Howdy and welcome to Wise About Texas, the Texas History Podcast.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and that you're having a relaxing week as we head into 2016.

Today is December 29th, 2015, and 170 years ago today, United States President James K. Polk signed a document admitting

Texas as the 28th State of the United States of America.

So in this episode, I'm going to give you an overview of that process and a couple of the stories

about Texas's joining of the Union.

So we're going to go all the way back to 1803 and get wise about Texas. Let's think first about the migration and settlement of Texas.

In 1803, with the Louisiana purchase from France,

the United States acquired a vast amount of territory which at least according to many in the

United States included parts of Texas which was then of course a Spanish

territory. Also in dispute during this time period was Florida. Spain had some problems with

revolutionary in South America and wanted to discourage the U.S. from

supporting those revolutions. It was certainly a tense time in North America and

over a period of two years from 18th It was a tense time in North America.

And over a period of two years, from 1817 to 1819,

the U.S. Secretary of State, it was John Quincy Adams,

met with the Spanish Ambassador to the U.S.

who was Louis de Onis I Gonzales Vara.

They concluded negotiations with what is often called the Florida Treaty or the

Adams-O-Nis Treaty. Now this treaty was a feat of diplomacy in a very interesting study.

Unfortunately, we don't have time to dive in too deep to the treaty,

but the result was very important.

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