USA > California > The history of Oregon and California & the other territories of the northwest coast of North America > Part 31
USA > Oregon > The history of Oregon and California & the other territories of the northwest coast of North America > Part 31
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
* Jeffreys- or whoever wrote the history of the French dominions in America, pub- lished under the name of Jeffreys, in 1759-says, at p. 134 of that work, " The Mis- sissippi, the chief of all the rivers of Louisiana, which it divides almost into two equal parts, was discovered by Colonel Wood, who spent almost ten years, or from 1654 to 1664, in searching its course, as also by Captain Bolt, in 1670."
t " We have, by these presents, signed with our hand, authorized, and do authorize, the said Sieur Crozat, to carry on exclusively the trade in all the territories by us pos- sessed, and bounded by New Mexico and by those of the English in Carolina, all the establishments, ports, harbors, rivers, and especially the port and harbor of Dauphin Island, formerly called Massacre Island, the River St. Louis, formerly called the Mis- sissippi, from the sea-shore to the Illinois, together with the Rivers St. Philip, formerly called the Missouries River, and the St. Jerome, formerly called the Wabash, [the Ohio,] with all the countries, territories, lakes in the land, and the rivers emptying directly or indirectly into that part of the River St. Louis. All the said territories, countries, rivers, streams, and islands, we will to be and remain comprised under the name of the government of Louisiana, which shall be dependent on the general gov- ernment of New France, and remain subordinate to it; and we will, moreover, that all the territories which we possess on this side of the Illinois, be united, as far as need be, to the general government of New France, and form a part thereof; reserving to ourself, nevertheless, to increase, if we judge proper, the extent of the government of the said country of Louisiana."
278
LOUISIANA CEDED BY FRANCE TO SPAIN.
[1762.
que les dites terres, contrées, fleuves, rivières et isles, soient et de- meurent compris sous le nom du gouvernement de la Louisiane, qui sera dependant du gouvernement général de la Nouvelle France, auquel il demeurera subordonné ; et voulons en outre, que toutes les terres que nous possédons, depuis les Illinois, soient reunies, en tant que besoin est, au gouvernement général de la Nouvelle France, et en fassent partie ; Nous reservant néanmoins d'augmenter, si nous le jugeons á propos, l'étendue du gouvernement du dit pays de la Louisiane."
This description of the extent of Louisiana was sufficiently defi- nite for the immediate purposes of the concession : as the trade and settlement of the country would necessarily be, for a long time, con- fined to the vicinity of the great rivers, the precise determination of its boundaries on the east and the west might well be deferred for future arrangement with Great Britain and Spain. Crozat relin- quished his privilege in 1717 ; the Illinois country was then annexed to Louisiana, by a royal decree, and the whole region was granted to the Compagnie d' Orient, better known as Law's Mississippi Com- pany, which held it until 1732: in that year it reverted to the French crown, and was governed as a French province until 1769. On the 3d of November, 1762, the preliminaries of peace were signed at Paris, between France and Spain on the one part, and England and Portugal on the other ; and on the same day, "the most Christian king authorized his minister, the duke de Choiseul, to deliver to the marquis di Grimaldi, the ambassador of the Catholic king, in the most authentic form, an act, whereby his most Christian majesty cedes, in entire possession, purely and simply, without ex- ception, to his Catholic majesty, and his successors in perpetuity, all the country known under the name of Louisiana, as also New Or- leans and the island in which that city is situated." The cession accordingly took place in form, on the 23d of the same month, in precisely the same terms as to the extent of the territory ceded ; * and on the 10th of February following, a treaty was concluded at Paris, between France and Spain on the one part, and Great Britain and Portugal on the other, by which Great Britain obtained posses- sion of Canada, Florida, and the portion of Louisiana "east of a line, drawn along the middle of the Mississippi, from its source to
* The documents relating to this cession were kept secret until 1836, when copies of them were obtained from the archives of the Department of Foreign Affairs at Mad- rid, by the late J. M. White, of Florida; from which translations were made by the author of this History, and published by the Senate of the United States, in 1837.
279
LOUISIANA RETRO-CEDED TO FRANCE.
