USA > Kansas > A standard history of Kansas and Kansans, Volume I > Part 13
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The presence of this additional Indian population on the west side of the Mississippi brought trouble to the town of St. Louis, but it also tended to increase the trade of that town in such commodities as the Indian life produced and required. While the Spaniards could never develop trade with the Indians as eould the French, it must be remem- bered that there remained in Louisiana the French inhabitants found on the soil at the time of the cession. French Canadians continued to come in ever increasing numbers, for the Spanish power was never cxaeting on the prairies, and along the streams, and over the Great Plains. St. Louis became the trading-point for Upper Louisiana and grew in wealth and importance during the Spanish regime.
It was during the Spanish rule of Louisiana that those conditions arose which made it possible -- necessary-that the United States should arquire all of Louisiana.
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THE RETROCESSION OF LOUISIANA TO FRANCE
Many of the causes of the situation which developed in Louisiana during its detention by Spain lay far back in the history of the country. The Floridas ( East Florida and West Florida) were established by Great Britain in the Proclamation of October 7, 1763, defining the British colonies in America. West Florida embraced the country between the Mississippi and Chattahoochee river's south of the thirty-first parallel. The west boundary of the United States as fixed by the treaty coneluding the Revolution was the Mississippi, down to the thirty-first parallel. Thence it ran east along that parallel to the Chattahoochee. Spain de- elared war against Great Britain in May, 1779. Before the elose of tha' year the Spaniards had captured Manchae, Baton Ronge, and Natchez. On March 14, 1780, they captured Mobile. In May, 1781, they captured Pensacola. By these conquests the Spaniards had extended the north boundary of West Florida from the thirty-first parallel to the month of the Yazoo. The territory between these bonndaries, from the Mississippi to Chattahoochee, remained a matter of contention between Spain and the United States to 1795. By the treaty ratified in May, 1784, both Great Britain and the United States were granted the right of free navi- gation of the Mississippi from its source to its month. Spain had little intention of standing by her stipulations in that matter. Benevolenee has no place in the relations between nations. Interest alone dietates their actions. The old monarchies of Europe were none too well pleased with the erection of a republie in North America. The attitude of the British Government toward. the United States was always reprehensible down to the close of the Civil War. Spain saw in the denial of the right to freely navigate the Mississippi an opportunity to ereat dissatisfaction and friction between the different sections of the United States. Of this condition she took every advantage, hoping to bring about the dis- memberment of the young republic.
At the elose of the war for Independence the Americans ponred over the Alleghenies in ever increasing numbers. Boone, Kenton, Robertson. Sevier and other explorers and settlers had blazed the way. The new settlers came principally from the Carolinas, from Virginia, and from Pennsylvania. Many of them had served in the patriot armies of the Revolution. Those who had preceded them had battled with the Indians for possession of the soil. These men seeking to establish homes in the wilderness were bold, fearless, independent Americans. Seated on the rich lands of the West, they soon prodneed a surplus of food and other commodities which they found it necessary to carry to some market. These could not be transported eastward across the Alleghenies. Facil ities for this were entirely wanting. The natural outlet for this trade was by the great water-way-down the Mississippi.
It is somewhat remarkable that the Atlantic States never have come to realize the importance of the West. It is strange that Americanism does not begin even in the United States until the erest of the Alleghenies has been attained. The Atlantic seaboard states always viewed the West
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with indifference, and have to this hour made no effort to understand or comprehend its requirements. Virginia ignored the just elaims of George Rogers Clark, though his heroism and saerifiees gave her an empire. And when the people of Kentucky petitioned both Virginia and Congress for statehood she was treated with negleet, if not contempt. A like condition to the south eaused the people on the Tennessee to set up the State of Franklin. It was apparent to the Western people that the Mississippi Valley was an entity-that while it extended thousands of miles in all directions and might in time have local conditions to deal with in many parts, it had in the end a common interest and a common destiny. La Salle had been the first to realize this, and on that idea he founded Louisiana. A century later the settlers on the Ohio, the Tennessee, the Holston, the Kanawha, the Kentucky and the Cumberland saw the vision first beheld by La Salle. They had helped to free the land from the British yoke. If the government they had set up and sealed with their blood would not hear them and give attention to their needs, they would do what Englishmen have ever deemed it their right to do-seeure their interests, devise their own government, choose their own course, shape their own destiny.
