C4 GRAPHS
$R$ 98,
HE
WAN
(5450qj{}
F
396
W58
M.-
***NGE!
24
£ - 2 -
SPAN
AMER
FROM HE
* A$ 14
E na pl
[Ph
11% 20% 1842-18 $8
Giles a▼,
* N
ko/10ćz #yyr, el
šper ripajau 184
CONNUTÍ 198 499
#;}#{6+1}£#;
1917 yengat £18
3.- hali ?¿?
qua tang Đ
作​を​誓い
​166 sije
•Af] < **}
nde
Boats, Maper 1954
Tapet
Cathy (spra
(+20)
‚1 84?• •
RAAMA
"│•
*** --}|
- (*a #
!
ar það gathe pale
↓
HOME
#1:
to
26 19
VAR UP!
OMLEE
TES
***
2.9
jlpa
1:59
Zitt
*Y
ADA
MAY
MALA
G
AN
→3.
21
+
V
tra a
#3
15#*#
to 24
LA SANG
KAJOY
##
1.

*
1.
t
+
į
ww
}
ARTES
LIBRARY
1817
VERITAS
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
FLORIOUS UNUN
TUEROR
SCIENTIA
OF THE
SI-QUÆRIS PENINSULAM-AMŒNAM.
CIRCUMSPICE
INJAJNIKI CI 37:51,67,3).33, 1.3787) USA
STRIA
*!
134801,$1.
{
:
1895
F
396
W 58

A


53°
134-
issippi
Miss
26
R
R
Yazoo
Arkansas
90°
St.Louis
Natchez
90
Ohio
San Fernando
(Chickasaw Blues)
HICKA'S Alw
INDIANS
Confederation
Nogales
(Walnut Hills)
CHOCTAW
New Madrid
INDIANS
Ru
Tombgbee
Mobile
Orleans
Louisville
Nashville
Alabama
Muscle Shoals
Tennessee
R.
Coosa R
86°
umberland
Pensacola
CRE K
R.
R
INDIANS
$6°
Knoxville
o Lexington
INDIAN
Chattahoochee
Appalach
cola R.
CHEROK
R.
Flint
EL French
Spanish posts
Towns on the American frontier
R.
THE OLD SOUTHWEST
GENERAL REFERENCE MAP
Stippled area represents American
frontier settlements about 1790.
Holston R.
B
Savannah
St.Mark's
82°
atauguR.
Jonesborough
Augusta
-24
Savannah
Ma
-38-
R.
St
Augustine
o
'8 R.
-30-
-26°
St
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN
FRONTIER : 1783-1795
The Westward Movement and the Spanish
Retreat in the Mississippi Valley
BY
ARTHUR PRESTON WHITAKER
Sometime Amherst Memorial Fellow
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON
Professor of History at Harvard University
AND WITH MAPS
TOVT
BIEN OV
RIEN
O


BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1927
2. 679
913
COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY ARTHUR PRESTON WHITAKER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
1783-1795
ΤΟ
FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER
HISTORIAN OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
THE writing of history is no longer an individual
achievement, if indeed it ever was. It is the work of
many hands, some living and some dead. Archivists,
collectors, benefactors, other historians, and the persons
whose correspondence chance and foresight have pre-
served, all play their part in determining what monu-
ments of the past the writer shall see and how he shall
regard them.
My own debit column is a long one. The present
work could not have been written at all but for the inde-
fatigable labors of Lyman C. Draper, the establishment
of the Archive of the Indies by Charles III, the publica-
tion of its voluminous records by the state of North
Carolina. The writings of earlier historians, such as
Theodore Roosevelt, Justin Winsor and Archibald
Henderson have been of invaluable assistance. One of
the most noteworthy of recent contributions in this field
is Pinckney's Treaty, by Professor Samuel Flagg Bemis,
a book which it was my privilege to read in manuscript
(not in its final form) towards the end of my fifteen.
months' residence in Spain. Important additions to the
bibliographical resources of Spanish history have been
made within the last few years by B. Sánchez Alonso
Fuentes de la historia española), and R. Ballester y
Castell (Bibliografía de la historia de España). The
bibliographical aids on the American side are so familiar
that it does not seem necessary to name them here.
It was under an appointment as Amherst Memorial
Fellow (Amherst College) that I spent two years in
France, Spain, England and the United States in the
viii
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
preparation of this book, the plan of which was con-
ceived in 1922. It was also the generosity of the Am-
herst Memorial Fellowship Committee that enabled me
to make the present arrangement for publication. My
first studies in the history of the Old Southwest were
carried on under the guidance of Frederick Jackson
Turner, to whom this book is dedicated as a mark of
esteem for a great historian and of gratitude to an un-
failing friend.
C
For reading and criticising my manuscript, I am in-
debted to Dr. James A. Robertson, editor of the His-
panic American Historical Review; Professor Samuel
Eliot Morison of Harvard University; Professor Lau-
rence B. Packard, on behalf of the Amherst Memorial
Fellowship Committee; and Professors Isaac J. Cox and
J. A. James of Northwestern University.
I may add that I am planning a companion volume to
the present one, carrying through to its conclusion the
story of the Spanish retreat from Louisiana and the
Floridas in the face of the advancing American frontier.
The present work, while complete in itself, needs the
sequel.
A. P. W.
June 20, 1927
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION BY SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON
I. RIVAL EMPIRES
II. PROTAGONISTS AND FIELD OF ACTION
III. THE SPANISH BARRIER
IV. THE WESTWARD COURSE
V. GARDOQUI'S MISSION
VI. THE CHEVALIER OF THE ORDER OF ST. LOUIS
VII. INTRIGUE AND IMMIGRATION
VIII. THE UNION PRESERVED
IX. YAZOO
X. NOOTKA
XI. HECTOR, BARON DE CArondelet
XII. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE SPANISH EM-
PIRE
XIII. THE INTRIGUE INFALLIBLE
XIV. SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY
NOTES
INDEX
xiii
1
15
33
47
63
78
90
108
123
140
153
171
185
201
223
247
MAPS
THE OLD SOUTHWEST: GENERAL REFERENCE MAP
SPAIN
SPAIN IN THE OLD SOUTHWEST
Frontispiece
BOUNDARY LINE BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE
SOUTHERN INDIANS, 1783-1795
68
120
INTRODUCTION
THROUGH an amazing web of intrigue and diplomacy
the irrepressible frontiersmen of the old South-West
burst their way to the Mississippi. When Roosevelt
wrote his Winning of the West, little that was certain
could be told of this story. Dr. Whitaker has pursued
every clue to the Spanish archives, where the servants of
a declining empire carefully recorded every letter and
interview and bargain concluded in their colonies on the
Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi. From the material
so gathered, he has reconstructed a fascinating story of
relations between rough-necked backwoodsmen of the
Daniel Boone breed and courtly representatives of the
King of Spain; Scots fur-traders and the half-breed
chiefs of the Creek and Cherokee; picturesque rascals
like O'Fallon and Tom Washington, and venal legisla-
tures. The influence of this frontier underworld on the
formal diplomacy between Spain and the United States
has been clearly brought out; and the significance of it,
as a conflict between two different civilizations, ade-
quately appreciated. Twelve eventful years of this con-
flict are concluded by the Madrid negotiations of 1795
between Thomas Pinckney and Manuel de Godoy, and
the treaty of San Lorenzo, which cleared Spanish ob-
structions from our westward advance.
S. E. MORISON
•
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN
FRONTIER
1783-1795
CHAPTER I
RIVAL EMPIRES
IF ever a peace failed to pacify, it was the peace of
1783. The international settlement at the close of the
American Revolution was incomplete, for no treaty
defined the relations or restrained the rivalry of the
oldest and newest empires in America, Spain and the
United States. The treaties that did form a part of that
settlement were mutually conflicting or silent on mat-
ters of vital import to these two powers. And yet the
most comprehensive and definite treaties could have
done nothing more than postpone the ineluctable con-
flict between the old order and the new. This conflict,
indeed, had been in progress for generations before the
Revolution. It merely entered upon a new phase when
the thirteen colonies of British North America won
their independence.
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RENAISSANCE
OF SPAIN
Since the day when the destruction of the Armada
baffled Spain's attempt to protect its American empire
against English invasion by invading England, Spain
had been compelled to surrender first at one point and
1
2
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
then at another her arrogant claim to universal empire in
the New World. Virginia, Jamaica, Georgia, Campeche,
the Floridas, had one by one fallen into English hands.'
By 1775 England had built up the most numerous, the
richest and most powerful colonies in America. Through
economic penetration, whether contraband trade or
legitimate commerce under the treaty of Utrecht, she
was threatening Spain's hold on her remaining do-
minions on the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico.
At the same time, Spain seemed to be emerging from
her age-long lethargy. Throughout the eighteenth
century the Bourbons had striven to revive the energies
of the nation. By the third quarter of the century
their efforts seemed to be producing results of permanent
value. The reign of the austere Charles III (1759–
88) is the one which in all the history of Spain since
the sixteenth century is least wounding to national
pride. Government finances were reduced to order
and commerce and industry encouraged by tariffs, the
building of roads, and the founding of such corporations
as the Philippine Company and a national bank. Splen-
did individual achievements illuminate these years:
the statesmanship of Floridablanca, Goya's brush, the
economic writings and reforms of Campomanés and
Jovellanos.2 In the colonial field, in which our immedi-
ate interest lies, talent and energy abounded. Even
England's colonial service could boast no abler men than
Charles III's colonial secretary, José de Gálvez, or
José's nephew, Bernardo de Gálvez, conqueror of Brit-
ish West Florida, or the viceroy of New Spain, the
Marqués de Revillagigedo. As for Spain's colonial
policy, the commercial regulations of 1778 liberalized
the old monopolistic system in some important respects,
and seemed to promise an era of progressive reform.
3
RIVAL EMPIRES
3
This national revival was accompanied by a resump-
tion of the territorial advance of Spain in North Amer-
ica. Northwestward the Spanish flag was carried into
Upper California; northeastward, into the Floridas
and up both banks of the Mississippi. The acquisition
of Louisiana (1762), the conquest of West Florida
(1779-81), the recovery of East Florida (1783), the
establishment of forts San Marcos, New Madrid,
Nogales, Confederation and San Fernando de las Bar-
rancas in the Mississippi Valley region (1787-95), were
paralleled by the founding of San Diego, Los Angeles,
Santa Bárbara and San Fernando Rey de España on the
Pacific coast (1760-97).4
Spain's recovery, coinciding with the territorial and
commercial expansion of England, led to numerous
wars and incessant contention between the two powers
throughout the eighteenth century. In the first six
decades of the century the Spanish Bourbons had met
with one reverse after another, although supported by
their royal cousins of France. They were driven from
Guale to the northward of St. Augustine, from St.
Augustine itself and from Pensacola, and by the close
of the Seven Years' War (1763) the Spanish frontier in
North America had been forced back from the Savannah
River to the Mississippi.
The American Revolution seemed to offer the Bour-
bon monarchies of France and Spain a providential
opportunity to shatter England's power, and in 1783 a
superficial observer might have thought that Spain had
taken full advantage of the opportunity and had won
a substantial reward. East and West Florida were in
her possession, giving her control of the Bahama Chan-
nel and the Mississippi River and making the Gulf of
Mexico a Spanish lake. In reality, Spain found her-
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
self in a more dangerous situation than ever, for she
was left face to face with the first independent power of
the New World, a power possessing a numerous and
energetic population animated by the British urge to
expansion 'and liberated from that intimate participa-
tion in the European state system which had so often
checked England's spoliation of Spain. Had the sole
object of the English government been, as many
Spaniards thought it was, to destroy the Spanish empire
at all costs, and had it possessed the Machiavellian
cleverness attributed to it, England would have granted
without delay the American demand for independence.
4
THE REVOLUTION AND THE AMERICAN FRONTIER
The economic system and social ideals that had
carried the English colonists from the Atlantic coast
across the mountains into the Mississippi Valley
emerged with undiminished vigor from the Revolution.
More than this, the eight years' war gave a fresh im-
pulse to the expansionist movement in the Old South-
west, a name we use to designate the region south of
the Ohio, east of the Mississippi and west of the Appala-
chian ranges. In the first place, the restraining hand
of imperial control was removed. Indian relations,
frontier advance, land grants, had all been in the hands
of a British superintendent of Indian affairs or of colo-
nial governors responsible to the crown. The control
of these matters now devolved upon the state govern-
ments, except in so far as the feeble Congress of the
Confederation could extend its vague grant of power
in Indian relations. The result was favorable to the
advance of the frontier, for the chain of restraint was
no stronger than its weakest link, and the state govern-
ments were less able to resist land speculators or to
*
RIVAL EMPIRES
5
intimidate recalcitrant frontiersmen than the British
government had been before the Revolution. This
very weakness of the federal government was, as we
shall see, an advantage to the republic in its conflict
with Spain.
$
5
In the second place, the area of settlement was
extended during the Revolution, whether by the estab-
lishment of new communities (e.g., those on the Cum-
berland River), or by the legalization and growth of
settlements already made in defiance of law at the
outbreak of the Revolution (e.g., Kentucky and
Watauga). This revolutionary advance was made in
such a way that, as a glance at the map will show,
further extension was required by the communication
and transportation necessities of these settlements.
Any further extension must be made at the expense of
the Indians, as was always the case, and the Revolution
left a heritage of real and fancied grievances against the
savages that facilitated their dispossession.
In the third place, the states found that the easiest
way to pay their war debts was to release the frontier.
Money was scarce and land plentiful. During the Revo-
lution land bounties were given to encourage enlistment,
and after the Revolution the paper currency was extin-
guished by conversion into Western lands. Some of
these grants were located in regions already open to
settlement, some of them within the Indian hunting
grounds. The economic readjustment during and after
the Revolution sent merchants as well as farmers west-
ward. The result was an increase in the population
of the frontier settlements and in popular pressure on
the state governments to extinguish Indian rights and
make Indian hunting grounds available for white col-
onization. Other forces that sent men westward were
6
-
6
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
the heavier taxation consequent upon the war, and the
natural and acquired taste for combat.
The result was that the land passed with amazing
rapidity from public into private possession. In the
decade following the close of the Revolution, more land
was entered in the land office of North Carolina than
in the previous hundred years of its existence as a
colony. The process was by no means unconscious.
