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Gc 975.9 F95p 1733101
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02299 4682
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/purchaseofflorid00full 0
THE PURCHASE OF FLORIDA
ITS HISTORY ANDDIPLOMACY
1733101
BY HUBERT BRUCE FULLER, A. M., LL. M.
THE PURCHASE OF FLORIDA
FORT WAYNE & ALLEN COL IND.
WITH MAPS -
CLEVELAND THE BURROWS BROTHERS COMPANY 1906
563
ЗГАНОЯИЯ ЭНТ OF ErO
УЗАМОЈЯ СИА. УЯOTaIH ETI
BOBL MYЗМЕ И УГЛЕИ СО- МИЛО-
.M .J. НОВЕКА ВКАCE BUFFE THE BABrIC ПІВШТВА
89AM HTIV
ПИЛОТ/310 Упляное евантоля гмоляца ант
1733101
TO: THE MEMORY
THE PURCHASE OF FLORIDA
ROBERT B. FULLER
1
1-9
LONGEST
AGIAOUT 70 32AHOSUA JHT
·
5-6
.
TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED FATHER ROBERT B. FULLER
.... .... .
7-8
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE
9
CHAPTER I. Early Relations with Spain 15
CHAPTER
II. To the Treaty of 1795 .
33
CHAPTER III. The Purchase of Louisiana . . 76
CHAPTER IV. £ West Florida between the Mobile and the Mississippi 122
CHAPTER V. West Florida and Later Negotia- tions . 146
CHAPTER VI. Florida During the War of 1812 182
CHAPTER VII. Resumption of Diplomatic Rela- tions . 213
CHAPTER VIII. Jackson's War with the Seminoles 240
CHAPTER IX. Adams versus De Onis 271
CHAPTER X. The Treaty of 1819 298
CHAPTER XI. The Florida Treaty 323
APPENDICES-
A. Vol. VI, Instructions, p. 137 333
B. Annals of Congress (January, 1819), p. 515 337 ·
C. Vol. VIII, Instructions, p. 257 340
D. '1795-Treaty of Friendship, Limits, and Navigation 359
E. 1819-Treaty of Amity, Settlement, and Limits 371
F. Bibliography 381
INDEX 383
9
PREFACE.
T HE acquisition of Florida, our early relations with Spain, and the struggle to secure New Orleans and the Mississippi, are critical and interesting chapters in American history. Their importance and magnitude are but slightly considered by many of wide culture, and are but vaguely appreciated even by those who have made a special study of the history of the nation.
In connection with post-graduate work at Yale Univer- sity, where this essay was awarded the George Washington Eggleston Prize in American History, in 1904, the author became aware of the poverty of historical writing devoted to these significant matters in the diplomatic history of the United States, and was impressed with the advantages which might accrue to students of American history, from an unprejudiced and accurate account of the acquisition of Florida and our early entanglements with the Spanish nation. Through the courtesy of the late Hon. John Hay, then Secretary of State, and of Assistant Secretary Adee, the diplomatic correspondence of the period in question was placed at the disposal of the writer.
Some idea of the importance of the questions involved and the attention they received from our national officials may be inferred from the fact that the author was obliged to examine some fifty volumes of official manuscript in order to secure the necessary data for a proper treatment of the subject. The original correspondence, all carefully exam- ined and compared, included Instructions to United States
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Preface
Ministers in Europe, Domestic Letters, Notes to Foreign Legations, Letters of Foreign Ministers in the United States to the State Department, Letters from our Ministers Abroad to the State Department, and the Personal Letters of the various Ministers of the United States to Spain, France and England. Vols. XII and XIII of the Domestic Letters, and Vol. I of Notes to Foreign Legations were lost at the time of the British occupation of Washington in 1814, and have never been recovered.
The letters now extant in the State Department, many in French and Spanish, and not heretofore translated, reveal much of the inside history of our early national life. This mass of correspondence and notes, for the most part, furnishes the authority for the statements of fact made in the following pages. The conclusions derived have been drawn in an earnest effort to be fair and to avoid prejudice ; national vanity and a mistaken patriotism have misled many authors.
