Establishing the order: Forming an American common law in Louisiana, Missouri, & New Mexico territories

During the nineteenth century, the United States acquired vast amounts of land west of the Mississippi River most of which was inhabited almost solely by the native tribes. These lands were considered by the American government to be essentially unoccupied and ungoverned by a recognizable system and therefore uncompromisingly amalgamated into the legal structure of the United States. Those lands occupied by Europeans and governed by a system of laws that Americans considered valid challenged the Americans to adapt and compromise the common law system inherited from their English forebears. The common law itself, heavily reliant upon ancient custom and precedent, permitted the foreign people forcibly brought into the United States by purchase or cession of their lands, to preserve some vestiges of their own legal customs. Examining the structure of the territorial and first state governments of Louisiana, Missouri, and New Mexico, as well as the history of the courts within those places, a distinct pattern emerges. In places with significant population upon their acquisition, the local populace used the common law system to achieve some protections for their traditions while in places that Americans overwhelmed a previously small population, the adoption of a completely American legal system came swiftly. Even in those areas where the population preserved certain local practices, the federal government restricted statehood to those territories that had been fully Americanized in their legal systems.