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 34
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. Messages and Papers of the Presidents.
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sessions in the southwest; and that the United States should in no manner recognize the insurrectionary movements of the Span- ish American provinces. Ile said, "The prompt interposition of the President would be a new proof that he is determined to put an end to the incalculable extortions and injuries which Spain has suffered for the space of seven years from the gang of adventurers who have assailed her from the bosom of this repub- lic, and would be, finally, a sure preliminary to the removal of all the difficulties which may present themselves in the negotia- tions which ought to terminate all the pending discussions between the two Governments and to fix forever between them a perpetual and solid friendship. . The President cannot but have seen with sensibility as well, the total want of effect of his procla- mation of the lenient measures which he had adopted against these criminals who boast of recognizing no law, subordination or moral principle, as the protection and support which they have received . and do receive from the authorities at New Orleans contrary to his express orders."
In his reply to this communication Mr. Monroe briefly reviewed all the suspended relations between the two countries. He stated that inasmuch as the United States claimed within the limits of Louisiana the country on the coast from the river Perdido to the Rio Grande, the United States could as well demand from Spain the surrender of all that territory, as the latter could- demand the surrender of the Floridas, as a preliminary to subsequent negotia- tions. The negotiations could be entered upon with the United States in possession as well as with Spain i po .. . .. 11. said: "The United States took no mesure to indenanty them selves for losses and injuries ; none to guard against the occu- pancy of the Spanish territory by the British forces in the late war, or to occupy the territory to which the United States con- sidered their title good, except in the instance of West Florida; and in that instance under circumstances which made their interposition as much an act of accommodation to the Spanish authority there as of security to themselves. They have also prohibited their citizens from taking any part in the war, and the inhabitants of the colonies and other foreigners connected with them from recruiting men in the United States for that purpose." After citing all the derelictions of Spain, he observed : "The conduct of your Government would have justified if it did not invite the most decisive measures on the part of the United States. The refusal to make reparation for preceding injuries or to surrender any portion of the territory in the pos-
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session of Spain to which they considered their title undisputable or to accept fair and liberal propositions for the accommodation of these differences or to make a proposition of any kind for the purpose, left the United States perfectly free to pursue such course as in their judgment a just regard to the honor, rights and interests of the nation might dictate. In the condition of Spain there was nothing to excite apprehension of the conse- quences, whatever might be the course decided on.
The friendly policy which the United States have since pur- sued is the more conspicuous from the consideration that your Government has inflexibly maintained the unjust and hostile attitude which it then assumed, and has even added new inju- ries and insults to those of which I have already complained. I refer in this latter remark to the breaches of the neutrality of Spain, which her Government permitted, if it did not authorize, by British troops and British agents in Florida, and through that province with the Greeks and other tribes of Indians in the late war with Great Britain, to the great injury of the United States."
On the question of West Florida, Mr. de Onis presented the arguments previously mentioned herein upon which Spain relied to justify her claim to all of the two Floridas, and Mr. Monroe urged the position which had been assumed by the United States. The Spanish minister dwelt at length on the word "retroces- sion," arguing that as Spain had not received either of the Flor- idas from France, she therefore could not retrocede it to her. Mr. Monroe made light of the wold and said, Was to da word 'retrocession,' it is evident that it was not the intention of the pat - ties that it should have any effect whatever on the extent of the territory ceded. The import of this term is too vague and the term itself was used in a manner too casual to admit such an inference, even had there been nothing else in the treaty between Spain and France of 1800 to show that the construction you con- tend for is altogether inconsistent with the manifest intention of the parties. The import of this term would in my opinion be satisfied if the whole province had passed in the first instance from France to Great Britain and been conveyed afterwards by Great Britain to Spain and by Spain back again to France. In regard to France, this last conveyance would have been a 'retro- cession,' as by it the territory would have been coded back to her. It was very natural there fore that this term should be used, being applicable in the most limited sense in which it can be taken to at least nineteen-twentieths of the province and in a
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qualified sense to the whole." Mr. de Onis said, "Be the inter- pretation which may be wished to be given to the treaty of 'retrocession' of Louisiana made between France and Spain what it may, the two Floridas can never be directly nor indirectly included in it: Ist, because these provinces being in the legiti- mate possession of England from the year 1763 to the year 1783, France could not cede them to Spain by the treaty of 17644-nor Spain retrocede them to France, not having received them from her, unless there should have been an article on this point, in which express and direct mention was made of the cession; and 2nd, because the two contracting parties ( Spain and France) have declared in the most solemn manner, the former that she did not cede to France any part of the Floridas-the latter that she had not acquired them by the treaty of St. Ildefonso or of retrocession of 1800, nor had had the least intention to set up a claim to them. The country to which you allude, extending to the Rio Bravo or del Norte, has been under the dominion of Spain, not only before and since France ceded Loui- siana to His Majesty by the treaty of 1764, but from the time of the discovery and conquest of Mexico, without ever having passed by treaty to any other nation."
