WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.040 So picture this. It's 1860, and the United States 00:00:04.040 --> 00:00:07.419 government officially lays claim to a massive, 00:00:07.500 --> 00:00:10.220 highly strategic pile of bird poop in the middle 00:00:10.220 --> 00:00:13.160 of the Pacific Ocean. Which, you know, is already 00:00:13.160 --> 00:00:15.419 a bizarre historical fact on its own. Right. 00:00:15.660 --> 00:00:18.300 But the only problem was that this island and 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:20.839 all its incredibly valuable resources did not 00:00:20.839 --> 00:00:23.339 actually exist. Welcome to this deep dive. Glad 00:00:23.339 --> 00:00:25.519 to be here for this one. Yeah. Our mission today 00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:29.300 is to explore the messy, chaotic, and just utterly 00:00:29.300 --> 00:00:32.119 fascinating territorial evolution of the United 00:00:32.119 --> 00:00:35.000 States. We're using a really comprehensive Wikipedia 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:37.899 timeline as our main source today to track exactly 00:00:37.899 --> 00:00:40.280 how the U .S. map was drawn. And it is quite 00:00:40.280 --> 00:00:42.600 a ride. It really is. Because, I mean, when you 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:44.920 look at a modern map of the U .S., there is this 00:00:44.920 --> 00:00:47.039 total illusion of permanence. You see those perfectly 00:00:47.039 --> 00:00:49.640 straight lines out west, the carefully delineated 00:00:49.640 --> 00:00:51.759 borders, and it just looks like it was engineered 00:00:51.759 --> 00:00:54.159 by people who possessed like perfect foresight. 00:00:54.439 --> 00:00:56.719 Right, like it was all part of some grand flawless 00:00:56.719 --> 00:01:00.039 design. Exactly. But the reality of this map 00:01:00.039 --> 00:01:03.060 is that it's actually the product of terrible 00:01:03.060 --> 00:01:06.739 surveying errors, literal phantom islands, shifting 00:01:06.739 --> 00:01:09.000 rivers and all these forgotten micro rebellions. 00:01:09.340 --> 00:01:11.519 OK, let's unpack this because we are starting 00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:15.340 back in 1776 and the map was definitely not the 00:01:15.340 --> 00:01:17.500 unified front you might assume. Yeah, the term 00:01:17.500 --> 00:01:19.700 United States during the period of independence 00:01:19.700 --> 00:01:21.969 was doing an an incredible amount of heavy lifting, 00:01:22.269 --> 00:01:24.250 geographically speaking. Oh, for sure. When the 00:01:24.250 --> 00:01:26.870 13 colonies declared independence, they were 00:01:26.870 --> 00:01:28.790 essentially declaring themselves as independent, 00:01:29.109 --> 00:01:31.510 completely sovereign states. I mean, their eastern 00:01:31.510 --> 00:01:33.530 borders along the Atlantic coast were somewhat 00:01:33.530 --> 00:01:35.969 established, but their western borders were defined 00:01:35.969 --> 00:01:39.650 by these really old colonial charters. And those 00:01:39.650 --> 00:01:41.849 charters had some incredibly vague language, 00:01:41.989 --> 00:01:44.930 right? Exactly. They often granted land stretching, 00:01:44.930 --> 00:01:47.450 quote, from sea to sea. Which is wild to think 00:01:47.450 --> 00:01:50.010 about. It is. As a result, once you look west 00:01:50.010 --> 00:01:52.129 of the Appalachian Mountains, it was a complete 00:01:52.129 --> 00:01:54.609 free -for -all. The source illustrates just how 00:01:54.609 --> 00:01:57.370 tangled this actually was. You had Virginia claiming 00:01:57.370 --> 00:02:00.349 this massive swath of the Northwest going straight 00:02:00.349 --> 00:02:03.069 across the Ohio River. But then Connecticut, 00:02:03.250 --> 00:02:06.930 Massachusetts, and New York also possessed Western 00:02:06.930 --> 00:02:10.150 claims based on their own charters. So these 00:02:10.150 --> 00:02:12.870 claims completely overlapped with Virginia's 00:02:12.870 --> 00:02:15.310 creating these deep layers of jurisdictional 00:02:15.310 --> 00:02:17.810 disputes stretching all the way to the Mississippi 00:02:17.810 --> 00:02:20.430 River. It was a bureaucratic nightmare. Totally. 00:02:20.710 --> 00:02:24.219 I can't help but compare it to like. a really 00:02:24.219 --> 00:02:26.919 messy divorce where four different people are 00:02:26.919 --> 00:02:29.360 trying to claim the exact same living room couch. 