Talk:42nd parallel north

Does not date to the Nootka Convention

I changed removed this paragraph:

In North America, the 42nd Parallel became agreed upon as the northward limit of exclusivity of claims by the Spanish Empire, as of the Nootka Convention of 1793 with Great Britain, a division-line adopted by the United States when it inherited by treaty Spanish claims and obligations in the region (see Oregon Country and Columbia District).

Replacing it with info about the Adams-Onís Treaty (which is described again later on the page). The Nootka Convention paragraph had no source and a citation needed tag. I know that the book How the States got their Shapes does in fact say the 42nd parallel was the border agreed upon by the British and Spanish in the Nootka Conventions, but the book is wrong. There are plenty of other, better sources (and you can read the text of the Nootka Conventions to see the lack of any specific border defined). I thought I would post this here in case that book is brought up as a source. It is not a bad book overall, but had some serious errors--this one being the most glaring. Speaking of sources, this page could use a reference section! Pfly (talk) 18:52, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Pfly. Regarding the reference section, the majority of information in this article (and in the other similar parallel and meridian articles) is geographical and can gleaned from any decent atlas, or mapping website such as Bing or Google Maps. You can't really reference one particular source. This has been discussed before on the talk page of a similar article (though I can't for the life of me remember which one) and it was agreed that as long as clickable coordinates are in the article, then no other referencing is necessary. Obviously if any other sort of information is added (e.g. the Nootka Convention stuff), then this should be referenced as normal. Bazonka (talk) 19:37, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Hey Skookum, could you give a page number for where in Begg's Report relative to the Alaskan boundary question the topic of the 42nd parallel being specified in the Nootka Conventions? The search function at nosracines.ca doesn't work because, I assume, the pages are scanned images. I can browse through looking for it when I have more time, but a hint would be appreciated! It would be interesting if Begg does say that "the 42nd Parallel became agreed upon as the northward limit of exclusivity of claims by the Spanish Empire". A while ago I researched this exact point as thoroughly as I could stand, in the process overhauling the Nootka Conventions page and creating the WikiSource pages with the text of the three conventions. I never saw anything about an explicit limit of claims. On the contrary it was clear that the conventions negated the whole notion that territorial claims of any country had international legal value without actual physical occupation, establishment of posts and colonies, etc. The effect of this meant that Spanish claims north of their occupied territory in California could not be "exclusive"--any country could fish, trade, establish posts, etc, in any territory in the world that wasn't already occupied by another (discounting the indigenous peoples as usual). The 42nd parallel might have approximately corresponded to Spanish California's northern limit of occupation along the coast, but nothing in the Conventions prevented Spain from extending its control northward. Also, Spanish control inland from the California coast rapidly dwindled. The Hudson's Bay Company wasn't breaking the Nootka Conventions by operating regularly in interior California, in Nevada, Utah, etc--all south of the 42nd parallel. And one more thing--as I understand the Nootka Conventions, legal claim to territory, being based on occupation, could change over time. Were Spain to abandon California or lose control then other countries could legally occupy posts, make claims, trade with the natives, etc (omitting details about how "abandonment" is defined and how much time must pass). So, anyway! This is my understanding. It is possible that due to the Nootka Conventions and the existing Spanish occupation of California, a "northern limit of exclusiveity of claim" could be reckoned as something around the 42nd parallel (on the coast)--although the conventions do not say exactly how to determine such things, thus "reckoned". But if so, the 42nd parallel shouldn't be said to have been "agreed upon", but rather a result of the Conventions, given the situation of colonies and occupation at the time. And even then, one could only guess at what the exact line would be. In fact, the Oregon boundary dispute between the US and Britain involved a disagreement over whether the Nootka Conventions had a binding specification or interpretation on the northern limit of exclusive Spanish claims. The US had "inherited" the Spanish claims, as you know, and in the many diplomatic arguments over the dispute the British often cited the Nootka Conventions as meaning the US had not acquired exclusive claims, but the Americans always dismissed such ideas for a variety of reasons (some sensible some less so). But! I could be wrong. I looked pretty hard and never found any info about an explicit agreement by Spain about its northern limit of exclusive control before the Adams-Onis Treaty. So, if there is one, I'd love to know. I'm skeptical, but enjoy being surprised. Gotta run, thanks! Pfly (talk) 16:47, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Pfly, I don't know if you've noticed that Skookum has made similar edits to 51st parallel north. I don't have a problem with them, but I thought that you might want to take a look as you seem to be fairly knowledgable in this area. Cheers, Bazonka (talk) 17:43, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't have that one on my watchlist. But Skookum knows a lot more about the BC-Alaska geohistory stuff than I do. From what I have read, I think his edits there are correct. I almost hope he's right here too--history and mapping history would be easier with well-defined lines instead of vast zones with fuzzy edges. Pfly (talk) 17:55, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, Bazonka tidied things up here, in the process moving Skookum's text and citation such that it's not as clear that the Begg cite is meant to source the claim that the Nootka Conventions specified the 42nd parallel. This confused me for a moment when I came back to look at the page again. But checking the history it's clear; here's the diff. Anyway, I read the source cited, Begg's "Report relative to the Alaska Boundary Question…", and could not find anything pertaining to the 42nd parallel or the Nootka Conventions. I looked through some of the books I have that touch on the general topic and found one that explicitly states--several times and quite clearly--that the 42nd parallel's use as a border dates to the 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty. One example: "[the Oregon country's] northern and southern boundaries were indefinite prior to 1819. Then the Adams-Onis treaty made the forty-second parallel the northern limit of Spanish territory and thus the southern boundary of the Oregon country." The author, Walter Nugent, has written a number of other good books. He is meticulous in his sourcing and footnoting. He is a retired history professor, the "Andrew V. Tackes Professor" at the University of Notre Dame, and is definitely not pushing an American POV. If anything his book Habits of Empire is critical of American expansion. So, given my inability to find the counter-clain in Begg, and finding it in Nugent, I am taking out the Begg cite, restoring the earlier text, and adding a cite to Nugent. Good night! Pfly (talk) 08:56, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for confusing things when tidying up. Bazonka (talk) 18:09, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Heh, no, I meant to say thanks for cleaning things up. Pfly (talk) 18:54, 4 November 2009 (UTC)