USA > Mississippi > A history of the Mississippi valley, from its discovery to the end of foreign domination. The narrative of the founding of an empire, shorn of current myth, and enlivened by the thrilling adventures of discoverers, pioneers, frontiersmen, Indian fighters, and homemakers > Part 25
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and the Spanish naturally argued that no treaty with Great Britain could give the United States a right to Natchez. In fact it is not wholly unreasonable to sup- pose that when Richard Oswald, the British commis- sioner in the treaty of 1782-83, assigned the 3Ist par- allel of latitude as the Southern limit of the United States on the Mississippi, he had in mind a future con- flict between Spain and the United States over Natchez -a conflict that might in some way benefit British in- terests.
A movement that looked to the establishment of American control in the Great Valley down to the 31st parallel was begun in Georgia, the legislature of which sold (December, 1789) large tracts of the land, claimed west of the mountains, to various companies of specula- tors, who were required to defend their titles at their own expense. The South Carolina company, with a grant of 10,000,000 acres, employed one Dr. James O'Fallon as agent and manager. O'Fallon issued cir- culars inviting emigrants, and telling that the plan was to erect the territory to be acquired into an Amer- ican State. At the same time he wrote to Governor Miro, at New Orleans, with a view, as he pretended, of making the grant a Spanish colony. Sevier and Robertson were expected to join in, and Wilkinson wrote to Miro recommending O'Fallon. But O'Fallon indiscreetly said he should have 10,000 of the "Prime Riflemen" of the frontier in his colony, and Miro was unable to grow enthusiastic over the prospect of receiv- ing any such company of emigrants. He did not refuse to receive them, but the scheme failed when Washing- ton learned its object; for he said he would suppress
370
EDMUND CHARLES GENET. Better known as "Citizen Genet." From a painting by Fouquet in 1793.
Mississippi Valley.
the expedition by force, and everybody concerned knew that Washington was a square-jawed man.
After the admission of Kentucky as a member of the Union, (the admission was to date from June I, 1792), the loyalty of the Kentuckians was to be no longer doubted, and the "Territory south of the Ohio" having been already organized, the Spanish Minister to the United States intimated (December 6, 1791) that Spain was ready to settle all disputes.
But, as Winsor says, "it was not long before the inevitable and irrepressible intrigue of the Spanish na- ture began to show itself." Miro was transferred, and Baron Carondelet was brought from Guatamala to New Orleans. Carondelet, to strengthen the Spanish posi- tion, at once started the southern Indians raiding the frontier, as Miro had done, while the negotiations for the settlement of disputed claims were allowed to drag on in the poco tiempo and manana manner in Spanish affairs.
Then the shadow of the French Revolution reached out to the United States. "Citizen" Genet was sent over as Minister. He arrived on April 8, 1793. He brought 300 blank army and navy commissions with him, and sent an agent to Kentucky to enlist enough men there to help the French of New Orleans throw off the Spanish yoke. George Rogers Clark was the chosen head of this proposed expedition, although for years he had been a common drunkard. But how much of substance there was to the intrigue appears from the fact that Clark received only $400 cash for the expenses of the 2,000 men he was to organize and conduct down the river.
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Carondelet, however, heard that a million dollars instead of $400 had been supplied, and in terror he appealed to Governor Simcoe, of Canada, for help in establishing the Spanish power in the Illinois country. Simcoe would have done anything to injure the Ameri- cans, but the request arrived after he had learned that "Mad Anthony" Wayne had trained 1,000 men to load rifles as they ran, and it seemed advisable not to accede to the Spanish appeal.
However, Washington extinguished the plan. Fort Massac was garrisoned by some of Wayne's men, and Clark's $400 was soon dissipated. Genet, because of his insolence, was deprived of his position as Minister, ( he remained as a private citizen in this country, however) and Jefferson, who had been a blatant supporter of the French revolutionists, was eliminated from Washing- ton's cabinet.
The cool and righteous course of Washington, how- ever, roused the animosity of the people west of the mountains, who had seen in Genet's scheme a hope of opening the Mississippi. They were roused still further by the raiding Creeks, whom Carondelet was then sub- sidizing to the extent of $55,000 a year, to keep them on the warpath. The trouble with England having been cleared away by Wayne's victory and Jay's treaty, the time for a settlement of the Mississippi question had come.