The province of the historian is to present facts ; to be correct rather than pleasing ; to criticise, if occasion require, yet always justly. Fortified by the results of fullest research, he should state truly what has happened, and be guided in conclusions by the laws of evidence. He should seek to accomplish the complete subjection of personal, political and patriotic prejudices. The narrative should be based prim- arily upon an examination and appreciation of original documents. Personal memoirs, contemporary chronicles, and biased biographies and diaries are not to be ignored, but they must be subordinated to documents of acknowl- edged validity - such as authentic dispatches, original in- structions, executive decrees and legislative enactments. Such gaps in history as cannot be filled should be bridged with great care.
If the author has criticised government officials and
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Preface II-12
officers of the army, or their conduct of affairs, it has been done solely to subserve the ends of historical accuracy.
Acknowledgment must be made to Mr. Andrew H. Allen, the Librarian of the Department of State, and to Mr. Pendleton King, Chief of the Bureau of Indexes and Archives of that department, and to Mr. P. Lee Phillips of the Congressional Library, for their uniform courtesy and valuable assistance; to Professor Arthur M. Wheeler of Yale University, for his kindly criticisms, valuable sugges- tions and friendly encouragement; and also to Professor Theodore S. Woolsey and Professor Edward G. Bourne of Yale University ; the Hon. Hannis Taylor, of the Spanish Claims Commission and one time Minister to Spain; Pro- fessor Charles C. Swisher of George Washington Univer- sity ; Justice David J. Brewer of the United States Supreme Court; and Mr. T. Fletcher Dennis of Washington, D. C., for assistance and advice always graciously afforded, and most gratefully received.
HUBERT BRUCE FULLER.
Cleveland, Ohio,
February, 1906.
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DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF THE PURCHASE OF FLORIDA
15
CHAPTER I.
EARLY RELATIONS WITH SPAIN.
F LORIDA - the land of the fountain of youth, of fabled riches, of unrivaled beauty, was the central figure of the romance and tradition of the sixteenth century. But her his- tory was more a tragedy than a song. Here explorers, brave knights, soldiers of fortune, lured by the siren songs of wealth and the hope of glory, suffered and died and the world knew them no more. Here were armies sacrificed to satiate the vengeance of European monarchs - massacred by savage redskins or other vengeful enemies, with every refinement of cruelty that an ingenious mind could conceive or an experienced hand execute. Here Spanish and French and English all contributed something to the horror-laden history of colonial conquest, each in turn learning the awful penalties of the law of retribution.
Army after army buried itself in these swamps and forests - their bones left to bleach in the woods after being torn asunder by wild beasts or cruel natives to whom the whites had brought only the gospel of hate. And in these primeval forests, in a fruitless endeavor to explore the world of fabled romance, many a brave cavalier found the grave of his ambition. Bound by the thraldom of stupid traditions, they pursued the fateful errand of death and failure; no city of gold was their reward, no treasure-mine offered remuneration; only misery and death and the immunities of a forgotten grave.
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The Purchase of Florida
But these expeditions were not of exploration and avarice alone; they were also of holy mission; for the adventurer and priest were companions, the one seeking the reward of gold, the other the nobler reward of souls won to Christianity. But their methods were much the same ; fire and sword served them in place of argument and conviction. The beautiful picture of self-sacrificing priests gone into a wild country to carry salvation to an unfortunate race, was not without its darker shadows. For they brought the inquisition with its horrors, and the fagot showed to a lurid heaven that even untutored savages can die for their convictions and for principle.
After the early period of discovery and settlement had passed, the American colonies became entangled in the wars of the continent. In 1666, again in 1719, and in 1725 various attacks on Florida had been made by the southern colonists entailing a bitterness of feeling between these provinces, which was destined to endure and bear fruit for more than a century. Fire and sword, famine and disease visited the colony in rapid and ruinous succession.
By the treaty of Paris in 1763, Florida was ceded to Great Britain in return for Cuba, and a new life was opened to this province - the fairest, yet the bloodiest of our domain. For Spain has ever viewed her colonists as slaves whose blood and tears might well be shed to advance her own proud ease and splendor.
With the change of title the Spanish people quite generally emigrated from the country which had been under the Castilian flag for two centuries. Two hundred years of disappointment and sorrow they had been. Outside the garrisoned walls little had been accomplished, for the Spanish were soldiers not civilians, gentlemen not agri- culturists.
