Sabine Island Wildlife Management Area

Sabine Island was in a contested boundary area between the United States and Spain, which took control of the territory from France, with the Treaty of Fontainebleau of 1762. In 1801, the secret Third Treaty of San Ildefonso was signed, which resulted in the Treaty of Aranjuez in 1801. This treaty officially transferred the Louisiana territory back to France. In 1803, the United States acquired the territory through the Louisiana Purchase. During the back-and-forth transfer and resulting purchase by the United States, the western boundary was ill-defined but controversially considered to be the Arroyo Hondo, now called the Calcasieu River. To avoid war, an agreement was made in 1806 to create a buffer zone through the Neutral Ground Agreement, from the Arroyo Hondo to the Sabine River. This created what became known as the Sabine Free State. The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, ratified in 1821, finally settled the dispute, and the boundary was set to the western side of the Sabine River.^[2] The Louisiana State Land Office incrementally purchased the land from the US government beginning on March 2, 1858.^[3]