00:02:29.599 --> 00:02:31.620 That is a great way to put it. Right. Everyone 00:02:31.620 --> 00:02:33.939 is waving a legally binding piece of paper saying 00:02:33.939 --> 00:02:36.460 the couch is mine, but the couch is a thousand 00:02:36.460 --> 00:02:38.900 miles away in a room none of them have actually 00:02:38.900 --> 00:02:41.340 stood in and nobody has even bothered to measure 00:02:41.340 --> 00:02:44.020 it. What's fascinating here is why this chaos 00:02:44.020 --> 00:02:46.180 actually mattered to the survival of the early 00:02:46.180 --> 00:02:49.060 republic. You had a collection of heavily armed, 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:52.759 newly independent states with overlapping mutually 00:02:52.719 --> 00:02:55.360 exclusive land claims. Which sounds like a recipe 00:02:55.360 --> 00:02:58.300 for disaster. Oh, absolutely. Left unresolved, 00:02:58.580 --> 00:03:00.400 this geographical friction would have likely 00:03:00.400 --> 00:03:03.639 led to a series of interstate wars. Yet this 00:03:03.639 --> 00:03:06.879 specific cartographic crisis essentially forced 00:03:06.879 --> 00:03:08.860 the creation of a stronger federal government. 00:03:09.219 --> 00:03:11.520 The central government had to step in, convince 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:14.020 these individual states to cede their massive 00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:16.759 Western claims to the National Collective, and 00:03:16.759 --> 00:03:19.860 then organize that raw land into federal territories. 00:03:19.879 --> 00:03:22.370 Like the Northwest Territory. Precisely. It was 00:03:22.370 --> 00:03:25.129 basically a mechanical necessity for domestic 00:03:25.129 --> 00:03:27.969 peace. But you know, that domestic peace didn't 00:03:27.969 --> 00:03:31.129 stop smaller rogue states from just popping up 00:03:31.129 --> 00:03:33.409 on the fringes, though? Not at all. The timeline 00:03:33.409 --> 00:03:35.930 highlights this one region in the western North 00:03:35.930 --> 00:03:38.610 Carolina frontier. The local population there 00:03:38.610 --> 00:03:41.189 felt entirely neglected by the state legislature. 00:03:41.370 --> 00:03:43.750 So in 1784, they took matters into their own 00:03:43.750 --> 00:03:46.569 hands, declared independence, and formed the 00:03:46.569 --> 00:03:48.449 state of Franklin. The state of Franklin? Yeah. 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:51.300 They went as far as petitioning the federal government 00:03:51.300 --> 00:03:54.159 for statehood, and they actually secured support 00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:56.919 from seven out of the nine states required at 00:03:56.919 --> 00:03:58.819 the time. And, you know, the state of Franklin 00:03:58.819 --> 00:04:01.539 operated as a functional independent entity for 00:04:01.539 --> 00:04:03.659 a few years under its governor, John Seivier. 00:04:04.099 --> 00:04:06.219 Yeah, but this illustrates the mechanics of why 00:04:06.219 --> 00:04:09.039 these micro rebellions usually failed. Franklin 00:04:09.039 --> 00:04:11.800 lacked the infrastructure, the economic base, 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:15.060 and... probably most importantly, the federal 00:04:15.060 --> 00:04:18.000 military protection required to defend its borders 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:22.410 against Native American tribes. Right. So. Facing 00:04:22.410 --> 00:04:25.689 complete collapse severe ultimately had to fold 00:04:25.689 --> 00:04:28.029 the territory back into North Carolina They were 00:04:28.029 --> 00:04:30.269 basically trading independence for security that 00:04:30.269 --> 00:04:33.250 makes sense and we see a similar though I guess 00:04:33.250 --> 00:04:35.949 more aggressive strategy play out in the Northeast 00:04:35.949 --> 00:04:39.870 in 1777 Northeastern New York declared independence 00:04:39.870 --> 00:04:42.930 under the deeply confusing name of New Connecticut 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:45.839 Which they thankfully changed later. Yeah, eventually 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:48.459 settling on Vermont. But Vermont didn't just 00:04:48.459 --> 00:04:50.980 quietly wait for recognition. They actively tried 00:04:50.980 --> 00:04:53.819 to leverage their geography. They annexed towns 00:04:53.819 --> 00:04:56.240 from neighboring New Hampshire, designating that 00:04:56.240 --> 00:04:58.920 area the East Union. And then they swallowed 00:04:58.920 --> 00:05:01.420 up towns from New York, calling it the West Union. 00:05:01.720 --> 00:05:03.779 They were artificially inflating their territorial 00:05:03.779 --> 00:05:06.120 footprint just to force the Continental Congress 00:05:06.120 --> 00:05:08.439 to take them seriously as a political entity. 