Spain fostered this discontent. She restricted the navigation of the Mississippi. The eommeree coming down its mighty flood was burdened with imposts amounting to confiscation. Corn, wheat, tobacco, tallow, hides, furs, beeswax, flour, cured meats and many other commodities found unprofitable markets at New Orleans. And the right to deposit these products against more favorable times or for reshipment was denied. At the same time there was the suggestion that if the country could all come under Spanish rule times and conditions would mend and all eanses of complaint disappear. In the hope of attaining complete sovereignty of the Louisiana of La Salle Spain entered upon a course of intrigue with the Western settlers. It is not to be believed that the Americans eould have ever been brought to aeeept permanently the rule of Spain. But many of the leading men of the West were willing to form a compaet or some sort of alliance with that deeadent power in order that eommeree might be fostered and the country developed along natural lines.
These were the conditions when European polities interfered and changed the sovereignty of Louisiana. Franee decided to again take over this wilderness province, and Spain was in no condition to resist. By the treaty of San Ildefonso, concluded October 1, 1800, Spain retroceded Louisiana to Franee.
THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA
The prospect that France would establish a colonial empire in America was not pleasing to the United States. To counteraet its influence Jeffer- son believed it would be necessary to form a elose allianee with Great Britain. For France was then at the zenith of her power. She did not take immediate possession of Louisiana, but left the administration in the hands of Spain. In 1802 the Spanish Governor suspended the right of
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the Americans to deposit commercial products in New Orleans. This action caused intense excitement. President Jefferson was compelled to take notice of the state of mind in the West. He wrote Mr. Monroe that it "threatens to overbear our peace." IIe realized that some remedy would have to be found, and he again wrote Monroe: "The agitation of the public mind on occasion of the late suspension of our rights of deposit. at New Orleans is extreme. Remonstrances, memorials, etc., are now circulating through the whole country." The Federalist party advocated war with both Spain and France. But the President determined to rely upon diplomacy. He instructed Robert R. Livingston, our Minister to France, to buy West Florida and New Orleans. In furtherance of this plan to satisfy the people of the West and protect the rights of the United States he appointed, in January, 1803, James Monroe special envoy to France to aid Livingston.
Conditions favored the design of Jefferson. It had been the plan of France to suppress the rebellion in Santo Domingo, and then take pos- session of Louisiana. The campaign against the Island failed. War with Great Britain was impending. Napoleon knew he could not retain Louisiana in a war with that power. To sell the province to the United States would place it forever beyond the reach of the English. The price of it would help him prepare for the inevitable conflict. And he believed, too, that, having Louisiana, the United States would be strong enough to ultimately curb the British power. He expressed the hope that it would be so. And when the negotiations were got well under way he proposed to sell not only West Florida and New Orleans, but the whole of Louisi- ana. The American Ministers had not been accredited for so great a transaction. A purchase of such vast dimensions had not been thought of by any American. It was the idea of Napoleon. There was no time to secure additional advices from home, and our ministers decided to ignore the instructions they had. On the 30th day of April, 1803, they concluded a treaty by which all of Louisiana should pass to the United States for the sum of fifteen million dollars. The treaty was ratified at a session of Congress convened the following October. Spain contended that France had no right to sell Louisiana, and protested to our Government, but when the representative of the French Government arrived at New Orleans the Spanish officials turned over the province and withdrew. The authority of France was permitted to continue for twenty days. On the 20th of December, 1803, the French put the United States in possession of Louisiana and the American representative proclaimed to those as- sembled there :
The cession secures to you and your descendants the inheritance of liberty, perpetual laws, and magistrates whom you will elect yourselves.