Mr. Monroe's argument, intentionally prepared to avoid arti- fice, was extremely clear, strong and convincing. The expres- sion "with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain" would not have been used, would not have been necessary, had the Louisiana which was ceded extended no farther castward tham the Iberville. The expression must have meant to include West Florida, because that province was "now " embrace in the civil government of Louisiana. The statement "that it had when France possessed it" must have meant prior to 1763 when it extended to the Perdido, because France had never possessed it farther to the westward than that river. The expression "such as it should be after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other states," he argued, could have been used for no other purpose than to exchide that portion of Louisiana above the thirty-first degree of north latitude, which had passed in 1783 to the United States, but which prior to 1763 had belonged to France as a part of Louisiana. Mr. Monroe declared there had never been a treaty in 1764 as claimed by Mr. de Onis. It seems that so far as the language was concerned the claims of the two countries were about equally balanced. The expressions above seem to favor the United States, but the term "retrocession"
* American State Papers.
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unquestionably favors the Spanish contention. However, it was proper that each side should present its strongest points, and this was accordingly done. In this manifest obscurity, the intentions of the parties to the retrocession were the determinating factors. Both France and Spain denied that any part of the Floridas was included in the Louisiana retroceded. While the strength of this position was recognized in the United States, there was nothing to prevent the government from pressing its claims to the utmost 'and employing every honorable art and argument to acquire West Florida at least, because its possession meant so much in the interests of order and security. It could mean nothing else, also, than that East Florida would eventually follow the same course. Nor was there anything to prevent the United States from press- ing to the utmost its claims to the territory extending westward to the Rio Grande, when by means of such persistence better terms were likely to be secured thereby from Spain. The nego- tiations terminated in a diplomatic contest in which the United States had considerably the advantage by reason of proximity to the territory in dispute and the possession of a considerable por- tion of the Floridas. Neither is it improbable that Spain, realiz- ing this fact and the further consideration that the claims of the United States were undoubtedly about as strong as her own, came to the unwilling conclusion, by reason of the firmness and persistence of Mr. Monroe, that unless she yielded much of what . the United States claimed, the latter might be inclined to take all that was wanted without permission, leaving to the crown of Spain a course that was then to her wholly in practicable -- the necessity of waging war against the United States.