00:05:08.819 --> 00:05:11.519 It was essentially a strategy of territorial 00:05:11.519 --> 00:05:13.959 hostage taking. That is exactly what it was. 00:05:14.139 --> 00:05:16.100 And as the country eventually resolved these 00:05:16.100 --> 00:05:18.899 initial East Coast borders and began organizing 00:05:18.899 --> 00:05:21.480 territories further west, the act of drawing 00:05:21.480 --> 00:05:24.060 the map became the central engine for the nation's 00:05:24.060 --> 00:05:26.839 most severe crisis. Right. As the border pushed 00:05:26.839 --> 00:05:29.360 westward, the federal government had to continually 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:32.480 confront the expansion of slavery. Drawing a 00:05:32.480 --> 00:05:35.000 new state line wasn't just about geography anymore. 00:05:35.079 --> 00:05:37.959 It dictated the balance of political power in 00:05:37.959 --> 00:05:40.699 Congress. And the source material explicitly 00:05:40.699 --> 00:05:43.819 tracks this friction, noting how the organization 00:05:43.819 --> 00:05:46.360 of Western territories led directly to the Missouri 00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:49.220 Compromise, the violent localized conflicts of 00:05:49.220 --> 00:05:51.680 Bleeding Kansas, and ultimately the secession 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:53.699 of the southern states to form the Confederate 00:05:53.699 --> 00:05:57.180 States of America. And examining the historical 00:05:57.180 --> 00:06:00.019 facts as presented in the source, the Confederacy's 00:06:00.019 --> 00:06:02.819 approach to map making is particularly revealing. 00:06:03.079 --> 00:06:06.500 How so? Well. They didn't simply claim the existing 00:06:06.500 --> 00:06:08.779 lands of the seceded states. The Confederate 00:06:08.779 --> 00:06:11.199 government actively sought to redraw the western 00:06:11.199 --> 00:06:14.740 map to establish buffer zones and secure strategic 00:06:14.740 --> 00:06:17.259 resources. Okay, that makes strategic sense. 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:20.259 Right. In 1861, they actually signed their own 00:06:20.259 --> 00:06:23.000 sovereign treaties with Native American nations 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:25.560 located in the Indian Territory. This included 00:06:25.560 --> 00:06:28.120 the Cherokee, the Comanche, the Seminole, and 00:06:28.120 --> 00:06:30.949 the Osage. Wow, I didn't realize they did that. 00:06:31.089 --> 00:06:32.829 Yeah, they were using diplomatic cartography 00:06:32.829 --> 00:06:36.110 to legitimize their rebellion and expand their 00:06:36.110 --> 00:06:38.470 footprint on the continent. The map is always 00:06:38.470 --> 00:06:40.709 a reflection of human conflict and political 00:06:40.709 --> 00:06:43.420 leverage, isn't it? But, I mean, even when the 00:06:43.420 --> 00:06:45.399 federal government successfully took control 00:06:45.399 --> 00:06:48.420 of Western lands, that didn't solve the core 00:06:48.420 --> 00:06:51.180 logistical problem of actually drawing the borders. 00:06:51.300 --> 00:06:53.740 No, it really didn't. Because the diplomats dictating 00:06:53.740 --> 00:06:56.439 the lines were relying on completely erroneous 00:06:56.439 --> 00:06:58.660 geographical data. So we moved from political 00:06:58.660 --> 00:07:01.540 maneuvering to just profound navigational blunders. 00:07:01.620 --> 00:07:05.139 Oh, absolutely. The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which 00:07:05.139 --> 00:07:07.620 formally ended the Revolutionary War, provides 00:07:07.620 --> 00:07:11.459 just a master class in how bad data creates generational 00:07:11.459 --> 00:07:14.220 legal problems. Generational problems. Yeah. 00:07:14.660 --> 00:07:16.860 The treaty negotiators in Europe defined the 00:07:16.860 --> 00:07:19.500 new international borders using locations that 00:07:19.500 --> 00:07:22.399 were either vaguely named or literally physically 00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:25.060 impossible to connect. For example, the treaty 00:07:25.060 --> 00:07:27.259 stipulates that the border extending from Lake 00:07:27.259 --> 00:07:30.360 Superior goes to a place called Long Lake. Right. 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:32.699 But the map they were using was so inaccurate 00:07:32.699 --> 00:07:35.939 that Long Lake wasn't even a distinct identifiable 00:07:35.939 --> 00:07:39.220 body of water. So naturally both the United States 00:07:39.220 --> 00:07:41.740 and the United Kingdom simply interpreted Long 00:07:41.740 --> 00:07:44.220 Lake to be whichever body of water granted their 00:07:44.220 --> 00:07:46.560 respective nations more square mileage. Of course 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:49.240 they did. And you know the problem compounded 00:07:49.240 --> 00:07:52.480 as they moved west. The treaty defined the northwestern 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:55.180 boundary as a line running straight west from 00:07:55.180 --> 00:07:57.079 the northwestern most point of the Lake of the 00:07:57.079 --> 00:08:00.560 