USA > Louisiana > The province and the states, a history of the province of Louisiana under France and Spain, and of the territories and states of the United States formed therefrom, Vol. II > Part 29
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· American State Papers.
11-19
·
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THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
Further views having been obtained with respect to the inte- rior of Louisiana the department of state, on July 8, 1804, sent additional instructions. The envoys were told that the president was "not a little averse to the occlusion for a very long period of a very wide space of territory westward of the Mississippi, and equally so to a perpetual relinquishment of any territory whatever eastward of the Rio Bravo. If this river could be made the limit to the Spanish settlements and the Rio Colo- rado the limit to which those of the United States may be extended; and if a line northwest or west from the source of whatever river may be taken for the limit of our settlements could be substituted for the ultimatum line running from the source of the Sabine to the junction of the Osages with the Mis- souri, and thence northward parallel with the Mississippi, the interval to be unsettled for a term of years would be defined in a manner perfectly satisfactory. It is to be under- stood that a perpetual relinquishment of the territory between the Rio Bravo and Colorado is not to be made, nor the sum of ten million dollars paid without the entire cession of the Flori- das, nor any money paid in consideration of the acknowledgment by Spain of our title to the territory between the Iberville and .
the Perdido, . . nor that Spain or the United States shall during the negotiation strengthen their situation in the territory between the Iberville and. the Perdido, and that the navigation of the Mobile shall not be interrupted."
It having been learned by the department of state that Mr. Pinckney had left Madrid, Mr. Monte was directed on ( tobr 26, 1801, to repair to that city to open negotiations anew with Spain. The previous instructions were repeated, and he was told that "in case the Spanish Government shall refuse to cede the territory castward of the Perdido and shall require as indis- pensable to an acknowledgment of our title to the territory west- ward of that river an acknowledginent on our part that in ultimately establishing the western boundary of Louisiana, the pretensions of the United States shall not go beyond the pro- posed western limit to the interval of desert, to-wit: the river Colorado, a line thence to the source of Red river, thence along the highlands, etc., you are authorized after reasonable endeavors otherwise to effect your object to acquiesce in the acknowledg- ment so required."
In order to secure the definite views of France in regard to the boundary of Louisiana. Mr. Monroe, on November 8, 180.1, while on his way to Madrid addressed a letter to M. Talley-
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rand requesting a statement of the French interpretation of the language used in the treaties of 1762, 1800, 1801 and 1803. In presenting the request, he said : "It is not stipulated that Spain should cede to France that portion of Louisiana only which she had received from France, or that West Florida should be excepted from the cession. It is, on the contrary, stipulated that she shall cede it such as it was when France possessed it ; that is, such as it was before it was dismembered by the cessions afterward made to Spain by Great Britain ; that she should cede it with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain ; that is, entire, which it became by the treaty of 1783, whereby West Florida was ceded by Great Britain to Spain; such as it is according to subsequent treaties between Spain and other powers." Mr. Monroe presented his request in the form of a powerful argument in support of the American claims.