The outlook, judged by previous work in that line was not encouraging. "John Jay, who remained long at Madrid during the Revolutionary period, failed even to obtain formal recognition as Minister." The attempt which, as Secretary of State, he afterward made to
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·
1
THOMAS PINCKNEY. He arranged a treaty with Spain in 1794, which secured to the United States the free navigation of the Mississippi River.
Mississippi Valley.
negotiate a treaty in Philadelphia with Gardoqui, the Spanish Minister, also failed. In 1790 Jefferson, then Secretary of State, instructed Mr. Carmichael, the American chargé at Madrid, to intimate to Spain that the question of right to navigate the Mississippi must be settled. But this led to no result. In 1791 Mr. Car- michael and Mr. Short, then chargé at Paris, were ap- pointed commissioners to negotiate a treaty with Spain, in which provisions should be made for adjusting boun- daries, for recognizing a claim to the right of navigat- ing the Mississippi, and for settling the conditions of commercial intercourse. But Spain, shocked at the ex- ecution of Louis XVI., was turning with a friendly spirit toward England. The relations of the American Government with England were strained, and nothing was effected by the commission." But by 1794 Spain and England had drifted apart, and Jaudenes, the Span- ish Minister to the United States, intimated to Ran- dolph, the Secretary of State, that Spain would negoti- ate with a minister of proper dignity and position" (James B. Angell).
Accordingly, in the fall of 1794, Thomas Pinckney, then minister to England, was selected to negotiate a treaty with Spain. But before he could reach Madrid, the Georgia Legislature sold 30,000,000 acres of land lying along the 3Ist parallel to a company of specula- tors, and this act (known as the Yazoo fraud) encour- aged the Spanish to make one more effort to persuade the Kentuckians to abandon the Union.
Commandant Gayoso, of Natchez, went North as far as the Chickasaw Bluffs, and after buying a strip of land of the Chickasaw Indians, built a fort there. It
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was built where Memphis now stands. Gayoso then went on to New Madrid and opened communications with Wilkinson and others who had been in the in- trigue with Miro. But before anything could be ac- complished by Gayoso, Pinckney negotiated a treaty by which Spain agreed to yield all the territory claimed by the United States.
Pinckney had reached Madrid on June 28, 1795, but "such were the obstacles and prevarications usually inherent in Spanish diplomacy," (says Winsor), that Pinckney was kept waiting in idleness for four months. At last, as the end of October drew near, Pinckney de- manded his passports and prepared to leave. Then, according to the custom "usually inherent in Spanish diplomacy," the Spaniards became ready for active work, and a satisfactory treaty was written and signed in three days.
The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate at the end of February, 1796, and was proclaimed on August 2 of the same year.
This treaty gave the United States the bounds ob- tained under the treaty with Great Britain, and pro- vided for a joint commission to meet at Natchez and survey the line. It also recognized the right of the Americans to navigate the Mississippi freely, and it granted them the right to deposit in New Orleans all goods for export free of duty, and free of all other charges, save a reasonable rent for warehouses.
The people of the Great Valley now hoped for a speedy ending of their troubles on the rivers; but even after they had made the treaty the Spanish were yet to shuffle and evade to the utmost limit of human patience.
374
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Andrew Ellicott was appointed American commis- sioner to meet the Spanish commissioner and survey the boundary line from the Mississippi eastward. He left Philadelphia September 16, 1796. He was joined on the Ohio by Lieutenant Piercy S. Pope and a squad of men to serve as a guard in the wilderness. On ap- proaching New Madrid, Ellicott was stopped by the Commandant and a letter was handed him wherein Governor Carondelet of New Orleans ordered him to remain at New Madrid until the Spanish forces had been removed from Natchez, and explained that low water in the river had prevented this removal thereto- fore.
Ellicott, of course, disregarded the order; what he thought of the untruthful explanation may be imagined. At the Chickasaw Bluffs the Spanish commandant fired a cannon across the course of the flotilla, and when it was brought to, and Ellicott told him about the object of the expedition and the treaty, he expressed "wide- eyed wonder," as if he had never heard of such a mat- ter.
