[muawiyah]

In 1541 two great explorations of what is now the United States and Canada took place. One was undertaken by Huguenots from France under Jacques Cartier and focused on the St. Lawrence. The other was undertaken by DeSoto, the richest man in the world, who employed many, many, many Spanish Protestants. (Recall that earlier that Pizarro had managed to loot the Inca Empire).

It would be difficult to believe these two expeditions were not coordinated in some manner, particularly since many of the principles had been schooled in Saumer, a town that became the site of the greatest of the Huguenot fortresses in the Religious Wars.

Many of my French ancestors ended up settling sites named in DeSoto's elaborate journals including the only place in the Ohio Valley that had any appreciable quantity of gold. They did this under the authority of the King of France and with the permission of their cousin, the King of Spain although at that time the King of Spain had ceded his claims to the Eastern Seaboard to his cousin, the King of England.

The Sea to Sea grants were given in good faith by the King of England (Scotland, etc.) because no one had yet taken a good look at the West Coast although the English already had as good a claim to California as anyone, and possibly more since Sir Francis Drake discovered San Francisco Bay in 1579.

As you no doubt recall, the King of Spain, hand in hand with his sister the Church, did not build a mission in California until 90 years later. Amazingly they all claimed serious problems with the weather. Cabrillo, who reported some West Coast adventures in 1542, left those reports behind. He also appears to have MISSED San Francisco Bay.

As you can see the early discoveries concerning the West Coast (the other end of the Sea to Sea claims) are shrouded in mystery and intrigue. But the only conclusion that can be drawn is that His Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain, didn't have as clear a title to the West Coast as some today presume, and absolutely nobody can believe Cabrillo's claim that Southern California was racked with storms.

[FederalistVet]

Possessing and governing substantiate a claim better than anything else and so while Europeans claimed most of the United States the Native Americans actually owned it. The English titles were null and void the moment they were signed because the English didn't actually possess the land they were claiming.

Sure were a lot of Jesuit Catholic Priests among those "French Huguenots" and Cartier himself is known to have been a Catholic. Come to think of it the French colonies were settled predominantly by French Catholics. In any case the Quebec Act before the Revolution nullified any previous claims. Also, after the Revolution the Thirteen States were closed independent but the rest of the British possessions still surrounded the Thirteen States. If the Quebec Act didn't nullify the claims, British possession certainly did.