A frontiersmen's interpretation of the Revolution as a
release of expansive energy is found in a letter written
by a Holston settler in 1785. Recording the defeat of
the Cherokee Indians and the rapid extension of settle-
ment down the Holston, he concluded: "Such are
the fruits, such the foretastes of the glorious American
Revolution." 8 Human material for frontier extension
abounded, and such observers as William Grayson of
Virginia and Hugh Williamson of North Carolina were
struck by the "immense spirit of emigration" to the
West, and by its concomitant, the "epidemic" fever
of making new states. The political designs of the
Southerners, many of whom planned an early extension
of their system to the Mississippi, were indicated during
the progress of the Revolution by Virginia's erection
of Kentucky into a district and by a provision in the
North Carolina constitution of 1776 authorizing the
legislature to permit the organization of a separate
state in its western territory. The spirit of westward-
straining Georgia found expression in 1785 in the charge
of Judge Walton to the grand jury of Wilkes county:
9
CC
.. I look forward to a time, not very far distant,
when... the whole [of Georgia] will be settled and
connected. . . from the shores of the Atlantic to the
banks of the Mississippi." What would become of the
Indians and Spaniards actually occupying the terri-
RIVAL EMPIRES
77
tory in question, Judge Walton did not vouchsafe to
say.10
At the close of the Revolution, the American settle-
ments in the Mississippi Valley were firmly established,
rapid growth seemed assured and statehood was prom-
ised. Continued extension was ingrained in the nature
of the Anglo-American frontier, and the finger of des-
tiny seemed to point down the Mississippi Valley.
Even before further territorial extension was possible,
the use of the river was essential to the prosperity of
the existing settlements. Hardly had the Revolution
begun when Patrick Henry, governor of Virginia and
speculator in Western lands, opened a correspondence
with governor Gálvez of Louisiana in the interests of
American commerce on the Mississippi.¹¹
The policy of the Spanish government was directly
opposed to the ambitions of the Americans. Its ob-
jects in entering the war against England in 1779
were, in Europe, to reconquer Gibraltar and Minorca,
and, in America, to recover Florida and "to expel from
the Gulf of Mexico some neighbors who are causing
us infinite vexation "; 12 in other words, to put an end
to English contraband in the Gulf, contraband that
was made possible by the English settlements in Hon-
duras and Campeche, at Pensacola, and on the Missis-
sippi, and by the right; secured to England in 1763,
to the free navigation of that river throughout its course.
To wipe out illicit trade by closing the river to all but
Spanish shipping was one of Spain's principal war
aims. It was not a purpose that Spain would lightly
surrender, for it grew out of the long, determined fight
that the crown had for decades been waging against
contraband in Spain itself as well as in America. The
prevalence of illicit trade throughout the empire was
Ag
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
galling to Spanish pride, injurious to Spanish business
and a most striking proof of Spain's maladjustment to
eighteenth-century conditions of life. Its monopolis-
tic system was opposed in principle to commerce be-
tween its colonies and foreign nations, and there were
few exceptions to the principle; and yet Spanish ship-
pers, merchants and manufacturers were utterly unable
to satisfy the needs of the Spanish colonists. The
attempt to enforce an unnatural monopoly led to the
corruption of government officials and the disaffection
of colonists, and involved Spain in endless controversy
with other nations. And yet the ancient system could
not be abandoned, for it was believed that it was essen-
tial to the maintenance of a favorable balance of trade,
and it was hallowed by immemorial custom.
With the United States a peculiarly acrimonious
controversy arose out of this question at the end of
the Revolution. In three years of fighting, Spanish
arms under the leadership of Bernardo de Gálvez had
conquered all of British West Florida, Fort Bute and
Natchez on the Mississippi as well as Mobile and Pen-
sacola on the Gulf. Both banks of the Mississippi in
its lower course, and consequently the navigation of the
river, were now in the hands of Spain. Gálvez's con-
quest made possible, and the possibility made certain,
the closing of the Mississippi to all but Spanish shipping.
This measure could not fail to precipitate a conflict
with the United States. Not only did the Americans
consider the free navigation of the river essential to
the prosperity of their Western settlements through
long use they had come to regard it as an inalienable
right. From 1763 to 1779 the river was open to them
as British subjects. From 1779 to the end of the war
Spain continued, as a war measure, to permit the rebel-
8
RIVAL EMPIRES
lious colonists to use it. It was in this period of free
navigation that the settlements of the Old Southwest-
Kentucky, Holston and Cumberland - were estab-
lished. Custom had by 1783 become inalienable right,
and this conviction was reinforced by the application
of a principle of private law to an international problem.
It was argued that the Americans had as much right
to the continued use of the Mississippi as a proprietor
to the thoroughfare on which he has built his house.
9
THE DIPLOMATIC SETTLEMENT, 1783
Spanish ministers sensed the danger of the situation
and shaped their policy accordingly. Count Aranda,
the Spanish ambassador in Paris, and Martin Navarro,
the intendant of Louisiana, warned their government to
be on its guard against the turbulent, ambitious Amer-
icans, and Navarro further pointed out that the free
navigation of the Mississippi would foster the growth
of the American West.13 Floridablanca, Charles III's
secretary of state, turned a deaf ear to Vergennes's
assurances that the bucolic Americans would never be
dangerous neighbors, and used all his diplomatic
resources to close the Mississippi to them and to keep
their settlements as far as possible from its banks.
Hence Jay's negotiations with Floridablanca were
sterile, for his famous offer on behalf of the United
States to submit to the closing of the Mississippi was
hedged about with conditions altogether inacceptable
to Spain.¹4
When Jay's abrupt departure from Madrid in May,
1782, broke off this negotiation, Aranda was instructed
to renew it in Paris. Floridablanca directed him to
establish Spain's exclusive right to the navigation of
the Mississippi, to fix the western boundary of the
10 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
United States as far to the eastward of the Mississippi
as possible, and to leave England in possession of a part
of East Florida - that is, the east coast from Cape
Cañaveral to Georgia as a buffer between Spain's
colonies and the restless Americans. On Rayneval's
advice Aranda tried to create another buffer by neu-
tralizing the Indian country south of the Ohio River.
Supported by Vergennes he was making things very
uncomfortable for Jay and his colleagues when Eng-
land's clever stroke of diplomacy detached the United
States from France and forced the conclusion of a gen-
eral peace on terms most unwelcome to Spain.15
It was the treaties negotiated by England and the
consequent policy of Spain that brought on an imme-
diate controversy between the latter power and the
United States. England's treaty with the United
States granted the Americans the free navigation of
the Mississippi throughout its course, reserved the
same right for British subjects, and fixed the southern
boundary of the republic at the thirty-first parallel.16
In England's treaty with Spain, no mention was made
of the navigation of the Mississippi. East Florida was
ceded to Spain, which, it was provided, should “retain”
West Florida. The treaty made no stipulation with
regard to the boundaries of these provinces, but one
thing was certain: Spain had failed to interpose either
of the buffers and was left face to face with the United
States.
There was an obvious conflict between the provisions
of these treaties. By using the word "retain" in the
Spanish treaty, England apparently recognized Spain's
right to West Florida as a conquered province. Now
West Florida was conquered in its whole extent by
Spain, and its extent, as fixed by a British order in
11
RIVAL EMPIRES
council of 1764, included Natchez and all the territory as
far north as the parallel passing through the junction
of the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers, that is, about 32°
26'.17 Thus both Spain and the United States could
claim under treaties with England signed on the same
day (September 3, 1783) a broad band of territory
extending, between the parallels 31° and 32° 26′, from
the Mississippi to the Chattahoochee and embracing the
important post of Natchez and the heart of the Southern
Indian country. Both in this case and in that of the Mis-
sissippi, Spain asserted that the English cessions to the
United States were void since England ceded what was
not hers to give.
No conclusive evidence has yet been produced to
prove that the object of English diplomacy at this point
was to embroil Spain and the United States, but cir-
cumstances certainly indicate that it was. Such was
the conclusion drawn by the Americans when their
preliminary treaty with England was first published in
Philadelphia,¹ and such was the common assumption
by Americans in later years.
Spain fell readily into the trap, if trap it was. Indeed,
it is not easy to conceive of anything more maladroit
than Floridablanca's policy towards the United States
at this juncture as well as throughout the next three
years. It is true that his foreign envoys did not serve
him well, for, contrary to the common assumption of
American historians, he never knew of the secret clause
in the preliminary treaty between England and the
United States (1782) fixing the boundary of the United
States at the mouth of the Yazoo River in case British
arms should recover West Florida before the final
treaty; 19 nor was he informed of the British order of
1764 moving the northern boundary of West Florida
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
up to the mouth of the Yazoo River. The lack of this
important information weakened Spain's case and may
be pleaded in extenuation of Floridablanca's excessive
caution and subtlety. Even in larger matters of policy,
however, where no lack of accurate information or
sound advice can be urged, he adopted what seems to
have been almost the worst possible course. Disre-
garding the repeated and urgent advice of Aranda
and of France in the years 1777 and 1778 that he sell
Spain's aid to the United States in return for an advan-
tageous treaty with the republic, he let slip the unique
opportunity and followed a course that alienated the
United States, led to war with England and gave
great offence to Spain's one ally, France. 20 A similar
ineptness marks the Spanish diplomacy during the nego-
tiations of 1782 and 1783. At no time did the govern-
ment make a formal protest against England's con-
cessions to the United States, nor was any attempt
made to insert in the treaty with England a definition
of the boundaries of West Florida or any clause relating
to the navigation of the Mississippi.
12
Floridablanca's policy in this crisis is easy to state:
it was one of studied silence; but it is difficult to under-
stand. He explained it by saying that England was
pretending to do something which in its nature could
not be done, granting territory and a right that had
already been lost by the Spanish conquest of West
Florida, and that consequently no action on his part
was necessary to protect the rights of Spain. Further-
more, he said, the points in question concerned Spain
and the United States alone, and should be settled,
not at the general peace conference at Paris, but in a
subsequent treaty negotiated either in the United
States or at Madrid.21 Even if we admit Floridablanca's
RIVAL EMPIRES
13
assumption of the utter incompetence of England to
make the grants in question, we still wonder why he did
not take exception formally and publicly to the Anglo-
American treaty. His omission to do so enabled the
Americans to argue that Spain had given the consent
of silence to their treaty with England. As time went
on, this not altogether convincing argument gathered
strength and was finally one of the chief considerations
advanced by Godoy in 1795 to justify his surrender of
the disputed points.22
STAKES OF THE CONFLICT
The foregoing survey has shown that the Spanish-
American conflict was a direct result of the Revolution-
ary War. That war gave birth to an energetic republic
in North America, and flung the unfortunate Spain
across the path of its progress. The stage was set for
the renewal of the struggle between the English and
Spanish systems. A conflict was certain to come sooner
or later, and it came immediately because the diplo-
matic settlement at the end of the war gave a semblance
of legal validity to important and irreconcilable claims
of the two nations. Which of the two should control
land grants at Natchez, trade and treaties with the
Southern Indians, shipments of tobacco down the
Mississippi? Behind these immediate issues was a
larger stake, the destiny of the Mississippi Valley.
In the conflict for this stake was tested each of the
rival empires' power of incorporation, its power to
produce a living social synthesis out of bewildering
diversity. The conflict was waged in both Europe
and America, by the two powers' diplomats and their
frontiersmen, who sometimes worked in harmony with
each other and sometimes at cross-purposes. The most
!
14 THE SPANISHI-AMERICAN FRONTIER
striking contrasts are presented by the personages who
move across the stage in this drama. A hard-headed
Philadelphia republican is torn from his romance with
a French duchess to follow the dusty peregrinations
of the Spanish court in pursuit of a will-o'-the-wisp
treaty about the Mississippi Valley. A suave Spaniard
is sent from his master's embassy at Lisbon to keep
open house for backwoods emigrants at Natchez, and
to smoke the peace pipe with Choctaw headmen and
warriors. A British fur trader is one of the chief bul-
warks of Spanish power against the Anglo-Saxon tide
sweeping down the Ohio and the Tennessee; and one
of the pilots of these simple Anglo-Saxon frontiersmen
comes of a French family, plays cards, attends balls,
and calls his wife his "lady" and his backwoods clear-
ing a “plantation." And yet despite this confusion of
races and nationalities, despite the surface aimlessness,
despite the venality or shortsightedness of many a
Spaniard and many an American, there were both Amer-
icans and Spaniards who knew that out of this welter
there would emerge the destiny of one of the world's
richest valleys, and more than that, the destiny of a
continent.
Cand
Though all the world knows that in this conflict
Spain had at last to yield, the conflict is not for that
reason devoid of interest. All the world knows of
dipus' tragic end, and yet there are many who will
read and read again his tortured story. Spain's defeat
has in it something of the quality of a Greek tragedy,
for a relentless hand seemed to drive the monarchy
on to work its own destruction. Energy and intelli-
gence were of no avail. Turn and twist as it might,
there was no escape, and its very virtues contributed
to its undoing.
M
CHAPTER II
PROTAGONISTS AND FIELD OF ACTION
WHIALE OR SHARK?
HENRY ADAMS's Gothic trope in which he likens the
Spanish empire at the end of the eighteenth century to
a whale, huge, helpless, and charming to its captors,¹
was never struck off as an image of the Spain of our
period. The figure is misleading if we apply it as
Adams never intended it to be applied -to the Spain
of 1785 or 1790 as seen through Yankee eyes. To the
United States Spain may have taken on the aspect of
that charming monster as the century drew towards its
close, but before the wars of the French Revolution
helpless whale it never was. Down to the battle of
Trafalgar (1805) Spain was one of the chief maritime
powers of Europe, while the United States, though it
possessed a magnificent merchant marine, had no navy
at all until the very end of the century. Americans
were painfully conscious of this fact, for Spain's sea
power would render futile the conquest of New Orleans
by land forces descending the Mississippi, and would
in case of a rupture wipe out the growing trade of
the United States in the Mediterranean. Nothing but
the neutralization of Spain's sea power could give the
United States the upper hand. Consequently the chief
anxiety of Spanish ministers in our period was lest
the United States should secure England's alliance
and England's navy, and the hope of the Americans
lay in the expectation of a European crisis that would
array England, or perhaps France, against Spain. The
situation was complicated by France's alliance with
beth Spain and the United States. In 1783 the reali-
15
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
zation of either the Americans' hope or the Spaniards'
fear seemed remote, and to American eyes the Spanish
whale looked very like a shark.2
A less invidious and perhaps more faithful figure
would be the description of Spain as the sick man of
America, a patient whose condition permitted one to
hope for the worst and yet gave discouragingly per-
sistent indications of recovery. Austrian jealousy of
Russian designs on Turkish Constantinople and the
Straits is matched by the agitation of Washington's
government whenever it was rumored that England or
France might acquire New Orleans. In its dealings
with Spain throughout these dozen years the United
States observed a perfect bedside manner. Its attitude
was one of watchful waiting. So much is said of the
dilatory Spaniard that one is inclined to think that the
fault is Spain's if delay occurs in a negotiation in which
Spain is concerned. Those who read the following
pages will see that the long delay in the settlement of
the controversy was caused by the United States even
more than by Spain. Delay was the essence of the
American policy in this dispute. Afraid to risk an
open break, Jefferson, Jay and Washington believed
that time would give the United States an overwhelm-
ing superiority in numbers in the Mississippi Valley,
and that time would also bring a European diplomatic
crisis favorable to their designs. Far from seeking,
they avoided a settlement of the controversy, hoping
that changed circumstances would force Spain to make
a complete surrender.