Woods to the Mississippi River. OK. The diplomats 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:02.519 assume the river extended far into modern -day 00:08:02.519 --> 00:08:06.000 Canada. However, the true source of the Mississippi 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:08.160 River is located significantly south of the Lake 00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:11.480 of the Woods. Oh no. Yeah. Therefore, drawing 00:08:11.480 --> 00:08:14.480 a line due west from that lake will project infinitely 00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:17.240 out into the plains, never intersecting the river 00:08:17.240 --> 00:08:20.399 at all. It creates a literal geographical paradox, 00:08:20.839 --> 00:08:23.579 and these bad maps created severe diplomatic 00:08:23.579 --> 00:08:27.100 standoffs. The source details the border dispute 00:08:27.100 --> 00:08:29.500 between Maine and the UK holdings in Canada. 00:08:29.639 --> 00:08:33.100 This one is wild. It is. The two nations eventually 00:08:33.100 --> 00:08:36.259 asked King William I of the Netherlands to serve 00:08:36.259 --> 00:08:39.360 as an impartial arbitrator. He analyzed the treaty 00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:41.500 text which dictated that the border should follow 00:08:41.500 --> 00:08:45.009 the highlands dividing the watersheds. But upon 00:08:45.009 --> 00:08:48.610 reviewing the actual surveying data, he realized 00:08:48.610 --> 00:08:51.429 those specific islands did not physically exist 00:08:51.429 --> 00:08:53.350 in the landscape. They just weren't there. Right. 00:08:53.929 --> 00:08:56.169 So recognizing the impossibility of reconciling 00:08:56.169 --> 00:08:59.210 the treaty with reality, he just abandoned the 00:08:59.210 --> 00:09:02.169 legal texts entirely and drew an arbitrary compromise 00:09:02.169 --> 00:09:04.470 line down the middle of the disputed zone. A 00:09:04.470 --> 00:09:06.570 compromise that the United States immediately 00:09:06.570 --> 00:09:08.919 rejected. primarily because the state of Maine 00:09:08.919 --> 00:09:11.340 refused to see any of its claimed territory, 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:13.539 regardless of how flawed the original mapping 00:09:13.539 --> 00:09:16.059 was. Which is just so stubborn. And this disconnect 00:09:16.059 --> 00:09:18.120 between the maps and the terrain led to citizens 00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:20.740 actually taking up arms against each other. The 00:09:20.740 --> 00:09:23.620 timeline outlines the Toledo Strip dispute. Michigan 00:09:23.620 --> 00:09:26.899 and Ohio mobilized their militias and nearly 00:09:26.899 --> 00:09:30.340 went to a full scale war over a highly strategic 00:09:30.340 --> 00:09:32.600 strip of land at the mouth of the Maumee River. 00:09:33.019 --> 00:09:35.879 And this was simply because two different surveys 00:09:35.879 --> 00:09:38.990 yielded border coordinates. It's incredible. 00:09:39.210 --> 00:09:40.950 You see the same mechanics in the Honey War of 00:09:40.950 --> 00:09:43.970 1839. A flawed survey line between Missouri and 00:09:43.970 --> 00:09:47.309 Iowa led to rival tax collectors crossing into 00:09:47.309 --> 00:09:50.029 disputed territory and literally cutting down 00:09:50.029 --> 00:09:52.149 valuable honey -bearing trees in lieu of actual 00:09:52.149 --> 00:09:54.730 currency. Which brings us to perhaps the most 00:09:54.730 --> 00:09:57.610 extreme consequence of cartographic ambiguity, 00:09:58.269 --> 00:10:00.720 the Republic of Indian Stream. Oh, this is a 00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:03.159 fascinating anomaly. It was a tiny region in 00:10:03.159 --> 00:10:05.259 New Hampshire, north of the Connecticut lakes. 00:10:05.960 --> 00:10:08.000 The U .S. and the U .K. could not agree on which 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:10.259 branch of the Connecticut River constituted the 00:10:10.259 --> 00:10:13.100 actual border based on the flawed treaty language. 00:10:13.379 --> 00:10:15.120 Right, because of course they couldn't. Exactly. 00:10:15.539 --> 00:10:18.039 As a result, both nations sent tax collectors 00:10:18.039 --> 00:10:21.000 into this small community. Facing double taxation 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:23.440 and a complete lack of legal protection, the 00:10:23.440 --> 00:10:26.700 local population of about 250 people simply opted 00:10:26.700 --> 00:10:30.460 out. They just opted out. Yeah. In 1832, they 00:10:30.460 --> 00:10:33.179 drafted their own constitution, established a 00:10:33.179 --> 00:10:35.639 bicameral legislature, and declared themselves 00:10:35.639 --> 00:10:38.220 an independent republic. It perfectly illustrates 00:10:38.220 --> 00:10:41.379 how an ambiguous line on a map creates a total 00:10:41.379 --> 00:10:43.980 vacuum of authority on the ground. Totally. But 00:10:43.980 --> 00:10:46.259 I have to push back a bit on the legislators 00:10:46.259 --> 00:10:49.639 who were writing these descriptions. How do lawmakers 00:10:49.639 --> 00:10:52.559 legally define a border using landmarks that 00:10:52.559 --> 00:10:55.460 physically do not intersect? That's a good question. 