Two days above Natchez a messenger met Ellicott with a letter wherein Commandant Gayoso explained that the evacuation had not occurred for want of suita- ble vessels. He requested that the American troops re- main at a point sixty miles up the river lest misunder- standings arise between Americans and Spaniards. To this Ellicott agreed, and himself reached Natchez on Febraury 24, 1797.
To follow in detail the shufflings, the deliberate and oft-repeated falsehoods, and the insolent demands of Gayoso and Carondelet in the days following Ellicott's
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arrival, would be needlessly wearisome and exasper- ating to the reader. Any one wishing the details can find them in vol. iii, Waite's "American State Pa- pers." It is enough to say that Gayoso, with profuse professions of friendship, named a date for commen- cing the survey. At the same time, however, he set his soldiers at work strengthening the fort.
On seeing the men at work on the fort, Ellicott sent for his soldiers. Then the Spanish appealed to the Chickasaws and Choctaws to attack the Americans, but Ellicott secured their neutrality. A story that the British were coming down from Canada to attack New Orleans (Spain was at war with England), was given as a reason for repairing the fort. "The British must be met at Natchez, and repulsed-como siempre!" said the Spaniards.
In May, 1797, the Spanish surveyor arrived, but Gayoso refused to begin the survey ; in fact he went on strengthening the fort. And at that the citizens of Natchez, (nine-tenths of whom were Anglo-Saxons in blood and despised the Spanish), rose up and took possession of the town.
With a committee of Americans in charge of Nat- chez, Ellicott waited the movements of the Spanish. Carondelet was transferred and Gayoso thereafter held such power as remained to the Spanish. He removed his headquarters to New Orleans leaving Don Stephen Minor in command of the fort at Natchez.
The patience of the Administration at Washington during all this time was extraordinary, but it is to be ex- plained in part by the aggressive attitude of France. The French Government was then sweeping our com-
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JAMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE. Founder of the State of Georgia (1733).
Mississippi Valley.
merce from the West Indies, and was bringing on the actual if undeclared war that gave our new navy its first opportunity to show its quality. A war with one nation at a time was all that the Government wished to support.
Nevertheless, on May 20, 1797, General Wilkinson, then chief of the army, acting under instructions from the War Department, ordered Capt. Isaac Guion to go with a sufficient force down the river and take posses- sion of the various posts within United States territory. Guion had fought under Montgomery at Quebec, and under Wayne at the Battle of the Fallen Timbers. He was an all-around fighting man, and his reputation was not unknown in New Orleans.
"Events now moved rapidly, as they usually do, when Spanish obstinacy gives way to fear," (Winsor). Orders were issued for the evacuation of the Chicka- saw Bluffs, and a station at the Walnut Hills, (Vicks- burg), and then, on March 30, 1798, "under cover of the night," Minor and his men sneaked away like crim- inals.
On the morning of March 31, 1798, the American flag floated in the breeze above the fort on the Natchez Bluffs-for the first time.
For fifteen years-from 1783 to 1798-the Ameri- can people had endured the buffetings and the aggres- sions of the Governments of Great Britain, France and Spain,-bullies all three, who were willing to take every advantage of the struggling young Republic as long as they felt themselves powerful enough to do so without danger. Worse yet, the Nation had been obliged to struggle under the selfishness and ignorance of its legis-
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lators, and (in the West), under the schemes of sordi 1 traitors. But the sober, sound sense and unyielding persistence of the home-makers prevailed, and on March 31, 1798, the Gridiron Flag covered the whole Nation.
378
ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
The cession of Louisiana to the United States was greatly aided, if not accomplished through, his efforts.
,
XXIV
THE GARDEN OF AMERICA FOR AMERICANS ONLY.
Organization of the Mississippi Territory-Throngs of Emigrants Flock to the Region-The Significant Story of Philip Nolan-Boone as a Spanish Don- The Growth of Trade at New Orleans-Napoleon Sees the Futility of His Scheme for Recovering the Original French Territory in America-He Deter- mines to Give England a Maritime Rival and Suc- ceeds-The Treaty Ratified-When the Gridiron Flag First Covered the Mighty Valley from Brim to Brim.
