The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 19, July 1915 - April, 1916 Page: 100

The Southwestern Historica:l Quarterly

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES
A History of the Western Boundary of the Louisiana Purchase,
1819-1841. By Thomas Maitland Marshall, Ph. D. [Uni-
versity of California Publications in History, Volume II]
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1914. Pp. xiii,
266. $2.00.)
This is a history of the diplomacy of the Louisiana-Texas
boundary. The subject has been approached from various angles
by numerous investigators, but this is the first consecutive survey
covering the whole period from the emergence of the Texas ques-
tion in United States history to the settlement of the boundary
with the Republic of Texas in 1841. Three chapters review the
boundary negotiations with Spain, closing with the treaty of 1819;
and, despite the fact that Dr. Marshall is here following in the
footsteps of Henry Adams, his treatment is quite the clearest and
most detailed that we have. Seven chapters present the varied
phases of our boundary relations with Mexico: that is, the nego-
tiation of the unratified treaty of 1828; the efforts of Adams and
Jackson to buy 'Texas; the activities of Colonel Anthony Butler,
our unscrupulous charge d'affaires in Mexico; the question of
neutrality during the Texas revolution and the occupation of
Nacogdoches by United States troops in the summer of 1836.
The last two chapters trace the boundary relations between the
United States and Texas-an aspect of the question that has been
left heretofore almost untouched by historians. Thirty maps il-
lustrate every diplomatic shift in the development of the boundary
line.
In two paragraphs of the Preface the author indicates "some
of the more important phases of the subject in which he has dif-
fered with accepted theory or in which he believes that he has
added somewhat to the history of the subject. [1] He finds that
Napoleon decided to sell Louisiana several months earlier than the
date set by Henry Adams. [2] The conception of the size of
Louisiana gradually developed in the mind of Jefferson; the con-
clusion which he reached became the basis of American diplomacy

100