00:10:55.759 --> 00:10:57.720 The source notes the border established between 00:10:57.720 --> 00:11:00.500 Michigan and Wisconsin. Congress defined the 00:11:00.500 --> 00:11:02.960 boundary as running from the Montreal River to 00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:06.159 a lake called Lac View Desert. The glaring issue 00:11:06.159 --> 00:11:08.559 is that the Montreal River terminates long before 00:11:08.559 --> 00:11:11.080 it ever reaches that lake. How does a government 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:13.360 legally legislate geography that isn't there? 00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:16.360 Well, if we connect this to the bigger picture... 00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:18.000 You have to look at the environment in which 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.480 these decisions were made. These borders were 00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:23.019 theoretical concepts drawn by politicians sitting 00:11:23.019 --> 00:11:25.720 in distant parlors in Washington or London. Far 00:11:25.720 --> 00:11:28.080 away from the actual dirt and rivers. Exactly. 00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:30.820 They were looking at vast uncharted wilderness 00:11:30.820 --> 00:11:33.299 entirely through the lens of political ambition. 00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:37.059 They were imposing a rigid geometric grid onto 00:11:37.059 --> 00:11:39.779 a complex living landscape they had never actually 00:11:39.779 --> 00:11:42.509 surveyed. Right? So when the geometry failed 00:11:42.509 --> 00:11:44.909 to map onto the terrain, they simply passed the 00:11:44.909 --> 00:11:47.490 law anyway and forced the surveyors to figure 00:11:47.490 --> 00:11:50.370 out the resulting mess decades later. They were 00:11:50.370 --> 00:11:52.610 basically playing connect the dots on a blank 00:11:52.610 --> 00:11:55.029 piece of paper and assuming the rivers and mountains 00:11:55.029 --> 00:11:58.049 would bend to their legislation. Precisely. Here's 00:11:58.049 --> 00:12:00.629 where it gets really interesting. Once those 00:12:00.629 --> 00:12:02.730 continental borders finally reach the Pacific 00:12:02.730 --> 00:12:05.509 Ocean following the annexation of Texas, the 00:12:05.509 --> 00:12:07.809 Mexican -American War and the Oregon Treaty, 00:12:08.230 --> 00:12:10.590 the motivation for American expansion radically 00:12:10.590 --> 00:12:13.210 shifted. It did. The U .S. started looking outward 00:12:13.210 --> 00:12:16.029 across the ocean, but the catalyst wasn't some 00:12:16.029 --> 00:12:19.029 grand vision of manifest destiny. The catalyst 00:12:19.029 --> 00:12:22.450 was a desperate global quest for agricultural 00:12:22.450 --> 00:12:25.470 fertilizer. Yeah, the Guano Islands Act of 1856 00:12:25.470 --> 00:12:28.970 is a crucial pivot. point in American territorial 00:12:28.970 --> 00:12:34.070 evolution. Bird and bat excrement, yes. By the 00:12:34.070 --> 00:12:37.029 mid -19th century, intensive farming practices 00:12:37.029 --> 00:12:39.669 in the eastern United States had severely depleted 00:12:39.669 --> 00:12:43.669 soil nutrients. Guano was recognized as an incredibly 00:12:43.669 --> 00:12:47.679 potent agricultural fertilizer. Ah, I see. Furthermore, 00:12:47.960 --> 00:12:50.340 it was a rich source of saltpeter, which is a 00:12:50.340 --> 00:12:52.720 vital chemical component required to manufacture 00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:55.960 gunpowder. It was a strategic resource on par 00:12:55.960 --> 00:12:58.899 with oil in the modern era. That is wild. So 00:12:58.899 --> 00:13:01.340 the act legally authorized U .S. citizens to 00:13:01.340 --> 00:13:03.580 take possession of any unclaimed, uninhabited 00:13:03.580 --> 00:13:06.500 island containing guano deposits, claiming it 00:13:06.500 --> 00:13:08.399 as sovereign territory of the United States. 00:13:08.620 --> 00:13:11.500 And the application of this law was wildly chaotic. 