M. Talleyrand wholly disagreed with his contentions, saying . among other things: "France, in giving up Louisiana to the United States, transferred to them all the rights over that col- ony which she had acquired from Spain; she could not nor did she wish to cede any other; and that no room might be left for doubt in this respect she repeated in her treaty of 30th of April, 1803, the literal expressions of the treaty of St. Ile- fonso, by which she had acquired that colony two years before. Now it was stipulated in her treaty of the year 1801 that the acquisition of Louisiana by France was a retrocession; that is to say, that Spain restored to France what she had received from her in 1762. At that period she had received the territory bounded on the east by the Mississippi, the river Iberville, the lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain; the same day France ceded to England by the preliminaries of peace all the territory to the eastward. Of this Spain had received no part and could therefore give back none to France. All the territory lying to the eastward of the Mississippi and the river Iberville and south of the thirty-second degree of north latitude, bears the name of Florida. It has been constantly designated in that way during the time that Spain hell it; it bears the same name in the treaties of limits between Spain and the United States; and in different notes of Mr. Livingston of a later date than the treaty of retrocession, in which the name of Louisiana is given to the territory on the west side of the Mississippi; of Florida to that on the cast of it. According to this designation thus consecrated by time and even prior to the period when Spain began to possess the whole territory between the thirty-first
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degree, the Mississippi and the sea, this country ought in good faith and justice to be distinguished from Louisiana. Your excellency knows that before the preliminaries of 1762 confirmed by the treaty of 1763, the French possessions situated near the Mississippi extended as far from the east of this river towards the Ohio and the Illinois as in the quarters of Mobile; and you must think it as unnatural after all the changes of sovereignty which that part of America has undergone to give the name of Louisiana to the district of Mobile, as to the territory more to the north on the same bank of the river which formerly belonged to France. . It was under this impression that the French and Spanish plenipotentiaries negotiated and it was under this impression that I have since had occasion to give the necessary explanations when a project was formed to take possession of it. I have laid before Ilis Imperial Majesty the negotiations of Madrid which preceded the treaty of 1801, and His Majesty is convinced that during the whole course of these negotiations the Spanish Government has constantly refused to cede any part of the Floridas even from the Mississippi to the Mobile. Ilis Imperial Majesty ( Bonaparte) has moreover authorized me to declare to you that at the beginning of the year IT, General Bournonville was charged to open a new negotiation with Spain for the acquisition of the Floridas. This project which has not been followed by any treaty is an evident proof that France had not acquired by the treaty retroceding louisiana the country cast of the Mississippi."*
It was further stated by M Talleyrand that Bonaparte "saw with pain the United States commence their differences with Spain in an unusual manner, and conduct themselves toward the Floridas by acts of violence, which not being founded on right could have no other effect but to injure its lawful owners. Such an aggression gave the more surprise to His Majesty, because the United States seemed in this measure to avail themselves of their treaty with France as an authority for their proceed- ings." Gen. John Armstrong, minister at Paris, in an effort to secure the views of France on the questions, wrote as fol- lows: "On the subject of indemnity for the suspended right of deposit (professing to know nothing of the ground on which the interruption had been given ), they ( the French Goverment ) would offer no opinion. On that of reparation for spoliations committed on our commerce by Frenchmen within the territory
· American Stade Papers.
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of Ilis Catholic Majesty (Spain), they were equally prompt and decisive, declaring that our claim having nothing of solidity in it must be abandoned. With regard to boundary, we have, they said, already given an opinion and see no cause to change it. To the question, what would be the course of this Govern- ment in the event of a rupture between us and Spain? they answered, we can neither doubt nor hesitate; we must take part with Spain; and our note of 30th Frimaire was intended to communicate and impress this idea."
Pursuant to their instructions, Messrs. Monroe and Pinckney, under date of January 28, 1805, presented to Don Pedro Cer- vallos at Aranjuez, a proposition for the settlement of the diffi- culties between Spain and the United States. They called atten- tion to the fact that the losses inflicted on American citizens by the suppression of the right of deposit at New Orleans had never been adjusted; that it was important that the boundary between Louisiana and the territory of Spain in the southwest should soon be determined; that the castern boundary between Louisiana and Florida was yet unacknowledged; that the said boundaries were "the river Perdido on the east and the Rio Bravo to the west ;" that the facts and principles to sustain this conclusion were clear and absolute; that the United States had forborne to press for an adjustment from motives of fairness and accommodation ; and that the interests of both governments now demanded that these questions should be settled without further unnecessary delay. They therefore submitted a project of a convention between the two countries, and embraced therein their claims to the territory above mentioned, and recommended the appointment of a commission to settle the questions in dis pute. In reply to this communication the Spanish minister sig .. nified his willingness to take steps to settle the existing differ- ences. Both sides then began the presentation of their argu- ments in support of their respective claims. The Americans argued in lines mentioned in the previous pages of this volume. The Spanish minister. stated among other things that Spanish citizens held unadjusted claims against the United States; that the act of congress in extending the revenue district over the Mobile country and the further proceedings to take possession of West Florida, were unjust to Spain and calculated to involve the two countries in serious difficulties; that West Florida to the Mississippi and the Iberville were owned by Spain, because, not having been received from France in 1702, they were not and could not have been retroceded to France in 1800; that
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the French government had already satisfied the United States for damages done by her privateers in Spanish ports by the conventions of April 30, 1803; that the establishment of the port of entry at Fort Stoddert as suggested by the United States did not remove the objection to the act of congress complained of, because the vessels of the United States would have to tray- erse the waters of Spain to reach such fort, but that the just complaints as to the act would be waived for the time being ; and that the Spanish government could not agree to the terms suggested by the American envoys regarding claims alleged to be due them from Spain for damages done by French privateers in the ports of Spain. As it was seen by the Americans that Spain would not yield on the latter point, they dropped it and proceeded to discuss the remaining questions in dispute. They asked for an answer on the question of the reclamations on account of the interdiction at New Orleans and on that of the boundaries.