Without unnecessary delay, after the flag floated over Natchez, Congress organized (April, 1798), the Mississippi Territory. Winthrop Sargent reached Natchez, charged with the work of organization, on August 6, and Wilkinson, "as general of the American
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Army, and bearing in his bosom the secrets that made his prominence a blot both on himself and his govern- ment," came on August 26 with a military force.
Emigrants followed in numbers. In a letter dated March 2, 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following : "Mr. Randolph, allured by the immensely profitable culture of cotton, had come to a resolution to go to the Mississippi, and there purchase lands and establish all his negroes in that culture."
This statement is of interest because Mr. Randolph was a type of the class of emigrants to the Mississippi Territory. They were people of wealth who bought large tracts of land. The development of the Whitney cotton gin, (1793), had made cotton immensely profit- able, and to that crop these planters devoted themselves.
In the watershed of the Ohio, the men whose only capital was carried in their heads, found their Canaan, and there the growth of population was unprecedented. A thousand flat boats passed down the Ohio in 1796, and it is likely that they carried at least twenty people each, on the average. A regular packet service was es- tablished between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, that year. The boat was fitted with musket proof cabins, and six one-pound swivels were mounted on its bulwarks. It was propelled up stream with oars and sails.
When Spain as well as England had been thrown out of the United States territory, the hurrying crowds bound west increased still more rapidly. In 1790, Ten- nessee had a population, (U. S. Census report), of 35,- 791 ; in 1800 it had 105,602. Kentucky, in 1790, had 73.077; in 1800, it had 220,955. And the stream of immigrants continued increasing in volume as the coun-
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try filled up. This stream was, in fact, a human fresh- et that spread westward till it reached the Mississippi, and there ceased to flow. A paper levee stopped its progress, for a time, but it did not cease to rise against the paper levee. By a treaty the splendid wild land across the river belonged to Spain, but by the inexor- able law of race progress it belonged to them who would use it.
In 1800 the freshet topped the levees. Filibuster- ing expeditions crossed the Mississppi to make settle- ments on Spanish land. They were of the class that afterwards settled in Texas and detached that state from Mexico. One Phillip Nolan and a party that made a settlement on the Brazos river, in the fall of 1800, passed the winter in catching and training wild horses. It was a legitimate business; they were at that time harming no one. But they had not observed any of the formalities that Spanish law and custom required of immigrants, and in March a Spanish force, 300 strong, surrounded their shanties at daylight. Nolan's party numbered less than thirty. The difference in the forces is significant. It shows how the Spanish re- garded "a Respectable Body of Prime Riflemen." Nolan was killed, and the others were captured and held prisoners in the Mexican settlements for some years af- terward.
In the meantime some settlers had passed over to the Spanish side of the great river, as prevously told, with the Spanish consent-Daniel Boone among the rest. The public records show that he moved to "(upper) Louisiana before the year 1798; and, on the 24th day of January, 1798, he received from Zenon Trudeau a con-
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cession for 1,000 arpents of land, situated in the dis- trict of Femme Osage; had the same surveyed on the 9th of January, 1800, and was appointed by Don Charles D. Delassus, (then Lieutenant Governor of Upper Louisiana), Commandant of the Femme Osage District" in Missouri, on June II.
But notwithstanding this kindly reception given to Boone, the Spanish were exceedingly jealous of these new settlers. They told each immigrant that while he might hold what religious views he pleased, his children must become Catholics or get out of the country; and the Bishop at New Orleans complained bitterly of this small measure of religious tolerance.
Naturally but few of the home-makers migrated to the Spanish domain, and naturally, too, the restless and lawless became the more inclined to go there as filibus- ters. In a small way the old buccaneer spirit prevailed.
During all this time the commerce of the Mississippi grew with the population. With the opening of trade, after the treaty of 1795, although through shipments were allowed free of duty, thereafter, the custom house receipts of New Orleans, in the ensuing year, were double what they had been in any preceding year.
How this trade increased may be gathered from the following statement, quoted from Cable's sketch of New Orleans in the U. S. Census report for 1880:
"In 1790 the port of New Orleans was neither open nor closed. Commerce was possible but dangerous, subject to the corrupt caprices of Spanish commandants and customs officers, and full exasperating uncertain- ties.