00:13:11.720 --> 00:13:14.519 the U .S. laid claim to dozens of tiny remote 00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:16.440 islands scattered across the Pacific and the 00:13:16.440 --> 00:13:18.879 Caribbean, places like Baker Island, Jarvis Island, 00:13:19.139 --> 00:13:21.659 and Navassa Island. But true to the theme of 00:13:21.659 --> 00:13:23.519 our deep dive today, the government was operating 00:13:23.519 --> 00:13:25.480 on terrible data. The source highlights that 00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:28.120 in 1860, the U .S. aggressively claimed a multitude 00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:30.379 of islands, but several of them were literally 00:13:30.379 --> 00:13:32.820 phantom islands. Which is just so funny to think 00:13:32.820 --> 00:13:36.169 about. Take Sarah an island, for example. A ship 00:13:36.169 --> 00:13:38.909 captain likely recorded incorrect navigational 00:13:38.909 --> 00:13:41.429 coordinates, reported a grotto -rich island, 00:13:41.909 --> 00:13:44.210 and the U .S. government officially claimed it, 00:13:44.529 --> 00:13:46.570 completely blind to the fact that the island 00:13:46.570 --> 00:13:49.370 simply did not exist. But, you know, the absurdity 00:13:49.370 --> 00:13:52.029 of claiming Phantom Islands kind of overshadows 00:13:52.029 --> 00:13:54.649 the profound historical mechanism at work here. 00:13:54.779 --> 00:13:57.639 What do you mean? Well, this era of claiming 00:13:57.639 --> 00:14:00.600 isolated rocks for fertilizer fundamentally shifted 00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:02.779 the United States from a contiguous continental 00:14:02.779 --> 00:14:06.279 landmass into a complex global maritime power. 00:14:06.620 --> 00:14:09.500 It established the legal and political framework 00:14:09.500 --> 00:14:12.440 for managing overseas territories. Oh, wow. So 00:14:12.440 --> 00:14:14.919 it served as the operational gateway to a global 00:14:14.919 --> 00:14:17.820 empire. Precisely. The logistical mechanisms 00:14:17.820 --> 00:14:20.139 developed during the guano boom paved the way 00:14:20.139 --> 00:14:22.919 for the massive global expansion we see in 1898. 00:14:23.039 --> 00:14:25.179 Right, the Spanish -American War. Exactly. This 00:14:25.179 --> 00:14:27.080 includes the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii 00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:29.080 and the acquisitions following the war bringing 00:14:29.080 --> 00:14:31.340 Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines under 00:14:31.340 --> 00:14:33.509 American jurisdiction. It's all connected. And 00:14:33.509 --> 00:14:36.149 this maritime expansion evolved deeply into the 00:14:36.149 --> 00:14:39.169 20th century, leading the U .S. to manage the 00:14:39.169 --> 00:14:41.429 trust territory of the Pacific Islands for the 00:14:41.429 --> 00:14:44.230 United Nations after World War II. Yeah, the 00:14:44.230 --> 00:14:46.169 source mentions the U .S. administering places 00:14:46.169 --> 00:14:49.029 like the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau. 00:14:49.169 --> 00:14:51.970 Yes. The U .S. acted as the administering authority 00:14:51.970 --> 00:14:54.149 for these territories until they transitioned 00:14:54.149 --> 00:14:56.769 into freely associated states. Meaning they are 00:14:56.769 --> 00:14:59.669 now fully independent sovereign nations, right? 00:14:59.750 --> 00:15:03.070 Right. But the United States retains full responsibility 00:15:03.070 --> 00:15:06.049 for their military defense. It's a highly specialized 00:15:06.049 --> 00:15:08.389 form of geopolitical bordering. And once the 00:15:08.389 --> 00:15:10.809 U .S. expanded its empire across oceans, the 00:15:10.809 --> 00:15:13.269 problem shifted from drawing lines on empty land 00:15:13.269 --> 00:15:15.590 to securing logistical choke points to connect 00:15:15.590 --> 00:15:19.250 those oceans. Exactly. This required a completely 00:15:19.250 --> 00:15:21.509 new type of border geometry, which we see in 00:15:21.509 --> 00:15:24.250 the Panama Canal zone. The U .S. gained control 00:15:24.250 --> 00:15:27.269 of the zone in 1904, but the geography of how 00:15:27.269 --> 00:15:30.389 they maintain sovereignty there is deeply It 00:15:30.389 --> 00:15:33.710 really is. The source describes the 1955 treaty 00:15:33.710 --> 00:15:36.629 adjustments where the U .S. and Panama had to 00:15:36.629 --> 00:15:39.389 figure out how to allow Panamanian citizens to 00:15:39.389 --> 00:15:41.870 cross over the canal without technically entering 00:15:41.870 --> 00:15:45.110 U .S. territory, since the zone physically bisected 00:15:45.110 --> 00:15:47.710 the country of Panama. Right, and this necessitated 00:15:47.710 --> 00:15:50.110 the creation of three -dimensional tubes of sovereignty. 