1800.]
the River Iberville, and thence along the middle of the Iberville, and the Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, to the sea." In this treaty, Great Britain formally renounced all claims to territories west of the Mississippi, whether based on royal charters granted to colo- nies planted on the Atlantic coasts, or on any other grounds : no mention is made of the previous cession of any part of Louisiana to Spain, which was not promulgated until 1764; nor did the Spaniards obtain actual possession of New Orleans, or the territory west of the Mississippi, until 1769.
From that period until Louisiana came into the possession of the United States, its extent and limits were not defined, and could not have been affected by any treaty or public act, which has been as yet communicated to the world. Louisiana was retro-ceded by Spain to France, on the 1st of October, 1800, "with the same extent," says the treaty, " that it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and such as it should be, after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other states ; " and it was transferred by France to the United States on the 30th of April, 1803, " with all its rights and appurtenances, as fully, and in the same manner, as they have been acquired by the French republic, in virtue of the above-mentioned treaty with his Cath- olic majesty." *
* See the treaty of 1803, in which the part of the treaty of 1800, above quoted, is recited. It is, however, worthy of remark, that, in the copy of the treaty of 1800, obtained by the late J. M. White from the Department of Foreign Affairs at Madrid, as above mentioned in the note at p. 278, the words quoted in the treaty of 1803-" et qu'elle avait lorsque la France la possédait, et telle qu'elle doit être, d'après les traités passés subséquemment entre l'Espagne"-do not appear; the third article of the former treaty being simply thus : "Sa Majesté Catholique promet et s'engage de son côté à retroceder à la République Française six mois après l'exécution pleine et entiere des conditions et stipulations ci-dessus relatives à son Altesse Royale le Duc de Parme la colonie ou province de la Louisiane, avec la meme étendue qu'elle a actuellement entre les mains de l'Espagne et d'autres Etats." There appears to be no reason to doubt the exactness of the copy obtained by Mr. White, as it was made in the office of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and bears the seal and certificate of the keeper of the archives of that department, by whom it was transmitted to the Spanish minister plen- ipotentiary at Washington, who delivered it, after affixing his seal and certificate, to Mr. White. If its authenticity be admitted, a vast field is certainly opened for con- jectures, upon which, however, it would be improper here to enter.
That any settlement of the western boundaries of Louisiana should have been made on the conclusion of the treaty of 1762, or of that of 1800, is not probable. In the first case, it would have been superfluous, as Louisiana would certainly have joined the other territories of Spain in that direction; and, in 1800, it was clearly the inter- est of Buonaparte, as the stronger power, to have the extent of Louisiana undefined, in order that he might place its boundaries, in future, where they would be most con- venient for his ends.
280
LOUISIANA CEDED TO THE UNITED STATES.
[1803.
At the time when the treaty for the cession of Louisiana to the United States was concluded, the Spaniards still remained in pos- session of the country ; the order from the court of Madrid for the delivery to France, was not executed until the 30th of November, 1804, twenty days after which the surrender to the American com- missioners took place in due form at New Orleans. The Spanish government had already protested against the transfer of Louisiana to the United States, as being contrary to engagements previously made by France, of which, however, no proof was adduced ; and some disposition was at first manifested on the part of the Spanish authorities at New Orleans, and in the provinces of Mexico adjacent, to dispute the entrance of the Americans. This opposition was, how- ever, abandoned, and a negotiation was commenced at Madrid, in 1804, between the governments of the United States and Spain, for the adjustment of the lines which were to separate their re- spective territories.
In this negotiation, the United States claimed the whole of the territory ceded by France to Spain in 1762, with the exception of the portion east of the Mississippi, which had been surrendered to Great Britain in 1763 ; and this territory was considered by them as including the whole coast on the Mexican Gulf, from the Perdido River as the western limit of Florida, west and south to the River Bravo del Norte as the north-east boundary of Mexico, with all the intermediate rivers and all the countries drained by them, not pre- viously possessed by the United States. The Spanish government, on its side, contended -that France had never rightfully possessed any part of America west of the Mississippi, the whole of which had belonged to Spain ever since its discovery - that the French establishments in that territory were all intrusive, and had only been tolerated by Spain, for the sake of preserving peace ; and - that the Louisiana ceded to Spain by France in 1762, and retro- ceded to France in 1800, and transferred by the latter power to the United States in 1803, could not, in justice, be considered as com- prising more than New Orleans, with the tract in its vicinity east of the Mississippi, and the country immediately bordering on the west bank of that river. The parties were thus completely at variance on fundamental principles ; and, neither being disposed to yield, the negotiation, after having been carried on for some months, was broken off, and it was not renewed until 1817. Meanwhile, how- ever, the United States remained in possession of nearly all the
231
NORTHERN BOUNDARY OF LOUISIANA.