To these queries the Spanish minister returned the following sweeping reply February 16: "To determine whether Spain is or is not responsible for the damages which your excellencies sup- pose to have been sustained by the citizens of the United States by the suppression of the deposits at New Orleans in consequence of the edict of the Intendant of that city, it is necessary to examine what are those damages and from whence they have arisen. Such suspension did not interrupt, nor was it the intention to interrupt, the free navigation of the Mississippi: consequently these pretended injuries are reduced to this small point, that for a short time the vessels loaded in the stream instead of taking in their cargoes at the wharfs. This obstruction will appear still less when we consider that during a great part of the time that the deposit was suspended it was in the middle of the winter when the exportation of produce from the western parts of the United States by the Mississippi is very inconsiderable. If the erroneous opinions which were formed in the United States upon the occur- rences at New Orleans ; if the complaints published in the papers of your country, as false as they were repeated, that the naviga- tion of the Mississippi was interrupted; if the virulent writings by which the public mind was heated, and which led to compromit the American Government and tarnish the good name of Spain, were causes that the inhabitants of the western territory of the United States could not form a correct idea of what passed at New Orleans; and if in this uncertainty they were disappointed in the extraction of their produce, or suffered other inconveni-
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THE FLORIDA AND TEXAS BOUNDARIES.
ences, they ought to attribute the same to internal causes, which originated in their own country, such as the writings before men- tioned, filled with inflammatory falsehoods, the violence of enthusiastic partisans, and other occurrences, which on those occasions served to conceal the truth. The Government of Spain, so far from being responsible for the prejudices occasioned by these errors and erroneous ideas, ought in justice to complain of the irregular conduct pursued by various writers and other individuals of the United States, which was adopted to exasperate and mis- lead the public opinion, and went to divulge sentiments the most ignominious and absurdities the most false against the Govern- ment of His Majesty and his accredited good faith. Estimate the damages which may have arisen to the citizens of the United States by their erroneous conception of what took place at New Orleans, and they will be found to be no other than the trifling inconvenience before mentioned, of their ships loading in a situa- tion not so commodious-an inconvenience for which the Govern- ment of Spain is not responsible (neither ought it to be), and which does not in any manner merit to be mentioned, more espe- cially when it is considered that those who experienced it had been enjoying the right of deposit for four years more than was stipulated in the treaty, and this notwithstanding the great prejudice it occasioned to Ilis Majesty's revenue, by making New Orleans the center of a most scandalous contraband trade, the profits of which it is not improbable but that some of those indi- viduals have in part received, who now suppose themselves injured by said trifling inconvenience. After four years more than the treaty expressed, to wit-three years, making it all seven years, the Intendant thought that i was his duty no longer to permit a deposit which gave an opportunity for carrying on a fraudulent commerce, prejudicial to the interests of His Majesty, for which he was accountable; he thought it was necessary that New Orleans should no longer be the place of deposit on account of those inconveniences, and in consequence prohibited the same.