After the negotiations had progressed thus far, Mr. de Onis informed the secretary of state that he did not possess full powers to treat, whereupon George W. Erving was appointed special envoy to the court of Madrid to conclude a treaty with the Span- ish government. The latter upon opening negotiations at Madrid, was informed that full powers had lately been sent to Mr. de Onis at Washington. Accordingly, communications were resumed between Mr. Monroe and Mr. de Onis. The former stated that, having understood from the latter that he "would not agree to an arrangement by which Spain should cede her claims to territory eastward of the Mississippi unless the United States ceded their claims to all the territory westward of that river, and that even then your agreement would be restricted to a recommendation to your Government to adopt an arrangement to that effect, it is deemed unecessary to make you any further proposition or to prolong the negotiation on the subject of lim-
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its. I have now to request that you will have the goodness to inform me whether you are willing to enter into a convention to provide compensation for spoliations and for the injury result- ing to the United States from the suppression of the deposit at New Orleans?"#
Again there seemed to be an obstruction to the proceedings, as it not only became evident that Mr. de Onis was not fully empowered to treat, but the Spanish secretary of state submitted to Mr. Erving a "project of conditions or articles of agreement" on the 17th of August, 1817, which the latter stated he could not officially consider, because the Spanish minister himself had trans- ferred the negotiations to Washington. This "project of con- ditions" embraced the following points: That all questions of indemnification down to the present time should be settled ; that this settlement should be effected by a commission appointed from other nations than Spain or the United States; that the said commission should decide on the damages resulting from the suppression of the deposits at New Orleans in 1802-3, "provided it is not desired to attribute to such suspension the prejudices produced by false rumors of a suspension in the navigation of the Mississippi, which never existed, and the rumors of an carly rupture, which some bad intentioned persons delighted to propa- gate at that time in the territory of the United States, for the bad effects and prejudices resulting from such false rumors can only be attributed to the authors of them ; that the king of Spain "obliges himself to employ his efforts in union with the United States to reclaim and cause to be restored to the legitimate pro- prictors the value of the vessels and goods which were taken from them, provided that these reclamations have not been extin- guished by the said convention of 1800, as France has assured the Government of Spain in its repeated communications ; that His Catholic Majesty, master of Florida, East and West, in all the extension in which he received them from England by the treaty of 1783, and which they had in possession of Great Brit- ain before said treaty, will be willing for his part to cede them with the same extention to the United States of America, in full "property and perpetual sovereignty, provided that the United States are equally disposed on their part to cede in the same form to His Catholic Majesty that part of Louisiana which is situated to the west of the Mississippi, and is the territory which lies between said river and the well-known limit which now sepa- rates and has separated Louisiana when France possessed it
* American State Papers.
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before the year 176.1, and even before the death of the King of Spain, Charles H., from the Spanish province called Texas; so that after these reciprocal cessions are verified, the course of the river Mississippi from its source to where it discharges into the sea, will be the only limit of the dominions of His Catholic Majesty and those of the United States," excepting that the chan- nel Lafourche should be the dividing line at the mouth of the Mississippi; that owing to the provisions embraced in the treaty of Utrecht to the effect that Spain should never dispose of the Floridas without the consent of England, it would be necessary, should the United States desire the acquisition of those provinces. to secure the permission of that power; and that piracies and insurrections against each nation should be suppressed within the limits and authority of the other.
While stating that he had not the authority to treat fully on the lines proposed, Mr. Erving nevertheless proceeded to discuss unofficially the "project of conditions" submitted by Don Jose Pizarro. After showing the unfairness of the propositions, he stated that they would prove wholly inadmissible to the United States. Mr. Pizarro announced that he would at once dispatch full authority to Mr. de Onis at Washington to settle all ques- tions in dispute ; whereupon Mr. de Onis and Mr. Adams began anew negotiations to terminate the difficulties. It was now December, 1817. Mr. de Onis entered at once into an elaborate historical account of the growth of the Spanish provinces in the southern part of North America, contending that the possessions of Spain extended castward to the Mississippi. He produced strong evidence that the Spanish settlements had been made cast- ward of the Sabine river, notably at daes, a short distance west of Natchitoches and that all of the country west of that river had been occupied for from one hundred to two hundred years by the missionaries and settlers of Spain. Considering that the Spanish settlements east of the river Sabine would about off- set the French settlements west of the Sabine and southwest of the upper course of Red river, justice indicated that those streams should be the demarcation between Louisiana and the Spanish province of Texas. While Mr. de Onis argued for an exten- sion of the Spanish dominions castward to the Mississippi, he succeeded in showing little or no right to any territory cast of the Sabine and north of Rio Roxo, or Red river. On the other hand, the French claims to the territory west of the Sabine were equally weak and unsound. Thus the river Sabine and the upper Red river were approximately the just and plain boundary between Louisana and Texas. It only remained to fix the exact
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line. Mr. de Onis did not insist on the extension of the Span- ish possessions to the Mississippi, because subsequent treaties and negotiations, he said, had placed the boundary farther to the west. To his long and numerous letters, Mr. Adams replied briefly that the subject had been so often discussed, particularly in the years 1804-6, nothing new could be learned thereby ; he therefore submitted, on January 16, 1818, the following "arrange- ment" for the settlement of the difficulties between the two cou- tries :*
"I. Spain to cede all her claims to territory eastward of the Mississippi.
