The Confederate States of America (also called the Confederacy, the Confederate States, and CSA) formed as the government set up in 1861 by eleven southern states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S. The CSA's de facto control over its claimed territory was formally established on April 1, 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Richmond Accords, which recognized the existence of the Confederacy and its claim to the Oklahoma Territory.