Under the English the province increased in population
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Early Relations with Spain
and wealth ; commerce flourished and friendly relations were established with the southern colonies. But when in 1775 the first guns of freedom were fired, they awakened no response in the hearts of the people of Florida. The other southern colonists might cheer the heroes of Lexington and Bunker Hill and call the minute-men patriots, but to Florida they were traitors, for Florida alone remained loyal. It was too new a possession and the people too well governed to feel the keen dissatisfaction and unrest which breed revolution. For to them English misgovernment seemed a blessing after the wrongs they had endured from the Spanish. And further, many colonists were the recent beneficiaries of the generous land-grants of the English king. No bells and bonfires in Florida proclaimed the Declaration of Independence; no liberty poles arose in her public squares. On the other hand when news of the events of July 4, 1776, reached St. Augustine, John Hancock and Samuel Adams were hanged and burned in effigy by a cheering crowd of loyalists.
Naturally this proud city, which had been called by her former monarchs "the faithful city of St. Augustine," became, during the war, a depot and point d'appui for the British in their operations against the southern states and large forces at times were stationed there. Incursions were made from time to time into Georgia to be followed by counter-incursions into Florida. In the summer of 1778 two bodies of armed men marched from St. Augustine into Georgia, where after laying waste a part of the country about Sunbury and the Ogechee River they were forced to retreat. The Americans numbering some two thousand, under General Robert Howe, this same year of 1778 . attempted to reduce St. Augustine. The British abandoned Fort Tonyn at the mouth of St. Mary's River, where so many privateers had been fitted out, and withdrew into the 2
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The Purchase of Florida
walls of St. Augustine which must have soon fallen had not the deadly insects and a wasting sickness attacked the colonists.
In that year alone nearly seven thousand loyalists from the southern colonies emigrated to Florida. For the Georgia legislature had attainted with treason the refugees, and their property was declared forfeited to the state and ordered to be sold. Georgia's position was a most difficult one; for close to her was not only a loyal colony whose bitterness and effective strength had been increased by these Tory fugitives, but also the most powerful tribe of aborigines on the continent, hostile and revengeful.
In short, Florida had become a haven of refuge for the king's troops and Tories, and these marauding expeditions, citizens, Tories, Scopholites, Minorcans and Indians, were banded together under the name of Florida Rangers. With all the withering desolation of civil war the struggle went on; Ranger and Liberty Boy, Florida and Georgia, per- · chance brother and brother, or father and son - such is the sad tale the historian must record. To old St. Augus- tine, particularly after the fall of Charleston, the cartel ships brought their loads of prisoners and here were con- fined many Americans of prominence in the Revolutionary struggle.
When the war was ended the planters returned to their fields, the artisans to their trades. Many loyalists who had refused allegiance to the new government came to Florida to live again under English colors or await the time when bitterness and prejudice might disappear from their former homes. The province, under the impetus of British govern- ment, took on new life and added prosperity. But one day, in 1783, a ship arrived in the harbor of St. Augustine and all was changed; the darkness and despair of ruin settled upon the province. For the king of England and the king of
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Early Relations with Spain
Spain had indulged in a game of chess: they had traded pawns ; Spain took the Floridas and Jamaica went to Eng- land. Florida was well nigh deserted; for the English subjects, bidding farewell to their old homes, with tears and lamentations, parted from brother and sister, mother and father. It was the scene of Grand Pré repeated ; many found ruin and want on the shores of Jamaica while others returned to the now United States, there to experience the injustice of successful foes.
The cross of St. George was superseded by the Spanish flag, Spanish troops manned the forts and Spanish grandees dispensed the laws. And with their return industry and agriculture were suspended and commerce blotted out, while poverty and desolation took their place. The revolted col- onies were a nation, loyal Florida a Castilian province.
The Declaration of Independence had hurled defiance at Great Britain and announced to the world the birth of a new nation, which was viewed with ridicule and contempt by many of the European countries, while others watched the scene in wonder, speculating whether here, at last, might be the weapon with which to humble an ancient enemy.