"2. The Colorado from its mouth to its source and from thence to the northern limits of Louisiana, to be the western boundary ; or to leave that boundary unsettled for future arrangement.
"3. The claims of indemnities for spoliations, whether Span- ish or French, within Spanish jurisdiction, and for the suppres- sion of the deposits at New Orleans, to be arbitrated and settled by commissioners in the manner agreed upon in the unratified convention of 1802.
"4. The lands in East Florida and in West Florida to the Perdido to be made answerable for the amount of the indemmi- ties which may be awarded by the commissioners under this arbi- tration ; with an option to the United States to take the lands and pay the debts, or to sell the lands for the payment of the debts, distributing the amount received equally according to the amount of their respective liquidated claims among the claimants. No grant of land subsequent to the 11th of August to be valid.
"5. Spain to be exonerated Beer the payment of the debits of any part of them."
In presenting this "arrangement," Mr. Adamis called the atten- tion of Mr. de Onis to the necessity of coming to some agreement at once, owing to the importance of deciding immediately whether Spain or the United States was to be held responsible for the expense of suppressing the incursions and insurrections along the boundary between Louisiana and Texas. He said: "Spain cannot expect that the United States should employ their forces for the defense of her territories, or to rescue them for her exchi- sive advantage from the adventurers who are projecting and in the act of executing expeditions against them from the ter- ritories without the jurisdiction of the United States. Neither can the United States permit that the adjoining territories of
* American State Papers.
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Spain should be misused by others for purposes of annoyance to them."
This "arrangement" was not satisfactory to Mr. de Onis, who presented the following counter proposition :
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"I. The dividing line between Louisiana and the Spanish pos- sessions to be established in one of the branches of the Missis- sippi, either that of Lafourche or of the Atchafalaya, following the course of that river to its source. Or if this should be inad- missible, the western line to be established from the sea at a point between the rivers Carcassa and the Mermento or Mermen- tao, running thence by Arroyo Hondo till it crosses the Colorado of Natchitoches between that post and Adaes, thence northward to a point to be fixed and laid down by commissioners respect- ively appointed for that purpose. Spain to cede the two Floridas to the United States in full and complete sovereignty.
"2. The question of indemnities to be settled by a commission.
"3. Spain to unite with the United States in an endeavor to secure from France a settlement for the spoliations claimed.
"4. The United States to engage to prevent the insurrections along the boundary in the southwest."
This proposition was the inducement for Mr. Adams to write the strongest and lengthiest communication yet prepared in sup- ' port of the contentions of the United States. He reviewed in detail all the facts of the carly settlement by both France and Spain and replied to every argument that had been presented to sustain the Spanish claims. He was very careful to make no assertion which he did not support with documentary or other evidence. He ended with the following statement: "With regard to those parts of the province of Lomsina which have been incorporated within the state of that name, it is time that the discussion should cease. Forming part of the territory of a sovereign and independent State of this Union, to dispose of them is not within the competency of the Executive Government of the United States, nor will the discussion be hereafter con- tinued. But if you have proposals to make to which it is possible for the Government of the United States to listen with a pros- pect of bringing them to any practicable conclusion, I am author- ized to receive them and to conclude with you a treaty for the adjustment of all the differences between the two nations upon terms which may be satisfactory to both."