3
16
J
This time factor was one of the most important of
the conditions of the conflict. A kind of organic law
seemed to decree the continued growth of the United
States and the continued decline of Spain. Spanish
PROTAGONISTS AND FIELD OF ACTION 17
ministers as well as those of the United States were
aware of the former tendency and made a valiant effort
to turn it to their own advantage. They accepted,
after a brief resistance, the inevitable development of
the next natural field of American expansion, the Mis-
sissippi Valley, entering into competition with the
United States for colonists and opening a political
intrigue with the Western Americans. The success of
either of these two measures would have neutralized or
reversed the operation of the time factor so far as the
frontier phase of the struggle was concerned.
FORMS OF GOVERNMENT
In regard to political organization, neither country
had an appreciable advantage over the other, for it
happened that each government was adapted to the
execution of its designs. The Spanish government re-
garded Louisiana and the Floridas as a barrier for the
protection of its other possessions in America. To
render them responsive to imperial needs, their control
must be highly centralized. This requirement was met
by the existing Spanish system. Every village and town
in Louisiana and West Florida was under the command
of an army officer responsible to the governor of Louisi-
ana, who was fortified with the double authority of the
civil and military command of the provinces. He in
turn was responsible to the governor of Havana, who
was captain-general of Louisiana and the Floridas and
directly under the control of the king's ministers.4
The administration of colonial affairs in Spain was
twice altered during the period under consideration. At
the outset, there was a colonial secretary, José de
Gálvez, ennobled as the Marqués de Sonora, who had
general control of all colonial affairs. On his death in
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
5
6
1787 the business of the colonial office was divided be-
tween two ministers. In 1790, the colonial office was
suppressed and colonial affairs were distributed among
the appropriate ministries. Another important change
was effected by an order which directed that the gover-
nors of Louisiana and West Florida and of East Florida,
who were required in general to communicate with
the court through the captain-general at Havana, should
correspond directly with the secretary of state about
all matters relating to Indian affairs and the American
frontier. In our period this was as far as the court
would go towards increasing the powers of its frontier
governors, though in August, 1795, the king author-
ized the secretary of state to erect Louisiana into a
captaincy-general in order to facilitate resistance to the
sinister designs of the United States. Even the limited
concession of direct correspondence produced impor-
tant results, for it gave unity and coherence to Spain's
policy towards the United States. It was Floridablanca
who guided Gardoqui's negotiation in New York with
Jay, and it was also Floridablanca who shaped Spain's
immigration policy in Louisiana and the Floridas and
who directed the intrigue with the frontier Americans.
Godoy, Floridablanca's successor after Aranda's brief
ministry, continued to coördinate Spain's frontier and
diplomatic policies.
18
8
Moreover, under this system the affairs of Louisiana
and the Floridas received a more expeditious handling
than is generally supposed. Even Spanish historians
have exaggerated the dilatoriness of their government
in the eighteenth century. On the whole, the Spanish
governmental system worked with as much despatch
as could be expected in an age when transportation
facilities and business methods were in such a rudi-
PROTAGONISTS AND FIELD OF ACTION 19
mentary stage of development. It was well adapted
to the requirements of the situation in so far as co-
ordination and action on a large scale could be effec-
tive. In the suppression of disorder, in the management
of the Indian trade, in intrigue, in the extension of the
military frontier, Spain excelled. The very virtues of
her militaristic system, however, became vices in the
competition for colonists. The legendary despotism
of Spain was reproduced in the petty tyranny of its
post commanders, a tyranny brought out in striking
relief by the proximity of the turbulently free American
settlements. If we add the restrictions placed on land
grants and on the commerce of the Floridas and Louisi-
ana, which will be discussed in their place, we can
begin to understand the utter failure of the Spanish
immigration policy. This failure was fatal to the
Spanish cause.
9
The government of the United States was well
adapted to its needs in the conflict with Spain. Its
very weakness was a source of strength. In the first
place, it was the turbulence, the lawlessness, the violence
of the American frontiersmen and land speculators,
and not the feeble threats of the federal government,
that alarmed Spain. Had the dominant majority in
the United States government had its way, there would
have been no demonstrations of frontier turbulence,
no Yazoo companies, no French legion on the Ohio.
In the second place, the majority in Congress would
probably have submitted to the closing of the Missis-
sippi but for the fear that such action would bring about
the secession of the West. In other words, the contest
with Spain would have been ended by surrender in 1786
but for the realization of the majority that the United
States government could not enforce its will upon the
20 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
Mississippi Valley settlements. 10 The United States
escaped a premature surrender and gained an ultimate
victory in this conflict because the people were stronger
than their government.
The relative efficiency of the Spanish and American
systems of colonial government can be determined only
by observing them in operation. We may anticipate
in order to call attention to the interesting contrast
between the simultaneous administrations of Caronde-
let in Louisiana (1792-97) and William Blount in the
Southwest Territory (1790-96). Without the slightest
knowledge of conditions in the province, Carondelet
was sent to Louisiana apparently because of his influen-
tial connections and because his rank and services
entitled him to promotion at the time when the gover-
norship of Louisiana fell vacant. Appointed for five
years, his further promotion depended partly upon his
rendering some signal service to the crown, and one
gets the impression from his whole administration that
the interests of the colony were sacrificed, unconsciously
perhaps, to his desire to distinguish himself. Neither
king nor colony was well served by such a system,
although, as we have seen, it possessed many excellent
qualities. Blount, on the other hand, was no doubt
chosen by Washington because of his long intimacy
with the people and the affairs of the Southwest Terri-
tory. Without hope of promotion in the service of the
federal government, but bound to it by his oath of
office and his salary, he saw the situation in the South-
west from both the national and local points of view,
rendered an important service by interpreting each to
the other, and was a tower of federal strength on the
Spanish frontier.
In point of population as well as of sea power Spain
PROTAGONISTS AND FIELD OF ACTION 21
had an advantage over the United States, for the king-
dom alone, without including its dependencies, had
about ten million inhabitants in 1790 as against some
three millions in the United States. This advantage,
however, was offset by the diffusion of Spain's energy
throughout the four quarters of the globe, in Europe,
Africa, North and South America and the Philippines,
and by its remoteness from the scene of conflict.
THE SPANISH FRONTIER
Of the two competing frontiers, the American was
far stronger than the Spanish. Spain's border settle-
ments extended in a thin, L-shaped line about the
southern and western extremities of the United States.
St. Augustine, Pensacola, Mobile and New Orleans
carried the line westward from the Atlantic to the
Mississippi. North of New Orleans the only Spanish
posts of any consideration in 1783 were Natchez, Arkan-
sas and St. Louis, and Natchez was in the territory
claimed by the United States. Altogether a dozen
ruinous forts and palisaded blockhouses, garrisoned by
an incomplete and ill-equipped regiment of the worst
troops in the Spanish army, were the sole support of
Spanish authority in all Louisiana and West Florida.
In East Florida the only post of any consequence was
the capital itself, St. Augustine.
There was little to be expected from the support of
the handful of colonists in this vast territory. In 1786
the total population of East Florida was less than 1500.
Some of these were negro slaves, and most of the rest
were British, Greek and Maiorcan.11 West Florida's
population was probably somewhat larger. In Louisiana
there were some 20,000 inhabitants, nearly half of whom
were slaves.12 Of the white inhabitants of these two
22 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
provinces the majority were French, although, after the
conquest of West Florida, there were several hundred
Anglo-American Protestants permitted to remain on
sufferance. Besides the colonial officials and the army,
there was hardly a Spaniard to be found in the whole
length and breadth of Louisiana and the Floridas. If
Spain might perhaps count on the French colonists to
defend New Orleans against an attack by the United
States, as they had aided in the conquest of British
West Florida, there was no certainty as to the course
the Anglo-Americans at Natchez might follow in such an
event. On the other hand, when the French Revolution
arrayed Spain against France in 1793 and the Natchez
planters were ready to support the colonial government
against the Jacobins, the French of lower Louisiana
threatened rebellion and became a serious liability.
Economically and financially these provinces were
unprofitable to Spain. Their principal products were
furs and hides, indigo, rice, lumber and tobacco. None
of these commodities had a market in Spain, except for
a time tobacco, nor could Spanish merchants supply the
wants of the colonists with Spanish goods. The wines
of Bordeaux, the guns of St. Etienne, the silks of Lyon
for the masters, British linseys and osnaburgs for the
slaves: such were the goods required by the colonial
market, in which, moreover, American flour undersold
flour from Spanish sources whenever a pretext could be
found for its importation. From Spain hardly anything
was taken but inconsiderable quantities of olive oil and
sausage. The one Spanish merchant who invaded the
field with a full stock lost heavily and never repeated
the venture.13
The expenditures of the Spanish government in
Louisiana exceeded its revenues there. About $500,000
PROTAGONISTS AND FIELD OF ACTION 23
was sent to New Orleans in 1785 for the support of
the colonial government, civil and military, and the
amount had to be increased each succeeding year. Most
of this represented a dead loss to the government, for
the revenue from customs duties, the principal source
of income, amounted to about $50,000 a year. In
other words, Louisiana represented a net loss of about
half a million dollars every year to the home govern-
ment. This amount passed into circulation in the
colony, some of it into the hands of merchants who,
violating the law against the exportation of specie,
used it to settle the unfavorable balance of their legiti-
mate trade with France and of their illicit trade with
England and the United States. And so in effect the
Spanish government found itself paying for the mainte-
nance of law and order in a colony disaffected and
economically unprofitable to the Spanish nation. The
continuance of such a state of affairs was intolerable to
Spanish pride and irreconcilable with its interests, and
yet to cut off foreign commerce entirely would put an
end to the prosperity of the colony and might well cause
a revolution, besides offending France.'
14
We shall see how in the regulation of commerce, as
well as in local government, the Indian trade, and even
religion, the Spanish government made a valiant effort
to adapt its colonial system to the needs of alien colonies.
and the frontier conflict with the United States, but was
fettered by tradition and prejudice. The consequent
half-measures and inconsistency tantalized the colonists
and, together with persistent rumors of the cession of
the Floridas to England and Louisiana to France,
created a feeling of uncertainty, of insecurity, that
discouraged the immigration of capital and labor into
these provinces.
24 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
HEADMEN AND WARRIORS
Between the thin line of Spanish posts and the clus-
ters of American frontier settlements lay four formi-
dable Indian tribes far more numerous than the Spanish
colonists and almost equal in numbers to the American
frontiersmen. In the Creek towns were some 6000 war-
riors; in the Cherokee, 2000; in the Chickasaw, 500;
in the Choctaw, 5000. In all, their braves numbered
about 13,500, and their total population was about
45,000.15 More numerous than Cornwallis's army at
Yorktown and hardened by a life of incessant warfare,
what part would these tribesmen play in the Spanish-
American conflict? The Creek and Cherokee could
hardly be otherwise than hostile to the Americans, for
the occupation of the Southern piedmont and the begin-
ning of the trans-Appalachian movement had for a full
generation before the Revolution kept up constant
strife between them and the "Virginians," as they
called all their backwoods neighbors indiscriminately.
Neither French nor British nor Spanish instigation was
necesssary, in all the years from 1740 to the end of the
century, to set these Indians against the "Virginians.
The disappearance of game, which in reality was largely
due to the demands of the fur traders upon the short-
sighted and compliant Indians, was attributed by the
latter to the advance of the American settlements.
In the face of the flight of this means of livelihood, the
Indians had recourse to three remedies: They might
take to farming, or they might permit the white men
to pauperize them, or they might move westward
across the Mississippi. All three of these things they
had already begun in some measure to do, the last
least of all. By the beginning of our period, they had all
""
PROTAGONISTS AND FIELD OF ACTION 25
passed out of the nomadic stage. Their corn-fields
were extensive, stock-raising was not uncommon, their
villages were seldom moved except in response to ex-
ternal pressure, and they bitterly resented the expropri-
ation of their lands, vaguely though their several
territorial claims were defined.
The fur trade was still an important factor in the
control of these Indians, although fifteen years had
passed since the British superintendent of Indian affairs,
John Stuart, had declared it incapable of further exten-
sion.16 About 1785 it still required $80,000 worth of
goods a year to supply the Indians whose trade was
carried on through Mobile and Pensacola, and $20,000
worth for the trade of St. Augustine,17 not to mention
that which was in the hands of Americans in Georgia
and on the Holston and Cumberland Rivers, and of
interlopers on the Yazoo and Tennessee Rivers, whose
value it is difficult to estimate. The situation in 1783
was favorable to Spain's supremacy in this commerce,
for the Creek and Cherokee had been involved in the
recent war against the United States, the Choctaw were
too remote to be brought easily under American influ-
ence, and the Chickasaw tribe, though friendly to the
United States, was so small that its trade was of no
great value. Moreover, it was already clear before the
Revolution that the control of the fur trade was shifting
from Georgia to Mobile and Pensacola. This tendency
was strengthened by the fact that most of the British
Indian agents and traders were loyalists during the
Revolution and that many of them took refuge in East
and West Florida.18 American traders from Georgia,
the Holston and Cumberland were active among the
Creek, Cherokee and Chickasaw respectively, but
throughout our period Spanish control was substan-
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
tially maintained by trading houses at St. Augustine,
St. Mark's, Pensacola, Mobile, and San Fernando
(Chickasaw Bluffs).
Economically the Southern fur trade was of doubtful
value, for it was highly speculative, and while the
profits were often large the risk was always great. Polit-
ically their trade was of dubious utility, contrary to
the common assumption of their white neighbors, for
the Indians could not be thrown into the fray and with-
drawn at the convenience of their white instigators.
A present was easily forgotten by them, but not the
shedding of blood. In fact, neither the Americans nor
the Spaniards knew enough of their customs or mental
processes to understand them. The Americans solved
the problem by declaring flatly that the Indians were
not human beings, and by acting accordingly. The
misunderstanding was mutual, for the Indians compre-
hended little or nothing of treaties, kings or private
property in land.