1804.1
territories drained by the Mississippi ; the Sabine River being, by tacit consent, regarded as the dividing line between Louisiana and the Mexican provinces.
A negotiation was at the same time in progress, between the government of the United States and that of Great Britain, re- specting the northern boundary of Louisiana, for which the Amer- icans claimed a line running along the 49th parallel of latitude, upon the grounds that this parallel had been adopted and definitive- ly settled, by commissaries appointed agreeably to the tenth article of the treaty concluded at Utrecht, in 1713, as the dividing line between the French possessions of Western Canada and Louisiana on the south, and the British territories of Hudson's Bay on the north ; and that, this treaty having been specially confirmed in the treaty of 1763, by which Canada and the part of Louisiana east of the Mississippi and Iberville were ceded to Great Britain, the remainder of Louisiana continued, as before, bounded on the north by the 49th parallel.
This conclusion would be undeniable, if the premises on which it is founded were correct. The tenth article of the treaty of Utrecht does certainly stipulate that commissaries should be ap- pointed by the governments of Great Britain and France respec- tively, to determine the line of separation between their possessions in the northern part of America above specified; and there is reason to believe that persons were commissioned for that object : but there is no evidence which can be admitted as establishing the fact that a line running along the 49th parallel of latitude, or any other line, was ever adopted, or even proposed, by those commissaries, or by their governments, as the limit of any part of the French possessions on the north, and of the British Hudson's Bay territories on the south.
It is true that, on some maps of Northern America, published in the middle of the last century, a line drawn along the 49th parallel does appear as a part of the boundary between the French posses- sions and the Hudson's Bay territories, as settled according to the treaty of Utrecht: but, on other maps, which are deservedly held in higher estimation, a different line, following the course of the highlands encircling Hudson's Bay, is presented as the limit of the Hudson's Bay territory, agreeably to the same treaty ; and, in other maps again, enjoying equal, if not greater, consideration, as having been published under the immediate direction of the British gov- 36
282
TREATY BETWEEN ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES. [1807.
ernment, no line separating those British possessions from Louisiana or Canada is to be seen. In the other works, political, historical, and geographical, which have been examined with reference to this question, nothing has been found calculated to sustain the belief that any line of separation was ever settled, or even proposed ; nor has any trace of such an agreement been discovered in the archives of the Department of Foreign Affairs of France, which have been recently searched with the view of ascertaining the fact .*
The belief, nevertheless, that the 49th parallel of latitude was fixed, by commissaries of Great Britain and France, appointed agreeably to the provisions of the treaty of Utrecht, as the north- ern limit of Louisiana and Western Canada, has been hitherto universally entertained without suspicion in the United States, and has formed the basis of most important treaties.
During the negotiations above mentioned, between the United States and Great Britain, no attempt was made, on the part of the latter power, to controvert the assertion of the Americans respecting this supposed boundary line; and, in the treaty signed by the plenipotentiaries on the termination of the discussion, in April, 1807, it was agreed that "a line drawn due north or south (as the case may require) from the most north-western point of the Lake of the Woods, until it shall intersect the 49th parallel of north latitude, and from the point of such intersection, due west, along and with the said parallel, shall be the dividing line between his majesty's territories and those of the United States, to the westward of the said lake, as far as their said respective territories extend in that quarter ; and that the said line shall, to that extent, form the southern boundary of his majesty's said territories and the northern boundary of the said territories of the United States: Provided, That nothing in the present article shall be construed to extend to the north-west coast of America, or to the territories belonging to or claimed by cither party on the continent of America to the westward of the Stony Mountains." + This article was approved by both governments ; President Jefferson, nevertheless, wished that the proviso respecting the north-west coast should be omitted, as it "could have little other effect than as an offensive intimation to Spain that the claims of the United States extend to the Pacific
* See Proofs and Illustrations, in the concluding part of this volume, under the letter F.
t President Jefferson's Message to Congress of March 22d, 1808.