The Intendant ought to have asked instructions from
his Government. What in strict justice was the (leposite at New Orleans? A generous and gratuitous conces - sion of the King my Master for three years. It is true that His Majesty agreed to continue the favor of the deposite, if it should be found that no inconvenience resulted from it, and of this no person was a better judge than His Majesty and his agent in that colony. . But this is not intended to support the edict of the Intendant ; His Majesty has disapproved the act.
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Most certainly the Intendant had a right to prohibit the deposite, and consequently the Government of Spain cannot be responsible on this point ; and this reflection acquires a double weight, if we consider the trifling inconvenience occasioned by the true effect of the said edict of its short duration, and on the other hand the serious damages which the King's revenue has experienced by the continuance of the deposite for four years over and above the term stipulated in the treaty." In a subsequent communication Mr. Cervallos defined the boundaries between Spain and the United States on the west as follows :
"It would be very easy to make it appear that the most exag- gerated claims of France never had the extent which your excel- Jencies wish to give to Louisiana on this ( west) side. But even if they should have had such claims, or France positively should have tried to include, under the name of Louisiana, the territories which His Catholic Majesty possessed, what right or claim could be founded in a document which Spain never has recognized, nor does recognize, and which never could prejudice in any manner her acquired rights? The answer of Spain on this occasion is as simple as just : That, if Louis XIV, or the Government of France exceeded its powers in granting territories or rights over territories which were not their own, or that Spain claimed pos- session of, or property in, that grant ought to be considered as null as far as it extended over these territories, and that it flowed, without doubt, from the total ignorance which prevailed in those days with respect to the geography of the territories situated at a little distance to the west of the Mississippi, and of the establish. ments of the Spaniards in these parts. More an ant, and proved by repeated acts of possession, than the aforesaid patent of Louis XIV, is the royal order of the 12th November, 1692, already cited, by which His Catholic Majesty ordered them to make new expeditions to the Texas; and the same are the other authentic acts and establishments of the Spaniards in that quarter. The limits between Louisiana and the Texas have been always known, even when the French possessed Louisiana. Near the beginning of the last century, the venerable Alanjet, of the order of St. Fran- cisco, founded, in the province of Texas, towards the confines of Louisiana, different missions, among them that of Necogdoches. And a few years after he wrote, and it was generally known in the writings of those times, that the province of Texas, or New Philippines, had its boundaries about the middle of the Gulf of Mexico to Poncenes, the Rio Grande, and to the East Louisiana. Depending on Louisiana, we find upon the Colorado (Red) which
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discharges into the Mississippi, the post of Natchitoches, which the French took from Spain. But, at seven leagues from this, you will find the aforementioned post of Nuestra Senora de Ios Adaes, belonging to the province of Texas; and it is undoubted that the Baron de Riperda, being Governor General of this province, and successor of Don Angal de Manos, appeared to have made treaties and conventions with the Indians of the same province of Texas, stipulation that the Spaniards might make among them such establishments as they pleased acknowledging from that time as depending on the province of Texas, the Indians Stydes, Nacogdoches, Assenares, Nobedacuis, Vidais, Ozquires, Malayes, Ocuanes, Tanques, and Apaches. To the year 1770, there always was in the fort of the Adaes, from the time of its establishment, a competent number of Spanish soldiers, and the same in that of Ozquisaz et St. Saba; and it was not until the year 1773 that the Lieutenant Don Josef Gonzales evacuated the post of Adaes, whose garrison was no longer necessary, as Spain possessed Louisiana.
"It follows, therefore, that the boundary between the provinces of Texas and Louisiana ought to be by a line which, beginning at the Gulf of Mexico, between the river Caricut, or Cascassia, and the Armenta, or Marmentoa, should go to the north, passing between the Adaes and Natchitoches, until it cuts the Red river. And as from this point the limits which ought to be established on the northern side are doubtful and little known, it appears indis- pensable to refer them to the prudent investigation of commis; sioners to be named by both parties, in order that they, viewing the territory, and having with them the documents and dates that will be given them, rectifying what ought to be rectified, and furnishing the necessary light to both Governments, upon limits which have never been fixed or determined with exactness, may thus enable them to fix the demarcation completely conformable to the wishes of both."