26
THE AMERICAN FRONTIER
The frontier communities of the United States pre-
sent a very different picture from the one that we have
sketched of the Floridas and Louisiana. These com-
munities were four in number: Georgia, Holston,
Cumberland and Kentucky. Their population in 1785
may be estimated at not more than 75,000, or about
three times that of the neighboring Spanish provinces.
Of these 75,000 frontiersmen, somewhat less than
30,000 were in Kentucky, somewhat more than that
number in Georgia, about 10,000 on the Holston and
its tributaries, and about 4000 in Cumberland.19 For
military purposes, however, this advantage must be
considerably discounted. The points of strategic im-
PROTAGONISTS AND FIELD OF ACTION 27
portance in the Spanish colonies were Natchez and New
Orleans, and the Georgians were too remote to be very
dangerous, even had the Southern tribes not intervened.
The remaining 45,000 frontiersmen living on the waters
of the Mississippi had almost as formidable obstacles
to overcome before they could hope to conquer lower
Louisiana. The Mississippi afforded them at once a
highway and the motive power to traverse it, and,
up to the beginning of the Wilkinson intrigue with
Spain (1787), their preparations could be completed
without the knowledge of the Spanish government,
whose first information service in Kentucky was estab-
lished in the person of Wilkinson himself. Here the
advantages of the frontiersmen ended. Louisville and
Nashville, the logical points of concentration for expe-
ditions against Louisiana, were a thousand miles distant
from New Orleans. The maintenance of a service of
supply would be extremely difficult. There were no
settlements of any consequence on the Mississippi ex-
cept those of Spanish subjects, and even these were few
above the fortified post of Natchez. To support a large
body of troops by hunting was out of the question.
Only an immediate and overwhelming victory would
solve the problem of supply, and such a victory was
extremely doubtful. There was little or no artillery in
the American settlements with which to silence the
numerous six and twelve pound guns at Natchez and
New Orleans. Behind these garrisons were Cuba and
Mexico, from which Spain would certainly send rein-
forcements. The frontiersmen, on the other hand, could
expect nothing but opposition from their own unwarlike
government. The uncertainty as to the attitude of the
neighboring Indians made the outcome of an invasion
still more dubious; and there was always in the back-
28
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
ground the inescapable fact, which we have already
noted, that Spain's navy, the third largest in Europe,
would still control the Gulf and render useless the con-
quest of the Mississippi.
These were the most formidable of the many obstacles
to an invasion of Louisiana. It is only by keeping
them in mind that we can understand why the fron-
tiersmen never carried out their windy threats against
that province, although they boasted that success was
certain, although they were in need of the free naviga-
tion of the Mississippi and although they boiled with
indignation at its closure by Spain. As the most dis-
cerning Spaniards saw, the only immediate danger to
Louisiana lay in the greed of freebooters who would
be content with plunder and had no larger end in view.20
Without the support of Congress the frontiersmen had
little power to inflict a real injury upon Spain, and
Congress without a navy was hardly more dangerous.
The real danger to Spain lay in an alliance between the
United States and England, or simply between the
American frontiersmen and England.
The economic situation of the backwoodsmen fur-
nished an added reason for the cultivation of friendly
relations with Spain. As settlement progressed and the
fur trade declined, their exports became bulkier and their
imports more numerous and expensive. Cheap trans-
portation became a matter of increasing importance to
them, and the Mississippi seemed to offer the only cheap
means of transportation. Since the merchants of Phila-
delphia could undersell those of New Orleans in Ken-
tucky, and since the bulky exports of Kentucky could
not be returned with profit over the mountains to Phila-
delphia, the frontiersmen's chief hope of prosperity lay
in the development of a triangular trade, his imports
PROTAGONISTS AND FIELD OF ACTION 29
coming from the Atlantic states and his returns being
made by way of New Orleans and the French West
Indies to Philadelphia or Baltimore.
There was another possibility. Even in the Atlantic
States gold and silver coin were scarce. Spanish milled
dollars were highly prized, and the merchants, Robert
Morris among them, were eager to cultivate trade with
Spain as a means of increasing the gold and silver supply
of the United States. In the West, where the scarcity
of gold and silver coin was much greater than on the
Atlantic coast, the desire for Spanish gold was even
keener. The navigation of the Mississippi only so far
south as Natchez or New Orleans would be of great
value to the Kentuckians, despite the danger of the
return trip up the Mississippi, if only they could ex-
change their flour, salt pork and tobacco for pesos. Such
commercial ambitions were capitalized by James
Wilkinson and formed the substantial basis of the
Spanish intrigue.
Georgia stood somewhat apart from the rest of these
frontier communities. Since all its inhabitants lived
on the Savannah and Ogeechee Rivers, it was merely an
extension of the contiguous South Carolina settlements,
and as much an Atlantic state as New York or Massa-
chusetts; and since it already possessed statehood it
lacked one of the chief grievances of the other frontier
communities of that day. As an expanding society,
however, it was keenly interested in the chief concerns
of the American Southwest. Its advancing frontier
brought it into conflict with the Creek Indians, and its
territorial claims, extending westward to the Mississippi
and embracing most of the other tribes of Southern
Indians, made it a paradise of land speculators, a
claimant to the Natchez district and the navigation
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
of the Mississippi River, and a determined foe of Spain,
which added fuel to the flames by harboring fugitive
slaves in the Floridas. Finally, while tobacco planters
were beginning to settle in large numbers in upper
Georgia, Augusta still hoped at the close of the Revolu-
tion to regain its former preeminence in the Southern
fur trade.
30
Kentucky, Cumberland and Holston were purely
frontier communities, and were more completely iso-
lated than any founded since the settlement of James-
town. Indian relations, land speculation and the navi-
gation of the Mississippi and Mobile Rivers were mat-
ters of common interest among them, and all three
aspired to political autonomy. Established without the
aid or in spite of the opposition of the colonial and state
governments, and separated from the Atlantic States
by the Appalachian ranges, they seemed to many
observers destined by nature to secession from the
United States and to union with Spain. This belief
was based on current conceptions regarding natural
frontiers and geographical influence on political insti-
tutions, and on an economic interpretation of politics.
Men of sound judgment in the East, such as George
Washington and Rufus King,21 expressed the fear that
the opening of the Mississippi to the United States
would create an economic bond between its Western
inhabitants and Spain that would in the end disrupt
the Union. A better knowledge of Louisiana would
have shown how little ground there was for this fear,
for, as we have seen, the trade of New Orleans was in
the hands not of Spaniards but of Frenchmen, and was
in constant conflict with Spanish interests and Spanish
law. Furthermore, even if Spanish officials could fit
the American frontier settlements into Spain's colonial
PROTAGONISTS AND FIELD OF ACTION 31
system or its system of alliances, the frontiersmen were
by no means certain to be docile subjects or tractable
allies. Most of them were Protestants, if they professed
any religion at all. Few if any of them spoke Spanish.
Even James Wilkinson, with all his long and intimate
intercourse with Spanish officials, seems never to have
learned the language. There was no spiritual affinity
between the American frontiersman and the Spaniard.
Still, while the incorporation of these communities into
the Spanish empire might be extremely difficult, it was
not at all impossible that Spanish intrigue might secure
their erection into an independent power which could
be played off against the republic on the Atlantic coast.
In reality the American frontier was more securely
bound to the United States than were Louisiana and
Florida to Spain. At first glance this does not seem to
be the case, for, while every village in the Spanish
colonies had its Spanish garrison and its Spanish flag,
there was nowhere in Kentucky, Holston or Cumber-
land in 1784 any material evidence of the authority of
the United States government. Yet, while evidences
of royal authority in its frontier provinces were abun-
dant, Spain's grip on them was not strong, since it de-
pended upon inadequate military force in the midst
of an alien population. In the American frontier settle-
ments the population was certainly heterogeneous
enough, but it was drawn largely from the Southern
and Middle States, and the overwhelming majority
spoke the same language, which was the language of
their government.
The Spanish colonial system was cast in an imperial
mould, and, despite the efforts of the ministry, could
not be adapted to the requirements of these provinces
on the Gulf and the Mississippi. The American system
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
of local government, of land-ownership, of commerce
had been evolved from an English basis by the older
colonies when they were frontier communities, and was
admirably adapted to the needs of the new frontier
communities across the mountains. It is remarkable
how little the law and constitutions of Kentucky and
Tennessee differ from those of Virginia and North
Carolina, how few changes the frontiersmen had to
make. It is still more remarkable how little they de-
sired to change. The explanation is no doubt that they
were not given to speculation, that they came westward
not because of discontent with the older societies but
because of discontent with their own place therein.
Their purpose was not creative but reproductive. They
were indeed state-builders, but they found their plans
and specifications ready made.
32
The most lasting impression that one gets from con-
templating their words and deeds is that of an intense
materialism shot through with mystic exaltation.
Grimly they drove the Indians out before them, and
exploited natural resources, slaves and public office,
trampling down with pitiless determination every
obstacle to prosperity. In these same men we perceive
an equally intense devotion to the republican faith, a
mystic sense of union with the deity of republicanism,
and a conviction that their god would let none but the
faithful prosper. They had their rainbow, and at its
end was a pot of gold. This strange dual ideal, com-
municated by a common language and strengthened by
common institutions, maintained the unity of the new
republic despite all the dissolvent forces of the times,
and gave the United States what Spain lacked, a living
idea.
CHAPTER III
THE SPANISH BARRIER
BUFFERS AND BULWARKS
THE war of the American Revolution was hardly
ended when the Spanish government began to execute
a series of measures which would have proved to demon-
stration, had there ever been any doubt on the point,
that sympathy for the American republic had had
nothing whatever to do with Spain's entering the war
against England. For all its lack of sympathy, how-
ever, Spain's intervention had contributed in a modest
way to establish the independence of the rebellious
colonists of England, to create a Frankenstein against
which Spain must now defend herself. Spain's par-
ticipation in the war had not affected the general
military decision, but it had led England to grant the
United States the boundary and navigation right now
in dispute between His Catholic Majesty and the
republic. Spain's own actions, therefore, had brought
the Americans knocking at the back door of her empire.
That the thirteen jarring states, debt-ridden and
exhausted by the war, should have been a source of
uneasiness to the Spanish government may seem to
indicate an extreme degree of timorousness on the part
of the latter. We must remember, however, that the
Spaniards of that day hardly distinguished between
the English and the Americans, calling the latter
Anglo-Americans, and that two centuries of bitter
experience had convinced the Spanish government of
the Briton's restless ambition. Floridablanca had two
good reasons for believing that a mere change of
government had not diminished the ambition of the
33
<<
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
Anglo-Americans: first, the terms of the treaty be-
tween the United States and England; and second,
the rapid advance of the "Anglo-American" frontier
during the Revolution. The boundaries claimed by
the new republic seemed paradoxically to the Spaniards
a proof of its limitless ambition. That this ambition
was in train of execution seemed patent to any Spaniard
who so much as glanced at the new settlements of
Kentucky, Cumberland, the Holston and Georgia.
Alexander McGillivray found in the American advance
at the Indians' expense a powerful means of frightening
the Spanish government for his own purposes.¹ His
dire forebodings had been anticipated by Spanish
officials in America, for Martin Navarro, the intend-
ant of Louisiana, and Francisco Rendón, Spanish
agent in Philadelphia, had warned the ministry re-
peatedly from 1780 to 1783 that the rapid growth of
the American frontier settlements was a menace to
Spain's empire in North America, and their warnings
had received the personal attention of the King's
chief minister, Count Floridablanca.2
34
After the peace of 1783, that minister took up again
the task of circumscribing his ambitious and turbulent
neighbors. He adopted five measures in order to secure
his purpose. With the first of these, his attempt to sell
St. Augustine back to the British in return for Gibraltar
or some other concession, we are not concerned, as it
belongs to the diplomatic story. We merely record
the fact. Two of his measures will be discussed in con-
nection with Gardoqui's mission to the United States,
namely, the closing of the Mississippi to the com-
merce of the United States, and the assertion of a claim
to the east bank of the Mississippi as far to the east-
ward and northward as the Flint, Hiwassee and
35
THE SPANISH BARRIER
Tennessee Rivers. His fourth and fifth measures
require our attention at this point. One was the
encouragement of commerce and immigration in
Louisiana and West Florida; the other, the conclusion
of treaties of alliance with the Southern Indians. The
reader will observe that he resumed his effort of 1782
to insert an insulation of alien territory between
Spain's possessions and those of the United States.
This insulation, as he planned it, would run in an un-
broken line northwestwardly from the Atlantic to the
Mississippi, and would consist of upper East Florida in
British possession, and of the contiguous territory of
the Creek, Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians. Up to
1792, the Spanish government made no effort to in-
clude the fourth Southern tribe, the Cherokee, within
its political system. Furthermore, Floridablanca's pol-
icy was designed to weaken the American West and
strengthen Louisiana and West Florida, thus fortifying
Spain's hold on the Mississippi Valley and erecting
a bulwark for the protection of Mexico.
THE CÉDULA OF 1782
Spanish merchants and manufacturers were, as we
have already seen, unable to supply the colonies with
the commodities that they required, and Spain was
unable to consume their products. Since most of the
people of Louisiana were French and since the Bourbon
king of Spain was bound by intimate ties to his royal
cousin of France, it was provided in 1768 and again,
on more liberal terms, in 1778 that under certain con-
ditions trade might be carried on between Louisiana
and France. Since experience soon proved these con-
cessions inadequate, and since the colonial minister,
José de Gálvez, was a particularly warm partisan of
3
4
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
France, a cédula, or order in council, was issued in 1782
amplifying the privileges of trade with France and per-
mitting trade between New Orleans and Pensacola and
the French West Indies in urgent cases. The cédula
was to remain in effect for ten years. It was felt that
if Louisiana was to be a dependable barrier against
the United States, its population must be increased,
for its vast extent made its defence by Spanish troops
almost impossible. Besides these commercial conces-
sions, direct encouragement was given to Catholic
immigrants to settle in Louisiana and West Florida,
the slave trade was legalized, and the government even
permitted the British Protestants of West Florida to
remain there as Spanish subjects.5
36
BRITISH LOYALISTS AND THE INDIAN TRADE
The 45,000 Indians on the frontier of the Floridas
and the still more numerous American backwoodsmen
beyond them to the north and east constituted both
the problem and the opportunity of Spain. Upon her
relations with these two groups depended in a large
measure the success of her diplomacy, of her effort to
keep the United States at a safe distance from the Mis-
sissippi, the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico itself. Indian
relations and the frontier intrigue, and commerce,
which was inseparably linked with them, therefore play
a leading part in the history of Louisiana and the
Floridas in the period from 1783 to 1795.