Of all the great events in the history of the United States the pur- chase of Louisiana was one of the most important. Henceforth there would be no contest among the European powers for the mighty Valley of the Mississippi. For the addition of Louisiana doubled the area of
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the United States, increasing its bounds to imperial dimensions and insuring the existence of the Republic to remote ages.
So was Louisiana reunited and made whole under the sovereignty of a power which had risen since its proclamation and establishment at the mouth of the Mississippi. The conception of La Salle was con- summated. The soil to become Kansas became the property of the United States to forever remain a part of the great Republic of North America.
CHAPTER III
LEWIS AND CLARK
President Jefferson moved at once to secure definite and reliable infor- mation concerning Louisiana. His first step was the organization of the expedition of Lewis and Clark. The object of this tour of explora- tion was to discover the courses and sources of the Missouri River, and to find the most convenient way by inland water to the Pacific Ocean. It was to explore, so far as possible, the territory of the late Purchase from Franee. On the Atlantic Slope vague and erroneons conceptions existed in regard to this new and remote land. New England was opposed to the acquisition of French Louisiana, and was, generally, always against the extension of the boundaries of the United States to the westward. And this opposition to the Jefferson Purchase was not confined to New England. Objection was made in other sections bor- dering the Atlantic. It was supposed the settlers straying into the vast expanse west of the Mississippi would be lost to civilization and to the population of the United States. For in those days there were but indifferent means of communication between the various parts of our country. St. Louis was then more inaccessible to Washington City than is Patagonia at this time. And New England was even then very jealous of the South. As Secretary of State, John Quiney Adams abandoned Texas in 1819, and it required the War with Mexico in 1846 to recover that territory and permanently restore it to the United States.
Trade was the stimulus of all the early expeditions into the Western Wilderness. That trade was carried on with savages. With rum and tawdry trinkets such products as an Indian country afforded could be bought. Later the Indians came to require hatchets, axes, kettles, and other metal implements, as well as cloth. To ascertain the possibilities for such trade in the regions in and beyond the Rocky Mountains, Jeffer- son had considered a plan of exploration from the Missonri River into the wilderness of the extreme West as early as 1783. And now, twenty years later, having made French Louisiana a part of the United States, he hastened to consummate his earlier design. The extent of the country was unknown. Its western bounds were neertain, and it is quite prob- able that it was believed that these tonched the Pacific. It was realized that no intelligent action could be taken in the interest of those barbar- ous regions without a knowledge of them. And very little was eer- tainly known of the country beyond the Mississippi.
This expedition of exploration was to be under the direction of
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Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark. They were both officers of the Army of the United States. Lewis was the Private Secretary of the President, and Clark was brother to George Rogers Clark who saved us the Northwest-territory country in the Revolution.
In their instructions they were informed that the object of their mission was to explore the Missouri River, taking their observations with great pains. They were to study the possibility of Commerce with the Indian tribes inhabiting the countries through which they passed -- noting the extent of their possessions, their relations with other tribes, their language, occupations, their food and clothing, the diseases with which they were afflicted, their laws and customs, and the articles of commerce necessary to them and those they could furnish traders in barter.
The expedition was made up of the following persons :
The Commanders;
Nine young men from Kentucky;
Fourteen soldiers of the United States Army, who had volunteered for the service ;
Two French watermen ;
One interpreter and hunter ;
Captain Clark's negro servant-York.
In addition, there were a corporal, six soldiers, and nine watermen to go as far as the Mandan country, on the Upper Missouri.
The supplies carried consisted of clothing, tools, flints for guns, powder and ball, artieles for presents to the Indian tribes to be encoun- tered on the way-medals, flags, kuives, tomahawks, paints, and other things prized by Indians.