283
WESTERN BOUNDARY OF LOUISIANA.
1803.]
Ocean. However reasonable such claims may be, compared with those of others, it is impolitic, especially at the present moment, to strengthen Spanish jealousies of the United States, which it is probably an object with Great Britain to excite, by the clause in question." The outrage committed, about that time, by the British, upon the American frigate Chesapeake, together with the change in the British ministry, prevented the ratification of this treaty ; and the question of boundaries was not again discussed between the two nations until 1814.
How far Louisiana extended westward when it was ceded by France to Spain, history offers no means of determining. The charter granted to Crozat, in 1712, included only the territories drained by the Mississippi south of the Illinois country ; and, though the Illinois was annexed to Louisiana in 1717, nothing can be found showing what territories were comprehended under that general appellation. In the old French maps, New France is represented as extending across the continent to the Pacific: in British maps, of the same period, a large portion of the territory thus assigned to New France, appears as New England or as Vir- ginia ; while the Spanish geographers claimed the same portion for their sovereign, under the names of New Mexico and California. Whilst Louisiana remained in the possession of Spain, it was certainly never considered as embracing either New Mexico or California ; though whether it was so considered or not, is imma- terial to the question as to its western limits in 1803, which were, by the treaty, to be the same as in 1762. In the absence of all light on the subject from history, we are, forced to regard the boundaries indicated by nature - namely, the highlands separating the waters of the Mississippi from those flowing into the Pacific or the Californian Gulf - as the true western boundaries of the Lou- isiana ceded to the United States by France in 1803.
Of the countries in which the sources of the Missouri and the other great western branches of the Mississippi were situated, and of those farther west, to the immediate vicinity of the Pacific, nothing whatsoever was known when Louisiana came into the possession of the United States; but even before the transfer was completed, the prompt and sagacious Jefferson, then president of the republic, was preparing to have that part of the continent examined by American agents. On the 18th of January, 1803, he addressed to the Congress of the Union a confidential message, recommending that means should be taken for the purpose without delay ; and,
284
EXPEDITION OF LEWIS AND CLARKE TO THE WEST. [1805.
his suggestions having been approved, he commissioned Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clarke to explore the River Mis- souri and its principal branches to their sources, and then to seek and trace to its termination in the Pacific, some stream, " whether the Columbia, the Oregon, the Colorado, or any other, which might offer the most direct and practicable water communication across the continent, for the purposes of commerce." Other persons were, at the same time, appointed to examine the Upper Mississippi, and the principal streams falling into that great river from the west, below the Missouri, in order that exact information might, as soon as possible, be procured, with regard to the channels of communi- cation throughout the newly-acquired territories.
A few days after Lewis had received his instructions as com- mander of the party which was to cross the continent, the news of the conclusion of the treaty for the cession of Louisiana reached the United States ; and he immediately set off for the west, with the expectation of advancing some distance up the Missouri before the winter. He was, however, unable to pass the Mississippi in that year, in consequence of the delay in the surrender of the country, which was not terminated until the latter part of Decem- ber ; and it was not until the middle of May, 1804, that he could begin the ascent of the Missouri. His party consisted of forty-four men, who were embarked in three boats ; their progress against the current of the mighty river was necessarily slow, yet, before the end of October, they arrived in the country of the Mandan Indians, where they remained until the following April, encamped at a place near the 48th degree of latitude, sixteen hundred miles from the Mississippi.
On the 7th of April, 1805, Lewis and Clarke left their encamp- ment in the Mandan country, with thirty men, the others having been sent back to St. Louis ; and, after a voyage of three weeks up the Missouri, they reached the junction of that river with the other principal branch, scarcely inferior in magnitude, called by the old French traders the Roche jaune, or Yellowstone River. Thence continuing their progress westward on the main stream, their navi- gation was, on the 13th of June, arrested by the Great Falls of the Missouri, a series of cataracts extending about ten miles in length, in the principal of which the whole river rushes over a precipice of rock eighty-seven feet in height. Above the falls, the party again embarked in canoes hollowed out from the trunks of the largest cotton-wood trees, growing near the river ; and, advancing south-
285
PASSAGE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
1805.]
ward, they, on the 19th of July, passed through the Gates of the Rocky Mountains, where the Missouri, emerging from that chain, runs, for six miles, in a narrow channel, between perpendicular parapets of black rock, rising twelve hundred feet above its surface. Beyond this place, the river is formed by the confluence of several streams, the largest of which, named by Lewis the Jefferson, was ascended to its sources, near the 44th degree of latitude, where the navigation of the Missouri ends, at the distance of about three thousand miles from its entrance into the Mississippi.