The Indians were nearer neighbors than the American
frontiersmen, and so they required Spain's first at-
tention in order to forestall the United States. The
government adopted provisionally a method of secur-
ing European goods for the Indians which was in
accordance with its general commercial policy in these
THE SPANISH BARRIER
37
border provinces, but even more liberal, for the goods
were secured not from Spain's ally, France, as the
Gálvez family and their Creole connections, the Max-
ents, wished, but from England. The system of
managing Indian affairs that the government adopted
was based partly on its own experience in Louisiana
and partly on the British system as it already existed
in the Floridas. 6
During the Revolution, Indian supplies by way of
Charleston and Savannah had been cut off and the
trade thrown into the hands of loyal Britons in St.
Augustine, Mobile and Pensacola." At the end of the
war it was a question which of their former enemies,
Spain or the United States, the British leaders of the
Indians would favor with their trade. Their decision
was in accordance with the tendency, which we have
already noted, for the trade to move southwestward
from Augusta to Pensacola. Most of the traders and
agents among the Southern Indians had remained loyal
to the British government during the Revolution and
had seen their property confiscated and their lives
threatened by the Americans. The war with Spain,
on the other hand, had been their government's rather
than their own, and had left no such bitter feuds
behind it as the barbarous fighting on the frontier of
the United States.
That Spain succeeded in getting control of the
Southern Indian trade was largely due to the activities
of two of these Loyalists. The first was Alexander
McGillivray, a quadroon Creek, the son of the powerful
Georgia trader and politician, Lachlan McGillivray,
and a half-breed Indian woman. The elder McGil-
livray's name headed the list of Loyalists who were
exiled and whose property was confiscated by the state
¿
38
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
8
of Georgia. Alexander, who had been employed as a
British Indian agent, apparently fell heir to this claim
on his father's retirement to Scotland, and freely ad-
mitted to the Spaniards that the loss of this property,
valued at more than £25,000, was one of the principal
reasons for his hostility to the Georgians."
The younger McGillivray's life was as varied and
his character as many-sided as his Scottish-Creek-
French ancestry was heterogeneous. Far better edu-
cated than such American frontiersmen as John Sevier
and James Robertson, he lived not the life of an Indian
chief or even a white trader, but that of a prosperous
Southern planter, with numerous slaves, horses and
cattle, and broad acres of farm land on the Coosa
River, near the present Montgomery, Alabama. He
seldom if ever took part in the fighting that he instigated.
He was a Mason, his garb was a white man's and his
abode a house, and he possessed and used a well-
stocked sideboard and spread a lavish table. But the
lady who presided at his table was an Indian squaw,
and there were other squaws. He was a heavy drinker
-a fault common among eighteenth-century gentle-
men—was subject to fearful, blinding headaches, and
was sometimes seized by gusts of primitive passion,
as on one occasion when he could scarcely restrain him-
self from scalping the backwoodsmen of Georgia in
order to avenge a slighting remark made by an Indian
commissioner from Connecticut. His hold over the
Indians gave him great weight in Spanish counsels and
enabled him to render Panton invaluable service in
securing concessions from Spain; yet he seems to have
been in a kind of tutelage to Panton and at his death
was heavily in debt to the Scotchman.10
The other Loyalist was this William Panton, whose
THE SPANISH BARRIER
39
name as well as that of the elder McGillivray was
on the list of confiscation and banishment of the
state of Georgia. Going to St. Augustine just after the
outbreak of the Revolution, Panton and his fellow-
countryman Robert Leslie formed a trading company.
They prospered, and by the end of the Revolution
Panton, Leslie and Company was the largest mercan-
tile house in East Florida. At the beginning of 1783 the
first step in the firm's great expansion was taken when
Charles McLatchy, one of the partners, established
a store at St. Mark's, then still within the province of
British East Florida.11
The firm's first success in securing a privileged
position under the Spanish government was won at
St. Augustine. When the Spaniards took possession
of the province in 1784, the new governor, Zéspedes,
found himself with a paucity of funds and a super-
abundance of Indian beggars on hand. Accustomed
by British liberality to expect a present whenever they
visited the governor, these Indians would have re-
turned home with bitter hearts had Zéspedes sent them
away empty-handed, and the consequences to Spain
might have been serious. With no alternative, the
governor sought the aid of Panton, Leslie and Com-
pany, got a large supply of goods from them on credit,
and was forever after their close friend and ardent
advocate. It was he who forwarded their first memorial
with vigorous support to the Spanish government.
Deploring the necessity of permitting English traders
and English goods to dominate Spain's trade with the
Indians, Zéspedes assured the court that the services
of Panton's company were indispensable in order to
hold the Indian trade against competition from the
United States until Spanish merchants and traders
M
40 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
were able to take it over. He supported in detail the
various requests made in the memorial. The most
important of these were that the company be permitted
to remain in East Florida on taking an oath of obedi-
ence, not of allegiance, that it be permitted to import
a certain amount of Indian goods directly from Eng-
land to East Florida each year, and that it be permitted
to export directly to England the commodities taken
in payment from the Indians, chiefly furs, paying a six
per cent duty on imports and on exports.12
The court returned a favorable reply. By a royal
order dated May 8, 1786, the requests contained in the
memorial were granted provisionally, but without the
specification of a time limit.13 Thus the British firm
began its career as an instrument of the Spanish
government to combat the influence of the United
States among the Southern Indians.
In East Florida, the company's success in securing
the government's support was due to its own re-
sources, its control of the machinery of Indian trade,
and its conquest of Governor Zéspedes' good will. In
West Florida, the situation was quite different. Pan-
ton, Leslie and Company were newcomers in this
province, where Gálvez and Miró, the permanent
governor and ad interim governor respectively, had
protégés of their own for whom they wished to secure
the plum of Indian trade. The concession was much
more valuable here than in East Florida, for Mobile
and Pensacola were trade centers for most of the Creek
as well as the Chickasaw and Choctaw towns, and it
became still more desirable when in 1784 St. Mark's
was separated from East and added to West Florida.
Bernardo de Gálvez, captain-general of Louisiana
and West Florida, had spent seven troubled years in
THE SPANISH BARRIER
7
41
his two provinces, and was convinced of the importance
to Spain of maintaining friendly relations with the
neighboring Indians and of controlling their supply
of blankets, munitions and mirrors. Bernardo was also
aware of his family obligations. In 1781 his father-in-
law, Gilberto Antonio de Maxent, was sent to Spain,
where, through the influence of José de Gálvez, he
concluded a contract with the king for supplying the
Indians of West Florida with French goods. Disaster
soon overtook him. On his return to America he was
captured by the British and lost a shipload of his
goods; and hardly had the British released him when
Spanish officials brought against him a charge of
smuggling, in which Francisco de Miranda, later the
revolutionizer of Venezuela, was also implicated. Other
provision must be made for supplying the Indian trade
of West Florida.14
PROTECTORATES AND SPHERES OF INFLUENCE
Already before Maxent's failure the Creek, Choctaw
and Chickasaw Indians had been summoned to con-
gresses with representatives of the king of Spain for the
purpose of establishing peace and friendship, of regulat-
ing trade and fixing prices, and of excluding American
traders from the Indian country. The first of the two
congresses 15 was held with the Creek at Pensacola
(May 31-June 1, 1784). Governors Miró and O'Neill,
the latter in command at Pensacola, and Intendant
Navarro urged McGillivray to agree that the New
Orleans firm of Mather and Strother should supply all
the Indians of West Florida. Though the half-breed
held out resolutely for his partner, Panton could secure
nothing more than the bare permission to remain at
St. Mark's, Mather and Strother being commissioned
42 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
to supply Mobile and Pensacola with a shipload of
goods each for the next year's trade. It soon proved,
however, that the New Orleans firm's credit was un-
equal to the strain, and in 1785 Panton took over the
trade at Pensacola.16 The permission was for one year
only, but it was renewed again and again for many
years, and the firm remained at Pensacola, with an
occasional change of name, until the Florida purchase
in 1819. Its conquest of the Southern fur trade after
1785 was rapid. In 1788, Mather and Strother gave up
their concession at Mobile, and again Panton, Leslie
and Company succeeded them, thus securing the bulk
of the Choctaw and a part of the Chickasaw trade.17
After the Creek Congress of 1784, Miró and Navarro
went to Mobile, where in July they concluded treaties
with the Chickasaw and Choctaw. We need not linger
over the terms of these various treaties, by which
Spain brought all the Southern Indians except the
Cherokee under her protection. It is enough to note
that the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Creek all agreed to
acknowledge the protectorate of Spain, and to exclude
all traders who could not show a Spanish license. This
is the only clause in either of the two treaties at which
the United States could justly take offence, for most
of their towns lay within the territory in dispute be-
tween the two powers. This latter fact, indeed, was
one of the chief reasons why Spain cultivated their
friendship.
}
The striking thing about these congresses is their
defensive, pacific character; a thing that is particularly
striking in comparison with the mad policy of aggres-
sion adopted a few years later by Miró's successor
in Louisiana. Far from encouraging Indian hostility
towards the United States, Miró even refused McGil-
THE SPANISH BARRIER
43
livray's request at Pensacola for arms with which to
resist American encroachments, and would do no more
than forward McGillivray's request to the court.18
Not military but economic aggression was the keynote
of the policy of Miró and Navarro, and their course
met with the court's approval. While the ministry,
with every appearance of sincerity, instructed the
governors of these border provinces to restrain the
Indians from attacking the American frontier, it made
every effort to monopolize the trade of the Southern
Indians. One of its principal objects was to destroy the
influence of the United States with these tribes lest the
Americans incite them to harass the Spanish settle-
ments or persuade them in any way to coöperate in
the conquest of Louisiana and the Floridas; ¹ in other
words, Spain's purpose was to accomplish through
trade what her diplomacy had failed to do: to erect
the Southern Indian tribes into a barrier between
the United States and the Spanish empire in North
America.
10
By the conclusion of these arrangements for supply-
ing, regulating and monopolizing the Indian trade,
the Spanish government succeeded in its purpose of
anticipating the Americans; but the means that it
had to employ in order to insure success revealed an
organic weakness in the Spanish empire, a weakness of
which we have already had occasion to speak. Spain
was unable to carry on the commerce of her own
colonies. In order to prevent Americans from trading
with her Indian neighbors, she had to permit English-
men to trade with them through her own ports. There
was hardly a Spaniard to be found who had any ac-
quaintance with the country or the language of the
Indians. There was nowhere to be found a Spanish
44 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
merchant who knew what goods the Indians required
and how to get them. The Indians had long been
accustomed to British goods, and it was out of the
question to try to satisfy them with Spanish or even
French goods. Hence if a Spanish merchant would
trade with these Indians, he must send to England for
his wares, bring them to Spain and reship them to
Pensacola. Without the necessary knowledge as to the
choice of a cargo, the Spanish merchant labored under
the additional disadvantage of having to pay higher
freight rates, port charges and duties. He must then
have reliable traders and a large capital, for a year's
credit must be extended to the traders. The latter were
accustomed to get their goods on credit and to pay for
them at the end of the next hunting season.20
If we suppose the hunting season over and the
Spanish merchant's debts happily collected in the
shape of the skins of deer, bear and beaver, he must
turn these into cash and buy a new supply of goods for
the fall hunting season. Here a new problem con-
fronted him. He had no market for his skins in Spain.
He might ship them to France, or, provided his ship
flew the British flag, to London. Since he would find
a better market and his next season's goods there, Eng-
land would no doubt be his choice. Here arose his next
difficulty. If the Spanish colonial laws were enforced
and he had to call at a Spanish port on his way to
England, he would probably lose his cargo of skins
through warm weather and worms. If an exception
were made and his call at a Spanish port dispensed with,
the colonial system would be in so far suspended.
British goods would supply the Indians, Indian furs
would go in payment to England and would be carried
in British ships. A Spanish merchant conducting such
45
THE SPANISH BARRIER
a trade would be Spanish in name only. The commerce
itself would be British.
Several courses were open to the Spanish government.
It might drive British trade out by simply expelling the
English merchants and prohibiting further imports.
The Indians would then go unsupplied, or would pay
a higher price for inferior Spanish goods. Such a course,
however, would throw the whole Indian trade into
the hands of the Americans, the very calamity that the
Spanish government was striving to avert. Again, the
government might resort to subventions, but such a
policy would be very expensive. Another alternative
was to leave the trade in the hands of the English for
the time being, with careful governmental supervision,
and to prepare a gradual substitution of Spanish mer-
chants, traders and goods for those of England. This
was the course that the government adopted. It did so
reluctantly, and only after its attempt through the
agency of Maxent to supply these Indians with goods.
from France, its ally, had ended in dismal failure.
Even then, the court stipulated at first that Panton,
Leslie and Company should use none but French or
Spanish goods in their trade with the Indians.21 Finally
in 1786 it yielded to the repeated assurances of Miró
and Zéspedes, reinforced by those of the converted
Bernardo de Gálvez, that for the present at any rate
none but British goods and British traders could pre-
vent the Americans from gaining control of the Indian
tribes lying on the border between Spain and the
United States.
An organic weakness thus left the Spanish govern-
ment no alternative but to turn over to two English
firms the whole of the Indian trade of the two Floridas.
The vital significance of this fact cannot be understood
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
unless we remember that during the whole of the period
with which we are dealing the Southern Indian tribes
were relied on by Spain as one of her chief defenses
against the aggression of the United States and that
the conduct of these Indians exercised a powerful
influence in determining the attitude of the American
frontiersmen towards Spain. That Spain would be
badly served by her British protégés was foreseen
by more than one intelligent observer. That she was
badly served will appear in the following chapters.
46
CHAPTER IV
THE WESTWARD COURSE
CAPITALISM ON THE FRONTIER
THE conflict between Spain and the United States in
its frontier phase seemed at times to reduce itself to a
conflict between fur trader and land speculator. The
fur trader of the Floridas was no quicker to prepare
for the coming struggle than the land jobber of the
young republic was to precipitate it. It is not to be
understood that in this struggle the government of the
United States identified itself with the one or that of
Spain with the other. On the contrary, both govern-
ments strove to maintain their independence of action,
and even on occasion opposed their self-appointed
agents; but the latter represented the stage of economic
development reached by their respective communities,
and their services were indispensable. The governors
of Louisiana might write eloquently to their home
government about the danger of permitting Englishmen
to supply the Indians, and yet in a crisis they always
protested that for a few years at any rate nothing must
be done to offend Panton. Again, President Washington
might hurl his proclamations against speculator O'Fal-
lon and his Yazoo associates, but at the very same time
he was appointing speculator Blount governor of the
Southwest Territory.