00:15:50.289 --> 00:15:53.519 Which is just such a crazy concept. It's best 00:15:53.519 --> 00:15:55.539 understood through the concept of air rights 00:15:55.539 --> 00:15:58.340 in a dense city where a developer can legally 00:15:58.340 --> 00:16:00.820 own the empty space above a building without 00:16:00.820 --> 00:16:03.580 owning the ground floor. Right. The U .S. essentially 00:16:03.580 --> 00:16:06.399 carved out volumetric three dimensional tubes 00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:09.419 of airspace over the canal zone. This allowed 00:16:09.419 --> 00:16:11.799 Panamanian bridges like the Bridge of the Americas 00:16:11.799 --> 00:16:15.059 to pass continuously through U .S. airspace while 00:16:15.059 --> 00:16:17.120 the physical bridge and the vehicles on it remained 00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:20.039 under Panamanian legal jurisdiction. It demonstrates 00:16:20.039 --> 00:16:23.159 how abstract a border can become. when logistical 00:16:23.159 --> 00:16:25.580 necessities override traditional two -dimensional 00:16:25.580 --> 00:16:28.100 cartography. I mean, border is no longer just 00:16:28.100 --> 00:16:30.700 a line drawn in the dirt. It becomes a legally 00:16:30.700 --> 00:16:33.720 defined volume of airspace. But even after all 00:16:33.720 --> 00:16:35.600 the treaties are signed, the Phantom Islands 00:16:35.600 --> 00:16:37.879 are scrubbed from the ledgers and the three dimensional 00:16:37.879 --> 00:16:40.659 air rights are negotiated. The physical earth 00:16:40.659 --> 00:16:43.840 itself routinely refuses to cooperate with the 00:16:43.840 --> 00:16:46.000 paperwork. The earth does not care about our 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:48.440 paperwork. It really doesn't. We transition from 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:53.259 historical map drawing to modern ongoing territorial 00:16:53.259 --> 00:16:56.399 maintenance because natural ecosystems do not 00:16:56.399 --> 00:16:58.720 respect legal boundaries. The physical environment 00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:02.059 is inherently dynamic, meaning any border anchored 00:17:02.059 --> 00:17:04.720 to a natural feature like a river is destined 00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:07.640 to be unstable. And the timeline provides a perfect 00:17:07.640 --> 00:17:10.799 case study with the Rio Grande. The river serves 00:17:10.799 --> 00:17:12.799 as the international border between the U .S. 00:17:12.819 --> 00:17:15.759 and Mexico, but rivers are not static trenches. 00:17:16.420 --> 00:17:18.779 The Rio Grande continuously shifted its course 00:17:18.779 --> 00:17:20.839 through a geological process called evulsion. 00:17:21.579 --> 00:17:23.799 During heavy flooding, a meandering river will 00:17:23.799 --> 00:17:26.019 often cut a new, straighter channel overnight. 00:17:26.660 --> 00:17:29.160 When this happens, it strands pieces of land 00:17:29.160 --> 00:17:31.220 inside the old river loop. And those are called 00:17:31.220 --> 00:17:34.119 bancos. Exactly. These stranded parcels of land, 00:17:34.140 --> 00:17:37.200 the bancos, range from a single acre to over 00:17:37.200 --> 00:17:40.690 600 acres. Overnight, A farmer could wake up 00:17:40.690 --> 00:17:43.109 and find that the river had moved and their property 00:17:43.109 --> 00:17:45.150 was suddenly sitting on the wrong side of the 00:17:45.150 --> 00:17:47.650 international border. Which is a logistical nightmare. 00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:50.859 And this specific geological phenomenon required 00:17:50.859 --> 00:17:53.799 the creation of the 1905 Banco Convention. Okay, 00:17:53.960 --> 00:17:56.220 what was that? It was a legal mechanism designed 00:17:56.220 --> 00:17:58.640 specifically to allow the international border 00:17:58.640 --> 00:18:01.619 to dynamically alter itself to follow the new 00:18:01.619 --> 00:18:04.259 course of the river while providing a framework 00:18:04.259 --> 00:18:06.779 to determine the citizenship and property rights 00:18:06.779 --> 00:18:09.220 of the people living on those stranded bancos. 00:18:09.440 --> 00:18:12.400 Ah, I see. And this mechanism of trading land 00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:15.059 due to shifting water is everywhere in the source 00:18:15.059 --> 00:18:17.779 material. Kansas and Missouri were forced to 00:18:17.779 --> 00:18:20.839 execute a territorial exchange in 1950 because 00:18:20.839 --> 00:18:24.380 a massive flood in 1944 physically relocated 00:18:24.380 --> 00:18:26.579 the main channel of the Missouri River. It happens 00:18:26.579 --> 00:18:29.849 more often than you think. Right. Further north, 00:18:30.289 --> 00:18:32.450 Minnesota and Wisconsin had to orchestrate a 00:18:32.450 --> 00:18:35.250 complex swap of islands in the Mississippi River, 00:18:35.609 --> 00:18:38.730 with Island 72 going to Minnesota and Barrens 00:18:38.730 --> 00:18:41.450 Island transferring to Wisconsin. Think about 00:18:41.450 --> 00:18:43.589 the administrative nightmare that causes for 00:18:43.589 --> 00:18:45.849 the local residents regarding property taxes, 00:18:46.150 --> 00:18:48.549 voting districts, and school zones, all because 00:18:48.549 --> 00:18:51.849 the riverbed eroded. And, you know, even when 00:18:51.849 --> 00:18:54.509 mapmakers abandon rivers and rely strictly on 00:18:54.509 --> 00:18:57.450 geometry, the borders remain completely absurd. 