Whilst the canoes were ascending the Jefferson River, Captains Lewis and Clarke, with some of their men, proceeded through the mountains, and soon found streams flowing towards the west, one of which was traced in that direction, by Clarke, for seventy miles ; they also met several parties of Indians belonging to a nation called Shoshonee, from whose accounts they were convinced that those streams were the head-waters of the Columbia. Having re- ceived this satisfactory information, the commanders rejoined their men at the head of the Jefferson ; and preparations were commenced for pursuing the journey by land. For this purpose, the canoes and a portion of the goods were concealed in caches, or covered pits, and a number of horses, with some guides, being procured from the Shoshonees, the whole body of the Americans, on the 30th of August, entered on the passage through the Rocky Mountains.
Up to this period, the difficulties of the journey had been com- paratively light, and the privations few. But, during the three weeks which the Americans spent in passing the Rocky Mountains, they underwent, as Clarke says, "every suffering which hunger, cold, and fatigue, could impose." The mountains were high, and the passes through them rugged, and, in many places, covered with snow ; and their food consisted of berries, dried fish, and the meat of dogs or horses, of all which the supplies were scanty and preca- rious. They crossed many streams, some of them large, which emptied into the Columbia ; but their guides gave them no encour- agement to embark on any, until they reached one called the Kooskooskee, in the latitude of 43 degrees 34 minutes, about four hundred miles, by their route, from the head of navigation of the Missouri.
At this place, they constructed five canoes, and, leaving their horses in charge of a tribe of Indians of the Chopunnish nation, they, on the 7th of October, began the descent of the Kooskooskee. Three days afterwards, they entered the principal southern branch
286
DESCENT OF THE COLUMBIA.
[1805.
of the Columbia, to which they gave the name of Lewis ; and, in seven days more, they reached the point of its confluence with the larger northern branch, called by them the Clarke. They were then fairly launched on the Great River of the West, and passing down it, through many dangerous rapids, they, on the 31st, arrived at the Falls of the Columbia, where it rushes through the lofty chain of mountains nearest the Pacific. Some of their canoes descended these falls in safety ; the others and the goods were carried around by land, and replaced in the water at the foot of the cataract. At a short distance below, the tides of the Pacific were observed ; and, on the 15th of November, the whole party landed on Cape Disap- pointment, at the mouth of the Columbia, about six hundred miles from the place at which they had embarked on its waters, and more than four thousand, by their route, from the mouth of the Missouri.
The winter, or rather the rainy season, having commenced when the party reached the mouth of the Columbia, it became necessary for them to remain there until the following spring. They accord- ingly prepared a habitation on the north side of the river, eleven miles in a straight line from Cape Disappointment, from which they were, however, soon driven by the floods ; they then found a suit- able spot on the south side, a little higher up, where they formed their dwelling, called by them Fort Clatsop, and remained until the middle of March, 1806. During this period, the cold was by no means severe, less so, indeed, than on the Atlantic shore of the continent ten degrees farther south ; but the rains were incessant and violent, and the river being at the same time generally too much agitated by the winds and the waves from the ocean for the Americans to venture on it in their canoes, they were often unable to obtain provisions, either by hunting or fishing. The Clatsop Indians who occupy the south side of the Columbia, at its mouth, and the Chinnooks, on the opposite shore, conducted themselves peaceably ; but their prices for every thing which they offered for sale were so high, that no trade could be carried on with them. The party werc, in consequence of the rains, seldom able to quit their encampment ; and the only excursion of any length made by them during the winter, was as far as the promontory overhanging the Pacific, thirty miles south of the Columbia, which they called Clarke's Point of View, near the Cape Lookout of Meares.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.