The importance of the land speculator in the history
of westward extension in the United States, and specifi-
cally in the conflict with which we are now concerned,
can hardly be exaggerated.¹ That he created the west-
ward movement no one would pretend, nor does the
recognition of his importance involve depreciation of
47
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
the hunter, trader and Indian fighter. They are both
manifestations of the same vital principle of national
growth, useless each without the other. There was
ample room for both Henderson and Boone, for both
Blount and Robertson, in the Mississippi Valley, and
neither can be understood without the other. Indeed
the folly of opposing the complementary types becomes
apparent at once when we observe as we might ex-
pect in a region where specialization existed in only
a rudimentary form — that the two types are fused in
a single person, as in the case of John Sevier. "Nola-
chucky Jack" was both a constant harrier of the Indians
and an inveterate speculator in frontier lands.
The hunter and fighter, the pioneer of white civili-
zation, was by very definition a transient. He must
either march on in pursuit of retreating game, whether
it were four-footed or two-footed, or he must change
his whole scheme of life and cease to be a pioneer. That
the speculator appeared early on the scene is not to be
wondered at. A capitalistic society was occupying new
lands, and the land speculator merely applied to west-
ward extension the methods of capitalistic organization.
The purchase of presents for the Indians, of tools, arms
and flatboats for the settlers, the payment of surveyors,
the securing of grants from state legislatures — such
essential steps in the establishment of a new colony
required concerted action and extensive financial re-
sources, and were therefore beyond the power of any
individual frontiersman, no matter how brave in con-
flict or cunning in woodlore he might be. The land
speculators, who possessed these resources, were some-
thing more than mere real estate agents; or at any rate
they were real estate agents cast in a heroic mould. Now
they intoxicated a whole Indian tribe, now corrupted a
48
49
THE WESTWARD COURSE
state legislature, now erected a new state when they
found none ready to serve their purpose. Although
not one of their major projects was successful in the
period under consideration, these speculators played
a most important part in it, and did something that was
much more important than the mere establishment of
another colony or two in the already populous Missis-
sippi Valley. They advertised the West and pointed the
way not only for later American settlement, but also
for the immediate establishment of posts by the jealous
Spaniard. They stirred up Western indignation against
Spain and Western discontent with the Union, and one
of their number, Patrick Henry, very nearly prevented
the adoption of the present federal constitution be-
cause of his dissatisfaction with the Northern States'
attitude towards the development of the Southwest.
Finally, it was these speculators who forced the issue
of the controversy between their government and
Spain, for the success of their speculative schemes
depended upon the free use of the Mississippi.
It has already been observed how the American
Revolution not only freed the expansive forces in the
South from imperial restraint, but also gave the fron-
tier a further impulse towards the Mississippi. This was
due in part to the political decentralization which
accompanied the Revolution, facilitated the operations
of land speculators, and was in turn strengthened by
the tendencies of land speculation; but at the same
time that the Revolution destroyed imperial restraint,
it raised up a new obstacle to expansion in the Old
Southwest. Spain's recovery of British West Florida
created a competing frontier on the east bank of the
Mississippi in the very region most coveted by land
speculators of that day. Actually in possession of
50 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
Natchez, Spain extended her claim northward to the
Tennessee River 2 so that it embraced not only most of
the Southern Indian villages, but also every one of the
sites most desired by speculators of the United States.
These were Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee, and Chick-
asaw Bluffs and Walnut Hills on the Mississippi. Al-
though the extent of the Spanish claim as formulated
by Floridablanca was known only in confidential
Spanish circles, the land speculators of the Southern
States fell to work in 1784 as if they had divined it and
were determined to teach the crown of Spain a thing
or two in the fixing of boundaries. There is, indeed,
reason to believe that the legislature of Georgia sanc-
tioned one of these enterprises, the Muscle Shoals
project (1784), because of a report that the Spaniards
were occupying that region.³
FRONTIER EXTENSION AND STATE-MAKING
The expansive energy of the Southwestern frontier
expressed itself in two forms at the close of the Revolu-
tion: first, in the extension of existing settlements;
second, in the projection of new colonies across the
wilderness. The area of continuous settlement was
extended further into the Creek country by the Geor-
gians through "treaties" (1783, 1785 and 1786) with
a handful of those Indians, and into the Cherokee coun-
try by similar cessions of land further down the Holston
extorted by the new state of Franklin from its helpless
neighbors. In the interval between the collapse of
British power in West Florida and the arrival of the
first large supply of Spanish munitions in 1785, these
two tribes could offer little resistance to the land-hungry
frontiersmen. The Georgia frontier was pushed for-
ward to the Oconee, and the Holston settlements soon
4
THE WESTWARD COURSE
51
advanced down the river of that name to the site of the
present Knoxville. Several new "stations" were estab-
lished on Cumberland River in the first two years of
peace; and it was reported by Campo, the Spanish
chargé in London, that 8000 immigrants settled in
Kentucky alone in 1783.5 The state governments
encouraged these new settlements by the creation of
counties and the erection of county governments, the
incorpoation of towns, the appointment of militia offi-
cers, and the extension of the state judicial system.
In one case, that of North Carolina, the state actually
raised a standing "army" of one hundred and fifty
men to protect the frontiersmen against the Indians.
Even these concessions, however, failed to satisfy
the frontiersmen's ambitions. Already the creation of
new states in the Southwest was under discussion. A
separatist movement had been on foot in Kentucky since
1782, if not earlier, and it met with some encourage-
ment in Virginia. In 1784 there was a movement in
Southwestern Virginia to form that valley into a sepa-
rate state. In December of the same year the state of
Franklin' was erected by the Holston settlers in the
region ceded by North Carolina to Congress in June,
although the cession act was repealed by the state
legislature in November. Particularism and expansion-
ism, religiosity and hatred of the Indians, imitativeness
and individualism, all played their part in the complex
movement that produced this frontier state; but the
dominant interest was in land. A cession of lands south
of the French Broad was extorted from the Cherokee
by the Franklinites, who also expected to dispose of the
vacant lands ceded by North Carolina to Congress and
planned to establish a greater state of Franklin by occu-
pying the Muscle Shoals region.
=
-
52
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
8
""
The first and only governor of Franklin, John Sevier,
was one of the most interesting men in the Southwest
of his day, for he possessed in a high degree the quali-
ties that distinguish the American frontiersman. If we
are to trust his diary and the other extant records con-
cerning him, his life was almost completely external
and objective. Of introspection, emotional self-con-
sciousness, intellectual inquiry there is hardly a trace.
A monument erected to him in Knoxville, Tennessee,
bears the significant inscription: "Thirty-five battles,
thirty-five victories," which, though not altogether
accurate, expresses adequately the lifelong Indian
fighter, the soldier who recorded in his diary a conversa-
tion with Napoleon on a high mountain overlooking
the kingdoms of this earth. To complete the picture,
however, the inscription should add: "He was an
inveterate land speculator, despite many failures.
His hold over his fellow-frontiersmen was due in part to
their belief that he could lead them triumphantly
against the Indians and into the Promised Land, but it
was due also to the charm of his free, generous nature,
to his overflow of abundant vitality. He had little in
common with the negative, repressive, sectarianism
that later dominated his community. His feet fre-
quently trod those twin roads to hell, card-playing and
dancing. It is recorded that on one occasion he was
arrested for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, and
there are rumors of other irregularities in his private
life. He bought, sold and used slaves without compunc-
tion, winked at if he did not openly permit the cold-
blooded murder of unoffending Indians, intrigued with
Spain, and while governor of Tennessee (1796) openly
condoned the violation of a federal proclamation. And
yet he was an industrious farmer and storekeeper, a
9
THE WESTWARD COURSE
53
churchgoer, careful to provide for the education of his
children, foremost in Indian warfare when the settle-
ments were threatened, and always ready to lend a
helping hand to his poorer neighbors. His were the
virtues of a frontier community.
None of these Western communities realized its
dream of statehood at this time. The North Atlantic
States were loath to increase the political power of the
South and West. North Carolina opposed the Frank-
linites, and Virginia, while more compliant in the case
of the Kentuckians, moved slowly. Circumstances soon
arose that gave a new direction to Western particular-
ism, but in order to understand those circumstances we
must first give our attention to the schemes of land
speculators in the Southwest in the years 1784 and 1785.
1
PROJECTED COLONIES: CHICKASAW BLUFFS,
MUSCLE SHOALS, BOURBON COUNTY
The second manifestation of expansive energy in the
Southwest was the projection of new colonies. In these
enterprises the land speculators played a prominent
part, for Muscle Shoals, Chickasaw Bluffs, Walnut Hills
and Natchez offered a tempting field for speculative
endeavor. Immigration into the Mississippi Valley
was assuming such proportions that property-owners
in the Atlantic States were alarmed, those in the West-
ern settlements elated, Spanish statesmen disturbed
and neutral observers dumbfounded. Peace seemed
assured by the crushing defeat inflicted on the hostile
Indians in the Revolutionary War, prosperity by the
free navigation of the Mississippi, permitted to the
Americans by Spain during the war, granted by Eng-
land in the treaty of peace, and still undisturbed at
the beginning of 1784. Above all, no Spanish counter-
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
claim to the territory in question had ever been publicly
asserted. Spain had made no protest against the treaty
with England which fixed the southern boundary of
the United States at the thirty-first parallel. It is not
surprising that under these circumstances many new
colonies were projected, or that when at length Spain
closed the Mississippi and challenged the boundary
claim of the United States the projectors of these colo-
nies refused to relinquish tamely their dreams of profit
and empire.
One of the first and most persistently prosecuted of
these plans, and one of the last to be realized, was that
of James Robertson and other North Carolinians to
establish a settlement at Chickasaw Bluffs.10 Since
this site lay within the hunting grounds of the Chicka-
saw Indians, with whom Robertson and the other Cum-
berland settlers were on excellent terms, success seemed
more than likely; but the Spanish treaty with the
Chickasaw at Mobile in June, 1784, the menace of war
and the remoteness of Chickasaw Bluffs prevented the
plan from being carried into effect. The chief impor-
tance of the project is that its discovery called the
attention of the Spanish government to this spot, in-
creased its alarm at the territorial ambitions of the
frontiersmen, and finally in 1795 led the governor of
Louisiana to establish a fort there.”
54
QUE
Another of the colonies projected during this period
was one at Muscle Shoals.11 Both because of the number
of prominent persons in the South engaged in the enter-
prise and because of the events connected with the long
and persistent attempt to establish the colony, the
Muscle Shoals venture is one of singular importance
in the history of the Old Southwest. Three future
governors were members of the original company:
THE WESTWARD COURSE
55
Richard Caswell of North Carolina, William Blount of
the Southwest Territory, and John Sevier of Franklin
and Tennessee. Others engaged were Joseph Martin,
agent of Patrick Henry and of the state of Virginia,
General Griffith Rutherford, and Wade Hampton of
South Carolina. In the first phase, William Blount
was the head of the company, corresponding with his
frontier associates, who secured the Cherokee title to
the site of the proposed colony, and visiting Georgia,
where he persuaded the legislature to provide (February,
1784) for the settlement of the Shoals district and the
organization of a county government there. The "Dis-
trict of Tenasee," as it was called, including all the
land lying between the Tennessee River and the
southern boundary of the present state of Tennessee,
was erected into a county called Houston, and all the
offices were filled with members of the company and
their relatives.
Everything was apparently ready for an exodus from
the older Holston settlements to Muscle Shoals when
in August, 1784, the progress of the enterprise was
halted by the separatist movement which resulted in the
establishment of the state of Franklin. This movement
was at first opposed by Sevier, for it diverted attention
from the speculative project; but, finding the separatist
tendency too powerful to resist, he put himself at its
head and was elected governor of the infant state. Once
in the saddle, he returned to his favorite scheme with
the force of the new government behind him. This later
phase of the project will be discussed in another place.
The third of the projected colonies lay on the Missis-
sippi. This was Bourbon County, erected by the state of
Georgia in 1785, and including, besides Natchez itself,
which was at the time garrisoned by Spanish troops,
56
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
all the territory on the Mississippi between the thirty-
first parallel and the mouth of the Yazoo River.12 This
curious episode is typical of the situation in the whole
Southwest at that time, and reveals some of its com-
plexities. There were three claimants to the territory
in which Bourbon County was erected: Georgia, Spain
and the United States. Though actually in possession
of the district, which Bernardo de Gálvez had conquered
during the Revolution, Spain had made no protest
against its cession by England to the United States in
1783. Gardoqui, however, was on his way from Spain
to New York to take up the matter with Congress. His
coming had been long expected, his object was easy to
guess, and it was precisely while he was in Havana
(February, 1785), waiting for a ship to take him to
New York, that the Georgia legislature granted the
request of persons from Natchez and erected that
district into a county of the state of Georgia under the
name of Bourbon.13
Four commissioners were appointed to proceed to
Natchez and organize the county government. Two
of them made their way down the Ohio and Mississippi
rivers, and the other two traveled overland through
the Indian country, where they tried to reëstablish the
former commerce between Augusta and the towns of the
Chickasaw and Choctaw. Although the Georgia legisla-
ture had strictly ordered the commissioners not to
commit any act of hostility against Spain, it was per-
sistently rumored that they were planning the use of
force, and that George Rogers Clark was to lead an
army of 2500 Kentuckians to rout the Spaniards out
of Natchez.
The enterprise was an utter failure. The first of the
commissioners to arrive in Natchez exceeded his powers,
THE WESTWARD COURSE
57
violated the pacific instructions given him by the
Georgia legislature, abruptly demanded the surrender
of the district by the Spanish commander, and threat-
ened violence when he was refused. The people of the
district, many of whom were British Loyalists, showed
no enthusiasm for the rule of revolutionary Georgia.
This was especially true of the wealthier planters.
