create tablespace fails silently, or succeeds improperly

as seen below create tablespace does not throw an error or appear to
do anything other than register the tablespace.

postgres@db01:~> less /opt/pg/data/jnj_indexes/PG_VERSION
8.4
postgres@db01:~> /opt/pg91/bin/psql -p 5433
psql (9.0.1)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=# select version();                                                     version

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PostgreSQL
9.0.1on x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC gcc
 
(GCC) 3.4.6 20060404 (Red Hat 3.4.6-11), 64-bit
(1 row)

postgres=# create TABLESPACE jnj_indexes location '/opt/pg/data/jnj_indexes';
CREATE TABLESPACE

Dave