In his message to congress of December 2, 1817. President Mon- roe stated that the relations with Spain were the same as they were under his predecessor; that it had evidently been the policy of Spain to keep the negotiations concerning boundaries, etc., sus-
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pended, to which the United States had acquiesced "from an amicable disposition towards Spain and in the expectation that her Government would from a sense of justice finally accede to such an arrangement as would be equal between the parties. A disposition has been lately shown by the Spanish Government to move in the negotiation, which has been met by this Govern- ment." He stated that lately an expedition from the revolting Spanish American colonies had undertaken to occupy portions of East . Florida, and that "as this province lies castward of the Mississippi and is bounded by the United States and the ocean on every side, and has been a subject of negotiation with the Government of Spain as an indemnity for losses by spoliation or in exchange for territory of equal value westward of the Mis- sissippi (a fact well known to the world), it excited surprise that any countenance should be given to this measure by any of the (Spanish ) colonies." He also communicated that a similar establishment had been made on Galveston island within terri- tory contended to be a part of the United States under the treaty of 1803 ceding Louisiana, and that orders had been issued for the suppression of both movements or expeditions. The design of the revolting colonies was to occupy both of the Floridas and form an independent government. As this design was an intended infringement of the rights of the United States, in West Florida, at least, the revolutionists were dispersed and driven from those provinces. In his message, the president, in order to justify his course in repelling the revolutionists, stated that he had proceeded under the act of congress of January 15. 1811. which authorized him "to prevent the province of bast Flores from passing into the hands of any foreign Power. It does not appear that among these itinerant establishers of republics and distributers of Florida lands there is a single individual inhab- itant of the country where the republic was to be constituted and whose lands were to be thus bestowed. The project was, there- fore, an attempt to occupy that territory by a foreign Power." In his message of January 13, 1818, he said: "In repelling these adventurers from these posts it was not intended to make any conquest from Spain or to injure in any degree the cause of the colonies. Care will be taken that no part of the territory con- templated by the law of 18i shall be occupied by a foreign Cor- ernment of any kind, or that injuries of the nature of these complained of shall be repeated ; but this it is expected will be provided for with every other interest in a spirit of amity in the negotiation now depending with the Government of Spain."+
· Mesingca and Papers of the Presidents.
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In March 1818, the president communicated to congress, that, inasmuch as the government of Spain had been unable, in accord- ance with the treaty of 1795, to keep the Indians within the boundaries of the Floridas from making repeated incursions into the territory of the United States, troops had been sent against them, but that "orders had been given to the general in com- mand not to enter Florida unless it be in pursuit of the enemy, and in that case to respect the Spanish authority wherever it was maintained; and that he would be instructed to withdraw his forces from the province as soon as he shall have reduced that tribe to order and secured our fellow citizens in that quar- ter by satisfactory arrangements against its unprovoked and savage hostilities in future." He further said in November, 1818, that although the convention of 1802 had at length been ratified by Spain, no arrangement had been entered into to settle the ques- tion of boundaries. "Throughout the whole of the Floridas to which the Spanish title extends, the Government of Spain has scarcely been felt. Its authority has been confined almost exclu- sively to the walls of Pensacola and St. Augustine, within which only small garrisons have been maintained. Adventurers from every country, fugitives from justice, and absconding slaves have found an asylum there. Several tribes of Indians, strong in the number of their warriors, remarkable for their ferocity, and whose settlements extend to our limits, inhabit those provinces. These different hordes of people, connected together and disre- garding on the one side the authority of Spain, and protected on the other by an imaginary line which separates Florida from the United States, have violated our laws prohibiting the mitro- duction of slaves, have practised various frauds on our revenue, and committed every kind of outrage on our peaceable citizens, which their proximity to us enabled them to perpetrate.
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