When Governor Miró was first informed of the commis-
sioners' arrival in Natchez, he played for time, afraid
to deal with them as summarily as he wished; but later,
on the receipt of orders from his energetic chief, Cap-
tain-General Gálvez, now Viceroy of New Spain, and of
assurances that the people of Natchez would not aid
the Georgians, he expelled the commissioners from the
district. In the meantime Gardoqui had arrived in
New York, and had protested to Congress against
the proceedings of the commissioners. Congress, itself
a claimant to the district, was not disposed to prejudice
the negotiation with Gardoqui for the benefit of its
rival, the state of Georgia. Since not even Georgia's
delegates in Congress could deny that the Bourbon
County commissioners had violated their instructions,
the affair ended to the entire satisfaction of Gardoqui
and the complete discomfiture of the Georgians.14
Yet the affair was ominous for Spain. The union of
land speculators and fur traders of Georgia and the
Carolinas with the frontiersmen of Kentucky and North
Carolina was a formidable one, and there was nothing
to prevent its being formed again on more definite and
more aggressive terms and with a better chance of
success. Such a menace Spain might of course resist by
strengthening her military defences, as Miró did on this
occasion, but such measures were very costly. The
extraordinary expenses occasioned by the Bourbon
58
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
County episode were about $50,000,15 which was not a
small sum for a province already burdensome to a none
too prosperous government. As the frontier conflict
became more acute, the expense of bolstering up the
military defences of Louisiana became greater and
greater, until finally, at a critical period in Spain's
international relations and in her finances, the burden
became intolerable.
66
""
INCROCHEN TYRENTS
Although not one of these projected colonies was
established at any time in our period, and although
on the contrary Spain anticipated the speculators and
their frontier agents by establishing forts first in the
Yazoo district (1791) and then at Chickasaw Bluffs
(1795), the projects produced results of the very first
importance in the history of the Spanish-American
conflict. That the enterprises were not mere paper
prospectuses was shown by the fact that agents were
actually on the site of the intended settlements in
1784–85, making surveys, marking trees, and preparing
for colonization, and that the commissioners of Bourbon
County presented themselves in Natchez with the evi-
dent though unaccountable — expectation of taking
over the government from the Spanish commandant.
The resolute opposition of Spain to these designs, the
expulsion of the Georgia commissioners from Natchez,
the Indian attacks on the speculators at Chickasaw
Bluffs and Muscle Shoals, enraged the frontiersmen
and led Thomas Green, one of the Bourbon County
commissioners, to warn his fellow-countrymen that if
they did not look about them a few "incrochen tyrents,"
namely the Spaniards, would soon be in possession of all
the choicest places in the New World.16
Med
THE WESTWARD COURSE
59
In the face of the unexpected obstacle of determined
and effective Spanish resistance, the frontiersmen and
speculators changed their tactics and began to take
Spain into account. Some of them intrigued with Spain,
some against Spain, and some, such as John Sevier and
George Rogers Clark, did both. It was the intrigue
against Spain, the planning of a devastating invasion of
Louisiana and the Floridas, that appealed most power-
fully to the imagination of the frontiersmen. Sevier,
Clark, Green, Sullivan, O'Fallon - these and many
other names are associated with designs of expelling
the "haughty and indolent Spaniard" from the mouth
of the Mississippi and establishing in his place the
beneficent rule of the long-haired frontiersman. Reports
of these hostile designs soon reached the Spanish court,
and, as we shall see, were influential in determining
Floridablanca to adopt as a defensive measure against
frontier hostility an intrigue with the frontiersmen
themselves.
A FUR TRADERS' WAR
A more immediate result of the frontier advance and
the speculative enterprises of 1784-85 was the outbreak
of war between the Georgians and the Creek Indians.
This was primarily a fur traders' war. In every one of
the schemes that we have discussed the speculators
seem to have been almost as much interested in fur
trading as in colonization. The Georgia commissioners,
both on their way to Natchez and after their expulsion
from it, made strenuous efforts to reconquer for Georgia
the trade of the Choctaw and Chickasaw. Sevier's
letters to the Chickasaw are full of allusions to the
trade that would be provided them by the projected
colony at Muscle Shoals. The Cumberland settlers
I'm a 14.
60
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
were trying to divert the Southern fur trade from Mo-
bile and Pensacola to Nashville, and their projected
post at Chickasaw Bluffs was probably a part of their
plan.17
As one might expect, the half-breed chief Alexander
McGillivray and his partner William Panton lost no
time in launching a counter-offensive against their
rebel cousins in Georgia and the Carolinas. McGillivray
had made the American frontier menace the text of a
letter to Miró in 1784. In 1785 he was one of the first
to warn the governor of the Bourbon County project.
In July of the same year he protested to the Spanish
government, in the name of the Creek, Choctaw and
Chickasaw nations, against the encroachments of the
Americans, specifying the recent creation of counties
within the Indian's hunting grounds and demanding the
restoration of the boundaries of 1772- that is, the
evacuation of a large part of Georgia, of most of the
Holston settlements, of all those on the Cumberland
River, and of half of Kentucky.18
In July, 1785, Congress appointed commissioners to
negotiate treaties of friendship, commerce and limits
with the Southern tribes.19 In November the commis-
sioners arrived in Georgia, where they attempted to
treat with the Creek Indians, but were baulked by the
opposition of the state of Georgia and McGillivray.
Both of the latter apparently preferred to fight it out.
More successful elsewhere, the commissioners nego-
tiated treaties with the Cherokee, Chickasaw and
Choctaw in the winter of 1785-86. The significance of
the most important of these treaties, the one with the
Cherokee, will be discussed in another place.
The unwillingness of the Creek to compromise their
dispute with Georgia was no doubt increased by the
1
THE WESTWARD COURSE
61
fact that through William Panton's concession from the
Spanish government they had received in the summer
of 1785 their first large supply of munitions since the
outbreak of the war between Spain and England. In
April of the following year, without awaiting the court's
reply to his protest against American encroachments,
McGillivray let loose his warriors upon the Georgia
frontier and upon Cumberland.20 It was only after
the decision had been made and the warriors had set
out on the war-path that he informed Miró of the
accomplished fact, styled the war a defensive one on
the part of the Indians and demanded Spain's aid.
It is significant that the war began with the murder and
expulsion of Georgia traders among the Creek; and
if any doubt remained that this was a fur traders' war,
it would be set at rest by a letter written by William
Panton two years later in which he said: .. Our
house expended by the struggle we had with the Georgia
merchants in the years 1784, 1785 and the begin-
ning of 1786 before we obtained their expulsion from
the Indian nation, no less a sum than thirty thousand
dollars. . . 21
66
Contrary to the general impression, this war was not
willed or ordered by the Spanish government or any
of its officials. On the contrary, it came as a shock even
to Miró and placed him in a most embarrassing position,
for he suspected that not all the fault was on the side of
the Georgians. Though he granted McGillivray's re-
quest for munitions, he directed that they be delivered
with the utmost secrecy and on the understanding
that they were to be used for defensive purposes only.22
He further urged McGillivray to make peace with the
Americans as soon as possible. His action was ulti-
mately approved by the court, which, with every appear-
-
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
ance of sincerity, enjoined upon Miró and all the frontier
officials a pacific policy.23 The Spanish government
never, either at this time or at any other, authorized
the Indians to begin hostilities against the Americans,
and while Miró remained in Louisiana he complied
faithfully with the orders of his government, even to
the detriment of Spain's interests among the Indians.24
62
Thus the activity of American speculators and fron-
tiersmen forced the first public indication of Spain's
territorial claims east of the Mississippi, precipitated
an Indian war, compelled the definition of Spain's
Indian policy, and prepared the way for frontier in-
trigues both with and against Spain. By bringing out
in high relief the conflict of interest between Spaniard
and American and by sharpening their mutual antago-
nism, this activity showed that the interests of peace
required an early adjustment by treaty of the points
at issue between the two countries.
CHAPTER V
GARDOQUI'S MISSION
THE FRONTIER ORIGIN OF GARDOQUI'S MISSION
THE Spanish government's uneasiness at the growth
of the American West was a constant factor in its
diplomacy from the beginning of the Revolution
throughout the period with which we are concerned.
It will be seen again and again in the following pages
how this uneasiness, justified and increased by the
reports of its agents in North America, shaped the
course of Spain's policy with regard to the United States
and its Western settlements. To begin with, it was one
of the chief reasons for Gardoqui's mission to the
United States.
We have already seen how Floridablanca deliberately
postponed an adjustment with the United States until
after the peace settlement of 1783. In the negotiations
of 1782-83 he had failed first in his attempt, with
French assistance, to have the western boundary of the
United States fixed well to the eastward of the Mis-
sissippi, and then in his effort to beguile England into
playing the buffer between the Spanish dominions and
the United States. After this double failure he had no
recourse but to settle the points at issue with the
United States by a separate treaty. This he postponed
until after the general peace settlement of September,
1783, in order, no doubt, to avoid as far as possible the
danger of coöperation between the United States and
England. Thus a Spanish-American treaty was con-
spicuous by its absence from the general settlement,
and Floridablanca seemed in no hurry to supply the
deficiency.
63
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
Less than ten months later that is, before the end
of July, 1784 - he had decided to take the initiative
in resuming the negotiation with the United States,
and had drawn up the instructions for that purpose.
Within another three months he had chosen Gardoqui
to represent Spain in the negotiation and had ordered
him to the United States to open it. This sudden zeal
for an accommodation is explained by the pressure of
Spanish officials in North America, and their insistence
in turn is explained by their uneasiness at the activity
of their republican neighbors in the Mississippi Valley.
One of the first officials to warn Floridablanca was
Bernardo del Campo, then chargé d'affaires and later
ambassador in London, who, under Floridablanca's
direction and with the assistance of Gardoqui, had
conducted the fruitless negotiation with Jay in Spain
(1780–82). Writing from London in November, 1783,
he reported that swarms of discontented Americans
were crossing the mountains into the Mississippi
Valley, where they might soon become a serious menace
to Spain's neighboring possessions. Floridablanca was
sufficiently interested by this information to refer it to
José de Gálvez, the colonial secretary,¹ but did nothing
further in the matter until he was prodded into action
by similar warnings from many other sources.
On March 2, 1784, Bernardo de Gálvez, then in
Madrid, wrote his uncle, the colonial secretary, request-
ing in his capacity as governor of Louisiana and the
Floridas instructions as to the boundaries of West
Florida. Such instructions were necessary, he pointed
out, in view of the conflicting provisions of England's
treaties with Spain and the United States on that
subject. He warned the colonial secretary that the line
claimed by the United States would give them Natchez
64
GARDOQUI'S MISSION
65
"which I had the honor to place under the obedience of
my sovereign in the late war," most of the Southern
Indian tribes and their fur trade, and access to Mobile
Bay, leaving Spain with nothing but a thin strip of
territory along the Gulf coast. Such a situation, to-
gether with the free navigation of the Mississippi
River, which the United States claimed as a right,
would be a perpetual source of discord between the two
powers.
The navigation of the Mississippi, mentioned in
passing by Count Gálvez, was the principal theme of
letters to José de Gálvez from the acting governor of
Louisiana, Estevan Miró, and the intendant, Martin
Navarro.³ Writing from New Orleans in March, 1784,
they reported the recent arrival at that city of the
America, Captain Christopher Whipple, from Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, with a Rhode Island passport.
Under Article 8 of the treaty of 1783 between England
and the United States, Whipple claimed the right to
pass freely up the Mississippi to the possessions of the
United States, which, he declared, extended as far south
as the thirty-first parallel. Miró and Navarro had no
instructions that would cover such a case. Their latest
order from the court relating to the Mississippi was
dated October 29, 1781, and opened its navigation to
the Americans for the duration of the war. Now that
the war was over, the governor and intendant were in
doubt as to the course that they should follow. Sus-
picious of Whipple, who had his cabin fitted up as a
shop with shelves and weights, they put a detachment
of soldiers on board his ship in order to prevent illicit
trade with the plantations in Spanish territory along
the Mississippi; but, since they had no orders to the
contrary, they gave Whipple permission — with their
66 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
tongues in their cheeks, no doubt to sail up the Mis-
sissippi, turbulent with the spring floods, to the Amer-
ican settlements at the Illinois. Navarro advised
strongly against opening the river to the commerce of
the United States, for, said he, the cédula of 1782 per-
mitting trade between Louisiana and France made
adequate provision for the needs of the province, and
the admission of any other nation would facilitate
contraband and injure the merchants of Louisiana.
As the Mississippi problem was presented to Florida-
blanca for decision in the summer of 1784, it presented
two aspects, one familiar and vexatious, the other new
and alarming. In the first place, Navarro's letter of
which we have just spoken made it clear that if Spain
admitted the validity of Article 8 of the Anglo-American
treaty of 1783, an immediate consequence would be the
revival of that contraband trade whose eradication had
been one of Spain's principal war aims, and that now
two nations instead of one would "cause her infinite
vexation" on the lower Mississippi and in the Gulf, as
Floridablanca had complained of England in 1778.
In the second place, the case of the America called
attention to a new aspect new since 1775 of the
Mississippi problem: its relation to the rapidly grow-
ing American settlements in the Ohio Valley. While
the Revolution was still in progress, Navarro had
written José de Gálvez on this subject, and Gálvez had,
by order of the king, transmitted his letters to Florida-
blanca. If the Spanish government followed Navarro's
advice, it would close the Mississippi River to American
commerce in order to stifle the Western settlements.
In this letter and another of the same year (1781),4
Navarro reported the rapid growth of Kentucky and of
the American settlements at the Illinois, and shipments
GARDOQUI'S MISSION
of American corn down the Mississippi. The Americans
were an active, enterprising people, he said, citing by
way of illustration the case of a former South Caro-
linian, Gaillard, who had emigrated from that state to
Natchez by way of Pittsburg with his family and slaves,
stopping in Kentucky long enough to make a crop for
their support. Such energy and resourcefulness, said
Navarro, combined with the greedy ambition of the
Americans, made them a menace to Mexico. Spain had
a remedy, however, for it could strangle the American
West by closing its only commercial outlet, the Mis-
sissippi.5
67
Further evidence of the alarmingly rapid develop-
ment of the American West was contained in a letter
from Francisco Rendón, the agent of Spain in Phila-
delphia. Writing in December, 1783, he reported that
Kentucky had applied to Virginia for permission to
form a separate state in conformity with the general
principles of the Confederation, and that Connecticut
was preparing to make use of the territory claimed by
it in the Ohio Valley. These indications of the rapid
extension of the American system across the moun-
tains, confirming earlier reports, disturbed the colonial
secretary, who submitted Rendón's letter to his
nephew, Bernardo, for his opinion. The latter replied
briefly that if the territory between the Mississippi and
the Appalachians belonged to Spain, the Americans
should by no means be permitted to settle in it; but
that if it belonged to the United States, Spain could not
prevent their occupation of it. Clearly a definition of
Spain's territorial claim and of Spanish policy was
necessary, and José de Gálvez, forwarding Rendón's
letter and the Count's report thereon, reminded
Floridablanca of the urgency of the matter.6
68
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
STRANGLING THE AMERICAN WEST
To meet this situation, Floridablanca adopted three
measures. A royal order was issued closing the Mis-
sissippi River to all but Spanish ships; a formal state-
ment was drawn up setting forth Spain's position in
regard to the navigation of the Mississippi and the
boundary of its possessions on the east bank of that
river; and Gardoqui was sent to negotiate a treaty with
the United States.