00:18:57.549 --> 00:19:00.029 The Delaware wedge is the ultimate proof of that. 00:19:00.250 --> 00:19:03.130 Oh, yes. Delaware possesses a highly unusual 00:19:03.130 --> 00:19:06.049 northern border with Pennsylvania. Instead of 00:19:06.049 --> 00:19:08.490 following a line of latitude, it is defined as 00:19:08.490 --> 00:19:11.910 a perfect 12 mile circle drawn outward from the 00:19:11.910 --> 00:19:14.170 courthouse in the town of Newcastle. A circle. 00:19:14.349 --> 00:19:16.990 Yes. But because you are abutting the geometry 00:19:16.990 --> 00:19:19.009 of a circle against the straight lines of Maryland 00:19:19.009 --> 00:19:21.430 border in the Mason -Dixon line, the shapes don't 00:19:21.430 --> 00:19:24.450 interlock perfectly. It created a tiny orphan 00:19:24.450 --> 00:19:26.970 sliver of disputed land known as the wedge. just 00:19:26.970 --> 00:19:30.609 like bad Tetris. Exactly. The geometry was so 00:19:30.609 --> 00:19:33.769 confusing that it took until 1921 for the states 00:19:33.769 --> 00:19:36.069 to finally resolve that Delaware had jurisdiction 00:19:36.069 --> 00:19:39.750 over it. So what does this all mean? We've navigated 00:19:39.750 --> 00:19:42.390 through Phantom Guano empires, the impossible 00:19:42.390 --> 00:19:44.730 physics of the Treaty of Paris, and the three 00:19:44.730 --> 00:19:46.849 -dimensional airspace of Panama. Well, I think 00:19:46.849 --> 00:19:50.099 it reveals that borders are not static. permanent 00:19:50.099 --> 00:19:52.940 fixtures carved into the bedrock. They are living, 00:19:53.099 --> 00:19:56.259 constantly evolving agreements. They demand perpetual 00:19:56.259 --> 00:19:59.839 maintenance, surveying, and renegotiation. You 00:19:59.839 --> 00:20:03.240 cannot simply drag a pen across a map and expect 00:20:03.240 --> 00:20:05.400 the physical world to obey that ink forever. 00:20:05.660 --> 00:20:09.000 Nature always wins. Exactly. The natural environment 00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:11.140 operates completely independently of a treaty 00:20:11.140 --> 00:20:14.740 signed in 1848. The earth is continuously reshaping 00:20:14.740 --> 00:20:17.619 its own topography and human cartography is forced 00:20:17.619 --> 00:20:20.279 into a constant state of adaptation just to keep 00:20:20.279 --> 00:20:22.160 up with the mud. That's a great way to put it. 00:20:22.299 --> 00:20:24.099 So the next time you are driving down the highway 00:20:24.099 --> 00:20:26.019 and you cross a state line or you look down at 00:20:26.019 --> 00:20:28.220 the little blue dot on your phone's navigation 00:20:28.220 --> 00:20:30.599 app, I want you to remember the mechanics of 00:20:30.599 --> 00:20:32.200 what you're actually looking at. It's not as 00:20:32.200 --> 00:20:34.710 simple as it looks. Not at all. You are navigating 00:20:34.710 --> 00:20:37.329 through the highly negotiated aftermath of bad 00:20:37.329 --> 00:20:40.650 18th century compasses, rogue frontiersmen trading 00:20:40.650 --> 00:20:43.230 independence for military protection, global 00:20:43.230 --> 00:20:45.410 campaigns to harvest agricultural fertilizer, 00:20:45.910 --> 00:20:48.130 and the unpredictable avulsion of river water. 00:20:49.029 --> 00:20:51.230 The map looks engineered and permanent, but the 00:20:51.230 --> 00:20:54.410 reality is entirely improvised. And you know, 00:20:54.410 --> 00:20:56.509 this raises an important question. Oh, yeah. 00:20:56.990 --> 00:20:59.819 If our modern map This foundational tool that 00:20:59.819 --> 00:21:03.299 feels so solid and absolute to us today is actually 00:21:03.299 --> 00:21:06.240 the cumulative result of 18th century surveying 00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:09.140 errors and a 19th century scramble for grano. 00:21:09.519 --> 00:21:12.319 What seemingly mundane or invisible forces today 00:21:12.319 --> 00:21:14.640 are secretly drawing the maps of the future. 00:21:14.799 --> 00:21:17.720 That is a fascinating thought. Right. What will 00:21:17.720 --> 00:21:19.480 territorial disputes look like when governments 00:21:19.480 --> 00:21:21.720 are arguing over the physical paths of deep sea 00:21:21.720 --> 00:21:24.220 digital data cables, or the orbital trajectories 00:21:24.220 --> 00:21:26.619 of commercial satellites, or the shifting, shrinking 00:21:26.619 --> 00:21:28.599 coastlines caused by changing climate zones?