Those early years were fraught with perils that made our national existence precarious. The sinews of war were wanting and success was possible only with the alliance and aid of the ancient monarchies of Europe. Ambassadors - among the grandest men of the infant nation - were sent abroad, there on suppliant knee to seek the material and not alone the moral support without which the new-born must perish. To Madrid was dispatched the diplomatic and well-born Jay, to seek some aid for the new republic from the old Castilian rulers whose name had ever been synonymous with all things anti-Republican, who above all stood for the divine right of kings. Spain was not for-
..
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The Purchase of Florida
getful of the lost Armada, nor was she unmindful of the numerous scores against England, and while she might view with intense satisfaction the loss to that country of her fairest possessions, yet that alone would not move her to action.
At first she viewed with alarm the prospect of a new nation in North America so near her own. It was not America free that Spain desired ; it was America dependent, but disaffected. For. thus both the colonies and Great Britain would be unable to pillage Spanish America. At first then Spain gladly contributed, so far as she could - without exhausting her already embarrassed treasury or causing a public rupture - to maintain the colonies in this state of permanent disaffection.
But the Revolution progressed. The American arms held their own and the issue looked toward actual inde- pendence. Would Spain actively assist in a movement which might prove so seductive to her own colonies : would : she thus help build up a power founded upon political prin- ciples in hostility to her own theories and traditions?
Montmorin, the French minister of Madrid, wrote to Vergennes: "I have no need to tell you, sir, how much the forming a republic in these regions would displease Spain, and in fact, I believe that would neither suit her interests nor ours."
Mirales, who came to Philadelphia from Spain in 1780 on a mission of inquiry, was so far imbued with the preju- dices of his principals as to be incapable of giving in return a fair account of American affairs. The more he saw, the more he was appalled at the spectacle of the United States, not merely wresting the Mississippi Valley from Spain, but inciting Spanish South America to revolt.1
With prophetic foresight Vergennes declared that if
1. Wharton's International Law, Vol. I, p. 442; Bancroft's Hist of the U. S., Vol. V, p. 301.
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Early Relations with Spain
the United States won a place among the independent nations, having fought to defend its hearth fires, it would next desire to extend itself over Louisiana, Florida and Mexico, in order to secure all the approaches to the sea.
Actuated by these ideas and with elusive and adroit Castilian diplomacy, the Spanish met the American repre- sentatives with mingled feelings of annoyance, displeas- ure and alarm. This was the second stage of the Spanish attitude toward the American Revolution.
By force of circumstances she was hurried on to the third stage. Unconsciously and irresistibly drawn by the logic of events into the whirlpool of that war which France, in the name of the colonies, was waging against Great Britain, Spain found solace and encouragement in the thought that at last was come the opportunity to avenge her wrongs; to wrest Gibraltar from the hands of the hated intruder, and on the successful issue of the war to rise again to the position of a first-class power.
The possibility of a Spanish alliance had long been a pleasing and fruitful topic of debate in the continental congress, and in 1778 suggestions were repeatedly made in that body as to what might be offered as an inducement to . this coveted arrangement. Finally the different ideas were crystallized in the form of a motion offered September 10, 1779, by Mr. Dickinson: "That if his Catholic Majesty shall determine to take part with France and the United States of America, in such case the minister plenipotentiary of the United States be empowered in their name to con- clude with the most Christian and Catholic Kings, a treaty or treaties, thereby assuring to these States Canada, Nova Scotia, Bermudas and the Floridas, when conquered, and the free and full exercise of the common right of these States to the fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland and the other fishing banks and seas of North America, and
.
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The Purchase of Florida
also the free navigation of the Mississippi into the sea." 1 But in this grant of the territory of the Floridas it was always provided, "that his Catholic Majesty shall grant to the United States the free navigation of the Mississippi into the sea and establish on the said river at or somewhere southward of 31º north latitude, a free port or ports," for all merchant vessels, goods, wares and merchandise belong- ing to the inhabitants of the States. The United States might well be thus generous in her terms, for her enemy and not herself was being despoiled. With these terms as a basis, Jay was directed to conclude a treaty of comity and alliance at the court of Madrid. These offers, however, did not coincide with Spanish ideas, and counter-proposi- tions were made: these are shown in a communication of the French minister to congress, February 2, 1780, on the "Terms of Alliance proposed by his Catholic Majesty," setting forth, "certain articles which his Catholic Majesty deems of great importance to the interests of his crown, and on which it is highly necessary that the United States explain themselves with precision and with such moderation as may consist with their essential rights. That the articles are :
"(I) A precise and invariable western boundary of the United States.
