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1783 is the mid point in Louisiana's most historic international period. Twenty years previously the Treaty of Paris of 1763 had ended the French adventure in North America and had split the vast Louisiana colony down the middle. British control included all of the Mississippi River watershed east of the river as well as all of Florida. West of the Mississippi were the vast Spanish holdings.
Twenty years after the end of the American Revolution the young nation had spread its borders to include all of that ancient claim of LaSalle through the Louisiana purchase. The events of the 1780s spurred Anglo migration from the east coast, alarming the Spanish Dons in Louisiana and back in Spain. The river was blocked to American shipping, Native Americas were manipulated, and intrigues involving the peoples of the "western waters", Spanish ministers and the Louisiana governors tried with various plots to separate the land from the United States. Until the American government consolidated under the constitution in 1787 the original states barely showed interest in the growing communities of Kentucky, the "state" of Franklin in eastern Tennessee and what was briefly known as the "District of Mero", named after Louisiana governor Miro, located on the Cumberland River in Western Tennessee. |