now in western Louisiana, had neutral status from 1806 to 1821.

Spain had been concerned for many years with what it viewed as the encroachment of the French from Louisiana into Texas. About 1734, the French moved their post at from the east to the west side of the Red River. The Spanish governor of Texas, Manuel de Sandoval, was reprimanded for not protesting this violation of what Spain believed was its sovereign territory. In 1740, Governor Prudencio de Orobio y Basterra was ordered to investigate French intrusion in the Natchitoches area. Other investigations were ordered in 1744 and 1751.

In 1753, Texas Governor Jacinto de Barrios y Jáuregui determined that the French had encroached on Texas by occupying territory to the west of Arroyo Hondo, a small creek in western Natchitoches Parish that had previously been used by the French as their western boundary with Texas. In 1764, the boundary dispute became temporarily moot when France ceded its Louisiana colony to Spain. This colony was the large area west of the Mississippi River but drained by the same, plus New Orleans and its immediate vicinity. The transfer was made without resolving the earlier border dispute, which did not seem significant under the circumstances. Spain administered the area from Havana, contracting out governing to people from many nationalities as long as they swore allegiance to Spain and promised to publicly worship in Catholic churches. Many Americans took advantage of these grants. Grants in the region that would become the Neutral Ground eventually became known as Rio Hondo claims.

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