Talk:Miller County, Arkansas Territory

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	Texas portal This article is supported by WikiProject Texas (assessed as Low-importance).

Oklahoma Low‑importance

	Oklahoma portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Oklahoma, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Oklahoma on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.OklahomaWikipedia:WikiProject OklahomaTemplate:WikiProject OklahomaOklahoma
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Abolishment Date

Many online sources say that Miller County was abolished in 1838, but I've been unable to find a source that specifies a particular date.

The general picture as I understand it: an 1819 treaty defined the U.S.–Mexico border on paper, but it remained unsurveyed for a long time. Uncertainty on the ground lead to large overlapping claims of jurisdiction. In 1836 when Arkansas became a state and Texas became an independent country, the Mexico & Arkansas Territory dispute became a Republic of Texas & Arkansas State dispute. From 1836 to 1838, Texas and Arkansas jokeyed for control of the Miller County area; Texas established two counties on the same territory (Red River and Fannin); Arkansas made it a misdemeanor for a resident of Miller to hold elected office in Texas. Public sentiment was largely with Texas. In 1838, the U.S. and Texas agreed to honor the 1819 border agreement and to jointly survey the line [1]. Prior to the completion of that effort, possibly sometime in late 1838, Arkansas abolished Miller County, apparently accepting Texas's claims to the western portion and incorporating the remaining, easternmost portion into its Lafayette County. But the joint U.S.–Texas survey which affirmed this division wasn't concluded until three years later in 1841.

Good sources are here [2] (see p.29) and here [3] (see p.110, footnote 53). It would be helpful if someone can make sense of all this for the article and pull in a conclusive citation for the actual Arkansas legislative act finalizing this episode. --Joseph Hewes (talk) 08:29, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This article meets the requirements for Start class.