"In 1802, 158 Americans, 104 Spaniards and 3
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French merchantmen, [ships of the sea], in all 31,24I register tons, sailed from her harbor loaded. * * * 34,000 bales of cotton ; 4,500 hogsheads of sugar; 800 casks-equivalent to 2,000 barrels-of molasses; rice, peltries, indigo, lumber and sundries to the value of $500,000; 50,000 barrels of flour ; 3,000 barrels of beef and pork; 2,000 hogsheads of tobacco, and smaller quantities of corn, butter, hams, meal, lard, staves and cordage passed across the already famous levee."
But while the merchants west of the Alleghanies were growing rich and the home-builders were not only adding to the comforts of their rude houses, but were reaching a point where luxuries were not unknown, a rumor that Spain had sold the Louisiana Territory to France spread, (1801), over the Great Valley. Ru- mors to this effect had been heard as early as 1797- unfounded rumors that soon died out-but this time the rumor persisted. And as it gained credence the people became wild with indignation and anger.
To fully appreciate the excitement thus caused one must recall the course of events in France during the years that had recently passed. For, beginning in 1794, the leaders of the mob that had ruled France, during her great revolution, in order to coerce the Uni- ted States into joining France in her wars with the other nations of Europe, and in order to enrich them- selves, had sent out warships, privateers and armed ships without commissions, to prey on American com- merce. These pirates had swept American shipping almost entirely off the high seas. And the story of the "French Spoliations" was as well known in the Miss- issippi as in the coast cities.
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Further than that was the fact that the French revo- lution had evolved Napoleon, and he had become the ruler of France under the title of First Consul, (No- vember 10, 1799). Fully realizing that to add to the glory of France was to strengthen his own power, Na- poleon had reached out to grasp the colonial possessions that had been lost before his day. Toussainte l'Over- ture had set up a republic in San Domingo, and had maintained it by force of arms. Late in 1801 Napo- leon sent an army to resubjugate San Domingo and re- duce the negroes to slavery once more. Le Clerc, Na- poleon's brother-in-law, commanded the expedition. In San Domingo, Le Clerc treated the American mer- chants much as he treated the fighting natives; he con- fiscated their property and thrust them into prison with- out trial or means of redress. The story of Le Clerc's outrages followed the rumors of the French acquisi- tion of Louisiana to the Mississippi Valley.
The French who had by sheer piracy ruined the American commerce on the high seas, and had robbed and maltreated the Americans in San Domingo, were coming to take possession of Louisiana-of New Or- leans and the mouth of the Mississippi! There was ample cause for excitement west of the Alleghanies.
As to the facts at the bottom of the rumors it ap- pears that it was in 1800 that Napoleon first determined to acquire Louisiana, and that in August of that year he sent his confidential friend Alexandre Berthier as minister to Madrid. Berthier negotiated a treaty, dated October 1, 1800, by which France was to take Louisiana and Florida, and give in exchange "a kingdom of at least a million people made up of French conquests in
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THOMAS JEFFERSON.
Mississippi Valley.
the north of Italy, over which was to be set the Duke of Parma," son-in-law of the Spanish king, (Hosmer).
This treaty was not ratified by the king of Spain, but one negotiated by Lucien Bonaparte and dated March 21, 1801, was ratified. It gave Louisiana to the French in exchange for Tuscany, over which the Duke of Parma was to reign as king. Both treaties were negotiated at San Ildefonso, where the Spanish king lived, and the treaty of cession is known by the name of the royal residence.
At the time the last treaty was made, and while the rumors of it were agitating the people west of the Alleghanies, Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States. Jefferson, if not the originator, was at least the most conspicuous advocate of the porcupine policy of dealing with foreign enemies. In order to command the respect of European nations and to pro- tect American commerce in foreign waters Jefferson built scores of gunboats that were manœuvred with oars, and confessedly fit for use only in our harbors. Moreover, he had idealized if he had not idolized the French. He had spoken of the excitement raised in the United States when "Citizen" Genet was distributing piratical commissions from Charleston to Philadelphia as a revival of the "spirit of 1776."
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