The establishment of the Block House by General Wilkinson resulted in the Spanish bolstering their strength in the western part of the Neutral Strip by giving presents to the Indians and thereby establishing an Indian barrier in the area.
The gifts amounted to two thousand seven hundred-nine pesos from the Mexican Government to be given at Nacogdoches. The Indians received muskets, lead, powder, shot, knives, razors, scissors, combs, mirrors, glass beads, war paint, copper and iron pots, ribbons, coats, bells, needles, belt buckles, ramrods, cotton goods and rum. The Indians asked for tobacco which was not available, but five hundred eighty-nine pounds of tobacco twists were smuggled from Natchitoches through the Neutral Strip to Nacogdoches by orders of Manuel de Salcedo, the Governor. Although trade was forbidden on El Camino Real by the Spanish from French Louisiana there was a continuous stream of contraband goods being smuggled into Texas. The “Contraband Trail” ran parallel to the El Camino Real about four miles distant from the El Camino Real, but crossing it intermittently in areas that were uninhabited.
The Americans retaliated by supplying the Takuays and the Towanoni with articles of trade and a blacksmith shop so they could sharpen the knives and scissors obtained as presents from the Spanish.
Outlaws left the Neutral Strip to raid isolated farms and plantations. Slave stealing and cattle rustling were not overlooked. The citizens complained to the United States Government.
Lieutenant Augustus McGee and Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike were ordered to disperse the bandits of the Neutral Strip. The orders of General Hampton expressed a desire for cooperation from the Spanish at Nacogdoches. A detachment under Captain Bernardino Mantero was sent from Nacogdoches to assist Captain W. H. Overton, who was at that time the senior officer at Fort Claiborne, issued orders for the clearance of the strip on March 5, 1812. The military only succeeded in destroying the hideouts which were occupied by the bandits by burning everything in sight. The bandits knew every sneak trail of the Neutral Strip and were successful in avoiding the policing parties.
By the year 1821 the Anglo-American Civilization had crossed in substantial numbers the Mississippi River in two main divisions, Louisiana and Missouri.
General Edmund Pendleton Gaines considered that the most vital and important area of the southwest was: “The Southern section of the Western Frontier, from the mouth of the Sabine River eastward to the Red River and thence to the Mexican boundary at a point where the western boundary intersects the Sabine River.”
General Jackson had transferred General Gaines, at that time commanding the Florida frontier, to the western frontier in 1817. General Gaines was aware of the constant unrest of the so-called “neutral strip,” known as “The Free State of Sabine” and No Man’s Land.
The proclamation of the Treaty of Washington in 1821 fixed the western boundary of the United States as the Sabine River, thus the agreement with the Mexican Republic transferred the Neutral Strip to the United States.
General Gaines was aware of the feeling of those settlers from the Sabine River westward along El Camino Real to the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas. These were Spaniards that had felt the freedom of being so far from their government’s head in Mexico City. They, with the Anglo-American settlers, wanted a different kind of freedom, not allegiance to Mexico or to the United States. Thus, the Fort Jesup-Natchitoches and El Camino Real Area on the eastern end from Nacogdoches and San Augustine was ripe for the filibusterers.