The party had three boats. The largest was a keel-boat fifty-five feet long, drawing three feet of water, carrying one large square sail, and having twenty-two oars. At the bow and stern there were decks ten feet long, forming a forecastle and a cabin. The middle space was taken up by movable lockers, which, in case of attack, could be elevated to form a breastwork against rifle-balls or arrows. The other boats were what the early navigators of the Western streams called perogues. They were open boats, sometimes built on canoes bound firmly together. Usually two canoes were used to each boat. One carried six oars-the other seven. They were steered with long sweeps at their sterns, and were well adapted to the purpose for which they were designed.
Two horses were led or ridden along the banks of the Missouri to be used by hunters in seouting and bringing in game for food for the party.
The explorers had camped the winter of 1803-04 at the mouth of Wood or Du Bois River, a small stream emptying into the Mississippi opposite the mouth of the Missouri. This eamp was abandoned on the 14th day of May, 1804, at four o'clock in the afternoon, and the expe- dition got four miles up the Missouri before night.
On the 5th day of June two French traders were met descending the Missouri on a raft made by joining two canoes. They had spent the Vol. 1-4
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winter on the Kansas River, eighty leagues up, and had trapped many beavers, but prairie fires had destroyed some of their game. They said the Kansas Indians had passed the winter on the Kansas River and were then hunting buffalo on the Plains.
Lewis and Clark reached the mouth of the Kansas River on the 26th day of June. They found heavy currents where the Missouri strikes the bluffs, and is deflected to the eastward at the present Kansas City, Mo., and it was only after unusual exertion that they reached the upper point at the mouth of the Kansas. They remained there two days (June 26th and 27th) to take the necessary observations and repair their boats. They seem to have recruited some additional men there, but they may have only waited for some absent members of their force to come up. They found the Kansas River to be 340144 yards over at the mouth, but wider a little distance up-stream. The Missouri there was found to be about 500 yards in width. They learned that the Kansas Indians had two towns up the Kansas River. And it seems that the hunters saw some buffalo-the first sighted on the journey-while the expedition was camped at the mouth of the Kansas.
Resuming their explorations, they left their first camp on Kansas soil on the 29th of June. On the 2d of July they reached Kickapoo Island. It was then called Wau-car-da-war-car-da, or Wakan-da-wakhdi Island, meaning Bear Medicine Island, or the island where Wakanda was slain-Wakanda being the Thunder-god of the Indians of that region. Ile was perhaps a god of the Kansas Indian Mythology. On the west bank of the river was discovered an old Kansas Indian village in the mouth of a valley, between two high points of land. Back of the village about a mile stood the remains of a French fort, but no account of the French party which had been stationed there could be obtained. That French fort was also a trading-station-the first known to us in Kansas.
After a strennous day the expedition came to camp on the 4th of July on the north bank of a stream which was then and there named Inde- pendence Creek, in honor of the day. The stream still retains the name. The town of Doniphan, Atchison County, stands on or near this camp- ing-place. The day was celebrated by firing an evening gun and deal- ing to each man an additional gill of whiskey-the first celebration recorded to the credit of Kansas. On the 5th the country south of the creek was explored. A beautiful prairie was seen. On the south bank of the creek were found the remains of "the second Kansas village." The indications were that it had been a very extensive settlement or town, which later explorations have confirmed.
On the 11th of July the expedition passed above the present line separating Kansas and Nebraska. The exploration of the Kansas shore of the Missouri had continned for fifteen days, and the record made is one of the first of reliability made in Kansas.
CHAPTER IV
UPPER LOUISIANA
The inaptitude of the Government of the United States to compre- hend the needs of a people of foreign origin living under a government devised by another country was well illustrated in the early days of its occupancy of French Louisiana. To govern well in a subjeet country requires that the tendencies, needs, laws, language, social enstoms, legal usages, and government should be thoroughly studied and completely comprehended. Reforms should never be too sudden nor to radical, for a people can be moved only after its members have reached a common conclusion and attained a common mind. The administration of civil and political affairs demands the closest attention. The negleet of these details begets discontent, and discontent is the mother of trouble. In a demoeraey the eminent man seldom has much voice in public affairs. It is the strong, the bold, the ruthless, the ignorant, the eriminal, the sycophant, and the demagogue who usually attain high politieal posi- tions. Among these there is an oeeasional student, sometimes a man of deep reflection, and once in a generation a patriot with an aston- ishing intuition-a comprehension of the needs of humanity apart from nationality. No such man appeared in this instance. Every mistake possible was made in the first efforts of the United States to govern the Louisiana purchased from Franee by Jefferson.