"(2) The exclusive navigation of the River Missis- sippi.
"(3) The possession of the Floridas; and
"(4) The lands on the left or eastern side of the River Mississippi.
"That on the first article it is the idea of the cabinet of Madrid that the United States extend to the westward no farther than settlements were permitted by the royal proclamation of 1763. On the second that the United States
1. Wharton, Vol. III, p. 311.
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Early Relations with Spain
do not consider themselves as having any right to navigate the River Mississippi, no territory belonging to them being situated thereon. On the third that it is probable that the king of Spain will conquer the Floridas during the course of the present war. On the fourth that the lands lying on the east side of the Mississippi are possessions of the crown of Great Britain and proper objects against which the arms of Spain may be employed for the purpose of making a per- manent conquest for the Spanish crown." 1
A certain faction were willing to barter away our right to the navigation of the Mississippi, if thereby they might secure so promising an alliance, but the statesmen for the most part insisted that this must never be the price of any treaty, no matter how beneficial.
In a letter to Jay, Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Poor as we are, yet, as I know we shall be rich, I would rather agree with them to buy at a great price the whole of their [Spanish] right on the Mississippi than to sell a drop of its waters. A neighbor might as well ask me to sell my street door."2 But Spain, insistent on exclusive right to the navigation of the river from its source to the gulf, would listen to no propositions which did not guarantee her this. In 1780 we find her demanding the Mississippi as the con- sideration for the loan of one hundred thousand pounds sterling. The Spanish asserted with warmth that the king would never relinquish the navigation of the Mississippi, and that its exclusive ownership was the sole advantage they would obtain from the war. 3
The colonies insisted that there need be no fear of future complications over this waterway, for it was the boundary of several states in the Union, and that the cit-
1. Wharton, Vol. III, p. 489. MSS. State Department.
2. Dated Passy, Oct. 2, 1780. Wharton, Vol. IV, p. 75.
3. Conference between Jay and Count de Florida Blanca Sept. 25, 1780.
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The Purchase of Florida
izens of these states, while connected with Great Britain, and since the Revolution, had been accustomed to the free use of the stream in common with the Spanish subjects and that there had been no trouble. Spain by the treaty of Paris had ceded to Great Britain all the country to the northeastward of the Mississippi; the people inhabiting these states while subject to Great Britain and even since the Revolution, had settled at various places near the Mis- sissippi, were friendly to the Revolution, and, being citizens, the United States could not consider the proposition of assigning them over as subjects of another power. 1
So far from granting the navigation of the Mississippi, Jay was directed to seek an arrangement by which, if Spain should capture the Floridas, the United States could share the free navigation of the rivers which traversed these prov- inces and emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. Americans be- lieved that the Mississippi had been planned by the Creator as a natural highway for the people of that upper country whose extent and fertility had already attracted the eye of the frontiersmen. They believed that this country would be quickly settled, that there was neither equity nor reason in compelling the inhabitants to live without foreign com- modities and lose the surplus of their productions, or be compelled to transport them over forbidding mountains and through an immense wilderness to the sea, particularly when at their very door was the most magnificent highway of the continent. 2 Spain maintained that the present generation would not want this right of navigation and that future gen- erations could well dispose of the question when it should become a live one. The king of Spain considered the ownership of the Mississippi River far more important to his dynasty than the recovery of Gibraltar, and the maxims of policy adopted in the management of the Spanish col- 1. Instructions to Jay in Congress, Oct. 4, 1780. Wharton, Vol. IV, pp. 78, 79.
2. Jay to President of Congress, Nov. 6, 1780. Ibid., p. 167.
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Early Relations with Spain
1
onies required that only the Castilian banner should appear on the Gulf Waters. 1 But the colonies insisted upon their moral and legal right to this outlet. True, it was a question which belonged largely to the future, but they were unwil- ling to thus hypothecate that future and retard their own development. Further, the treaty of alliance of 1778 with France, had guaranteed to that country the free navigation of the river. European complications, however, forced Spain into the contest, not as an ally of the colonies, but of France. 2
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