38 Univerity of California Publications in Hitory

 LoUISNA-TEXAS
The Louisiana Purchase was divided in 1812 into two parts: the
southern part became the state of Louisiana, the eighteenth to be
admitted to the Union, and the remainder became known as Mis-
souri Territory. The new state was drawn into the vortex of inter-
national affairs at once. In the War of 1812 its capital was the
scene of mobilization activities, and of one great enemy thrust.
Commercially, the state assumed a vital r6le, both as producer and
market, and as an avenue for the transport of goods. In the sub-
versive acts of plotters by land and pirates by sea which were
continually disturbing the Spanish colonies, Louisiana played a
notorious part. And with respect to the boundary question it was
an outpost thrust into a disputed frontier.
 New Orleans, long an important center as the port of deposit
for goods from the southwest, became even more influential com-
mercially when the advent of the steamboat made inland water
transport for a time the major factor in western trade. Governor
W. C. C. Claiborne in 1809 reported a population of about fifty-
five thousand in the Territory of Orleans, which had the same area
as the later state. Of these, half were Negroes, most of them slaves.
A quarter of the total are described as "natives of Louisiana, for
the most part descendants of the French."" The remainder in-
cluded some thirty-five hundred natives of the United States, and
French, Spanish, English, German, and Irish nationals.
 From Spanish vice-consuls stationed at New Orleans, Natchez,
 Natchitoches, and St. Louis, Onis received and relayed numerous
 complaints of threats to the Spanish Texas-Louisiana frontier.
 These officials, especially those at the upriver points where little
 Spanish trade could penetrate (the vice-consul at Natchez was
 later removed on that account), reported as well to other civil and
 military leaders, in Havana and in San Antonio, or Bexar, the
 distant capital of Texas.
 The new state had as boundaries exactly those it has today, em-
 ploying on the west the Sabine River. That delimitation lacked
 treaty basis, but found authority in the usage of the vicinity, espe-
 cially since the Wilkinson-Herrera neutral-ground agreement of
 1806, the development of which should be noted.
 After the purchase of Louisiana, Governor Claiborne of Lou-