In this old French Louisiana there were three centers of population. The largest of these was in and about New Orleans. Each of them was to develop into a state of the American Union. And following the American plan of local self-government, it was necessary that Louisiana be divided. By an act of Congress passed March 26th, 1804, this French Louisiana was cut in twain. The territory of Orleans was established. It embraced all of Lonisiana east of the Mississippi and all that portion west of that stream south of the thirty-third parallel-the present north bonndary of the State of Louisiana. By right and justice the Territory of Orleans extended to the Rio Grande, but by the malevolent aban- donment of Texas it was restricted to the Sabine. With that portion of the old empire of La Salle, and its perplexities, its problems, and the results of the early errors of our government plainly discernible on it to this day, we shall have nothing further to do in this work. It devel- oped into the great State of Louisiana-a proud Commonwealth entrusted with the ocean door of our Great Valley.
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The unfolding of Kansas is connected with the second portion, divi- sion or part of Louisiana as defined and set off by the act of March 26, 1804. After establishing the Territory of Orleans, the residue of Louis- iana-Upper Louisiana-was erected into the District of Louisiana. This vast domain was attached to the Territory of Indiana for judicial purposes. Major Amos Stoddard was made Governor and military commandant, with headquarters at St. Louis, then the capital of Upper Louisiana. And Lewis and Clark, starting on their expedition to the Pacific, began the exploration of the District of Louisiana.
Two of the centers of population of the old French Louisiana pur- chased by Jefferson were in Upper Louisiana, or the District of Louisiana. The one about Arkansas Post was the nucleus for the coming State of Arkansas, and numbered three hundred and sixty-eight souls. The remaining settlement was chiefly about St. Louis, extending south to Cape Girardeau, and contained some six thousand people. It developed into the State of Missouri. The remainder of the District of Louisiana was a vast realın of barbarism, a savage wilderness comparatively unknown.
By the act of Congress of March 3, 1805, the District of Louisiana was erected into the Territory of Louisiana. The government was improved. A Governor and Territorial Judges were provided. The President appointed General James Wilkinson Governor and Military Commandant of the Territory of Louisiana. He was succeeded by Meri- wether Lewis, who was appointed Governor on return from that famous expedition.
The Territory of Louisiana passed out of existence by act of Congress of June 4, 1812, when it was erected into the Territory of Missouri. It was defined as extending from latitude thirty-three to forty-one, north. Its western limits were the Mexican boundaries. St. Louis was continued as the seat of government and General William Clark, of the exploring expedition, was appointed the first Governor of the Territory-of the Territory with a new name. He was also Superintendent of Indian Affairs. A Legislative Council was the "upper house" of the Legislature, and was composed of nine members appointed by the President. There was a "house" elected by the people-one member for each five hundred free white male inhabitants. That was the first local representative body with jurisdiction over the soil which became Kansas. And with the inauguration of the government there began the American ascendency over the old French life in Upper Louisiana. On the 19th day of Janu- ary, 1816, the Legislature made the Common Law of England the law of the Territory of Missouri.
After the admission of Missouri as a State there was a period of a quarter of a century when there was no direct local government with jurisdiction over the territory to become Kansas. On the 30th of June, 1834, Congress erected all the territory west of Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana into the "Indian Country." It was attached to Missouri for judicial purposes. This was the status of the soil of Kansas until 1854.
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Whatever laws were provided for its government were enacted by Con- gress, and its tribunal was the United States District Court of Missouri. In that arrangement there was a design. Notwithstanding the terms of the Missouri Compromise, the "Indian Country" was the future hope of the slave-power.
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