In claiming the extension of Louisiana westward to the Rio Bravo or Grande the American envoys, Messrs. Monroe and Pinckney, were at a disadvantage, because their arguments were required to be based on those of France, and the arguments of the latter were largely unknown. Nevertheless, they made a strong showing. as was expected from two such powerful logi- cians. They placed themselves, so to speak, in the shoes of France, and need the arguments that France would most likely have used had she not parted with Louisiana. They stated that the Mississippi had been explored and claimed for France by
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Sieurs Joliet, Marquette, La Salle and Father Hennepin from 1673 to 1682; that La Salle with two hundred and forty persons in 1685 had formed a settlement and erected a fort on the Bay of St. Bernard; that this extension was recognized in the letters patent to Anthony Crozat in 1712 by Louis XIV of France, show- ing that he claimed the country to that bay by reason of this dis- covery and settlement, in fact claimed the country westward to Old Mexico and New Mexico and that the country as far as the Rio del Norte had been explored in 1713-14 by Sieur D'St. Denis, a Frenchman. As La Salle's settlement was made on the west bank of the Colorado, the Americans claimed all the country watered by that river. The grant of Louis XIV to Crozat was stated by them to be the principal basis of their claims. Numer- ous authorities were cited by them in support of their contentions. Many geographers had published maps showing the extension of Louisiana to the Rio Bravo or Grande; these authorities were named. They made light of the claims of Spain founded on -the missions established among the Indians, and showed that many of the settlements claimed had been abandoned. But it was also shown that the French settlement on the Bay of St. Bernard had been abandoned, and that beyond Natchitoches the French had few if any settlements.
The language used by Louis XIV in the patent of Louisiana granted at Fontainebleau, September 14, 1712, to Anthony Crozat, was as follows: "The care we have always had to procure the welfare and advantage of our subjects having induced us
. . . to seek all possible opportunities of enlarging and extending the trade of our American colonies, we did in the year 1683 give our orders to undertake a discovery of the countries and lands which are situated in the northern part of America between New France and New Mexico; and the Sieur de la Salle, to whom we committed the enterprise, having had success enough to confirm a belief that a communication might be settled from New France to the Gulf of Mexico by means of large rivers; this obliged us immediately after the peace of Ryswick, to give orders for establishing a colony there and maintaining a garrison, which has kept and preserved the possession we had taken in the very year, 1683, of the lands, coasts and islands which are situated in the Gulf of Mexico between Carolina on the east and Old and New Mexico on the west. But a new war having broke out shortly after, there was no possibility till now of reaping from that colony the advantages that might have been expected from thence. And whereas, upon the information we have
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received concerning the dispositions and situation of the said countries known at present by the name of the Province of Louisiana, we are of opinion that there may be established therein a considerable commerce, . . we have resolved to grant the commerce of the country of Louisiana to the Sienr Anthony Crozat. For these reasons, .
. we by these presents signed by our hand have appointed and do appoint the said Sieur Crozat to carry on a trade in all the lands possessed by us and bounded by New Mexico and by the lands of the English of Carolina, all the establishments, ports, havens, rivers and principally the port and haven of the Isk Dauphine hereto- fore called Massacre; the river of St. Louis heretofore called Mississippi from the edge of the sea as far as the Illinois, together with the river St. Phillip heretofore called the Missouri and of St. Jerome heretofore called Quabache, with all the countries, territories and lakes within land and the rivers which fall directly or indirectly into that part of the river St. Louis. Our pleasure is that all the aforesaid lands, countries, streams, rivers and islands be and remain comprised under the name of the Govern- ment of Louisiana, which shall be dependent upon the General Government of New France, to which it is subordinate; and fur- ther that all the lands which we possess from the Illinois be united to the General Government of New France and become part thereof, . "*
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