The order closing the Mississippi was, at Florida-
blanca's suggestion, drawn up by the colonial secretary
without waiting for the completion of the formal
statement of Spanish claims then in preparation. On
June 26, 1784, Gálvez wrote the governor and the
intendant of Louisiana and Spain's agent in Philadel-
phia, Rendón, directing them respectively to announce
in the colonies and to inform Congress of Spain's
exclusive right to the navigation of the Mississippi and
to warn the Americans not to expose themselves and
their property to arrest and confiscation pending the
settlement of the questions at issue between Spain
and the United States. A proclamation to this effect
was published in Louisiana, and Rendón communicated
the substance of the order to Congress through the
agency of the French chargé, Marbois."
Not only was this the first, but it was also by all odds
the most important, of Floridablanca's three measures,
and the other two were subsidiary to it. In drawing
the boundary line, the object was to give Spain posses-
sion of both banks of the river as far north as possible;
and the chief purpose of Gardoqui's mission was to
secure the acquiescence of the United States in the
closing of the Mississippi. By this means he expected,

84
26
New Madrid
(1789)
90°
ississippi
San Fernando
(1795)
XPanton, 1 796)
CHICKASAW
Et Confederation
federation
(1794)
08/Nogales (1791)
(Panton, 1794)
Natchez
Juan de la Villebeuvre (1792-96)
Benjamin Fooy (1793-97)
CHOCTAW
90°
Et.St.Stephens &
Tennessee
Mobile
(Panton,789)
Orleans
Nashville
CHEROKEE
86°
R.
Pensacola
(Panton 1785)
Hiwassee R.
John McDonald (1792-97)
CREEK
Alexander McGillivray (1781-92)
Pedro Olivier (1792-93)
Louis Milfort (1793-94)
Chevalier de Villiers (1794)
86°
Knoxville
Flint
2. United States boundary claim, 1783-1795
8. Spanish fortified posts, with date of occupation or
establishment:
4. Spanish Indian agents, with date of appointment,
e.g.: Alexander McGillivray, 1784-1793.
5. Expansion of Panton, Leslie and Co., 1783-1795,
e.g: Panton, 1784.
Augusta
(Undisputed)
St.Marks (1787)
(Panton, 1782)
SPAIN IN THE OLD SOUTHWEST
1. Spanish boundary claim, 1784-1795:
(As described in Floridablanca's Instruction of July 29, 1784:
see Ch. V. Cf. maps in S.F.Bemis, Pinckney's Treaty, corrected
by the same writer in H.A.H.R., Aug., 1927)
Mary's R.
St. Augustine (1784
(Panton) 176)
1780)
82°
-30%
-26-
GARDOQUI'S MISSION
69
on Navarro's assurance, to strangle the American
settlements in the Mississippi Valley.
The comprehensive statement of Spain's position
on the boundary and navigation questions was issued
by Floridablanca on July 29, 1784.8 It took the form
of an "Instruction" to the captain-general, Gálvez,
and was intended to govern both the colonial officials
of the Floridas and Louisiana and the plenipotentiary
to be sent to the United States. Stating that the time
had now come to settle these two questions, the In-
struction announced that His Majesty accepted the
the boundary of East Florida as claimed by the United
States, but that from its western extremity the Spanish
boundary followed the Flint River up to its source,
thence in a straight line to the Euphassee (Hiwassee),
thence down the Euphassee, Tennessee and Ohio
Rivers to the Mississippi, and thence to its source.
This claim was based on the conquest of West Florida
by Gálvez during the Revolution, the Spanish treaty
with England of 1783, the subrogation by Spain of
France's rights as ceded to England in 1763, the depend-
ence of the Chickasaw on Pensacola, and the fact that
the Spanish commandant of Arkansas had on November
22, 1780, taken formal possession of the east bank of the
Mississippi in the name of the king of Spain. It is
curious to note that, so far as this Instruction and all
other available evidence show, the Spanish government
was still not aware of the secret article in the pre-
liminary treaty between the United States and England
(1782), or of the proclamation of 1764 moving the
northern boundary of West Florida up to the mouth of
the Yazoo River.
9
As for the navigation of the Mississippi, the In-
struction declared Spain's exclusive right to it so far as
70
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
she owned both banks of the Mississippi. England's
right to the navigation of the Mississippi, it was said,
depended on the possession of the eastern bank; and
since Spain had conquered this bank during the war,
England's pretended cession of the free navigation to
the United States was an attempt to cede something
that England did not possess. Not even in order to
reach their possessions on the Upper Mississippi were
the Americans to be permitted to navigate its lower
waters.10 In view of Spain's boundary claim, this was
equivalent to the assertion that the United States had
no right to navigate the Mississippi below its junction
with the Ohio.
His Majesty's intention of sending a plenipotentiary
to treat with the United States was referred to in the
foregoing Instruction. After it was drawn up, and
apparently before the final orders to Gardoqui were
issued, another letter from Rendón, with still more
alarming reports about the American West, was re-
ceived by José de Gálvez and transmitted by him to
Floridablanca. In this letter Rendón reported that
Americans were said to be going from Kentucky down
the Ohio River and up the Red River to carry on
contraband trade with Mexico. Proceeding from this
point of departure to observations of greater impor-
tance, Rendón gave warning that the Americans would
not respect any treaty unless they were granted "a free
mutual commerce," that they regarded the free use of
the Mississippi as essential to the prosperity of the
West, and that their resentment at Spain's conduct
during the Revolution made precautionary measures in-
dispensable if serious disturbances were to be avoided.¹¹
By October 2, 1784, Gardoqui's instructions had been
drawn up.12 He was given for his guidance a copy of
GARDOQUI'S MISSION
71
the Instruction of July 29, and was directed to cor-
respond with Count Gálvez, with whose consent he
might make some concession to the United States with
regard to the boundary, provided that the settlements
of Louisiana and West Florida were protected as far
as the Bahama Channel. In other words, his instruc-
tions indicated that the king would assent to the
cession of St. Augustine to the United States and to
some modification of the boundary in the Mississippi
Valley as set forth in the Instruction of July 29. Gar-
doqui was further directed to insist on the exclusive
navigation of the Mississippi so far as Spain held both
banks, and to inform the United States that it was
useless for them to request admission to the commerce
of the Spanish colonies, since that was prohibited by
treaties from Utrecht (1713) down to 1783. They might,
however, be offered most favored nation treatment in
Spain itself and the Canaries. In order to facilitate the
negotiations, Gardoqui might agree to a defensive
alliance and a mutual territorial guarantee. These
terms, said Floridablanca, should prove satisfactory to
the United States, since they were practically the same
as those proposed by Jay in 1781, with the territorial
guarantee and the commercial concessions the equiva-
lent of Jay's demand for immediate recognition of the
independence of the United States and aid in the war
against England. Gardoqui was given the rank of
encargado de negocios (chargé d'affaires), and was em-
powered to negotiate a treaty in accordance with the
foregoing instructions. He was to correspond with
Floridablanca by the roundabout way of Havana,
which was connected with the court by a monthly mail
service, but might send his despatches by commercial
vessels going direct to Spain, in case he were satisfied
72
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
that they were reliable. Rendón was to be his secretary,
and two lads, Jáudenes and Viar, were sent with him to
assist in the work of the legation. His salary was fixed
at $12,000, and he was allowed a secret service fund.
His credentials were drawn up in the same style as those
of the Spanish ministers to Holland, and in presenting
them he was to follow the same ceremonial as the
French minister to the United States.
Gardoqui's mission and the resumption of the
negotiation were clearly due to the initiative not of the
United States but of Spain,13 and the Spanish govern-
ment was actuated partly by a desire to prevent the
recrudescence of contraband trade on the Mississippi,
but above all by its uneasiness at the rapid growth of
the American West. The policy that it adopted at this
time in the face of the American menace remained,
despite occasional reluctant deviations, substantially
the same throughout our period: namely, to secure
the acquiescence of the United States in a system that
would protect Spain against the American frontier.
The terms His Catholic Majesty was willing to offer
changed with changing circumstances, but Spain
usually relied for success upon an appeal to the pro-
vincial interests of the Atlantic States, a course sug-
gested as early as 1778 by the first Spanish agent in the
United States, Juan de Miralles, 14
The instructions given to Gardoqui and the corre-
spondence relating to his mission show that the
possibility of a converse policy, an appeal to Western
sectionalism, played no part in Floridablanca's cal-
culations at this stage of the game. Although the
possibility of a British intrigue with those people was
mentioned by Miralles, no Spanish official proposed
before 1786, so far as the records show, that Spain
GARDOQUI'S MISSION
73
undertake such a measure. Intrigue was indeed a
hazardous alternative to negotiation, and it is not
surprising that it was not considered while there seemed
to be any hope of concluding a satisfactory treaty with
Congress.
Don Diego de Gardoqui found his way into diplomacy
through the tradesman's entrance. The Bilbao firm of
which he was a member had traded with the United
States, then colonies, for a full generation before the
Revolution,15 and was the screen behind which the
Spanish government furnished arms and clothing to the
rebellious colonies of England when Spain was still
ostensibly a neutral power. Don Diego was the com-
pany's representative in arranging these matters with
the Spanish government. His knowledge of English
made the transition to diplomacy easy. He was Gri-
maldi's interpreter at the time of Arthur Lee's un-
welcome visit to Spain (1777), and in 1780 he formally
entered the government service. When John Jay and
his secretary, William Carmichael, arrived in Spain
Gardoqui not only had charge of financial arrange-
ments with them, but also discussed purely diplomatic
questions. As early as 1780 the Spanish government
planned to send him to the United States, and in 1782
John Jay wrote that Congress had long been expecting
his arrival in the capacity of minister plenipotentiary
to the United States.16 For various reasons the mission
was postponed. In 1784 developed the disquieting
situation described above, and Gardoqui was finally
despatched. For a detailed account of his negotiation
with John Jay, Congress's secretary for foreign affairs,
the reader is referred to a formal diplomatic history of
the period. It is enough for our purpose to sketch the
situation in the barest outline and to note the results
74
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
of the tedious negotiation, which lasted from 1785 to
1788.
THE CONFLICT OF SECTIONAL INTERESTS
Despite the indignation aroused in the West and on
the Atlantic coast by Spain's announcement of the
closing of the Mississippi, and despite Gardoqui's
isolation - his only regular channel of correspondence
with Spain was by way of Havana, and his sources of
information in the United States were scanty and
unreliable 17 he found conditions favorable in several
respects to the success of his mission. In the first place,
the usual post-war economic depression was settling
down upon the United States.18 American shipping and
exports, with former markets in the British empire
wholly or partially lost, were seeking compensation
elsewhere. Commercial concessions for the United
States in Spain and its colonies, vainly sought by Jay
during his Spanish mission (1780–82), were more im-
portant to the country than ever now that the Revo-
lution was
over. Rendón had transmitted to his
government a plan outlined by Robert Morris for the
development of trade between the two countries, and
Gardoqui wrote home that nothing could give the
Americans more pleasure than a trade that would
bring Spanish gold and silver into their ports.19 More-
over, the whole of the United States' growing
Mediterranean trade would be benefited by the
interposition of Spain's good offices with the vexatious
Barbary States.
In the second place, there were many influential
people in the United States who were opposed to the
rapid development of the American West. Contempt
for the lazy, shiftless backwoodsman; sympathy for
GARDOQUI'S MISSION
75
the dispossessed Indian tribes; the self-interest of
landlord and employer; Northern jealousy of the agri-
cultural South and West; the conviction that the
ultimate secession of the Mississippi Valley settlements
was a certainty one or more of these considerations
disposed such representatives of the commercial states
as Rufus King, Timothy Pickering and Gouverneur
Morris in favor of any measure that would check the
alarming exodus of population from the Atlantic coast
and the equally alarming spread of settlement in the
West.20 In the period 1786-88 the Mississippi ques-
tion was the subject of even bitterer controversy within
the United States than between the United States and
Spain, and the controversy assumed a dangerously
sectional character. William Grayson, speaking in the
Virginia ratifying convention of 1788, voiced the senti-
ments of many in the South and West when he said:
"I look upon this as a contest for empire. Our country
[Virginia] is equally affected with Kentucky. The
Southern States are deeply interested in this subject.
If the Mississippi be shut up, emigrations will be
stopped entirely. There will be no new states formed
on the western waters.
This contest of the Mis-
sissippi involves this great national contest; that is,
whether one part of the continent shall govern the
other. The Northern States have the majority, and
will endeavor to retain it." 21 So long as this "national
contest" remained unsettled and the Americans were
unable to decide whether or not they wanted the free
navigation of the Mississippi, there was little likelihood
that Spain would concede it.
In the third place, Gardoqui's offer of a territorial
guarantee was equivalent to an offer that, if the United
States would yield to Spain a part of its claims in the
76 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
Southwest, Spain would join the United States in
forcing England to evacuate the posts that it still
occupied in the Northwest. Since the Northwest had
been ceded by the claimant states to Congress, and
since the Southwest had not, the majority in Congress
was inclined to give more weight to the interests of the
former than of the latter.
Well might Jay declare, as he did in a notable address
to Congress in August, 1786, that the treaty with Spain
was the most important treaty the United States could
negotiate with any power.22 With this preface, he
proceeded to describe the hopeless state of his negoti-
ation with Gardoqui, for both the plenipotentiaries
were bound by instructions that left them little dis-
cretion and made agreement impossible. Diplomacy
had failed to move Spain, and the United States was in
no position to go to war. It was impossible, said Jay, to
secure both the navigation of the Mississippi and the
thirty-first parallel; but, by yielding the former for a
term of years, the United States might secure the latter,
as well as valuable commercial concessions in the ports
of Spain. At the end of the period of suspension the
United States could renew the assertion of its claim
to the navigation of the Mississippi with even better
reason than at present. After a long and bitter debate
on this proposal, in which the opposition was led by
the Virginia delegation, Congress empowered Jay to
negotiate such a treaty, leaving undetermined in its
instructions the number of years for which the navi-
gation of the Mississippi might be closed to the United
States.23
No treaty was ever negotiated under this revised
instruction. According to Gardoqui, who was himself
not overbold, Jay was intimidated by the widespread
GARDOQUI'S MISSION
77
denunciation of Congress' decision, which, though taken
in secret session, soon became public property. Now
and then the two plenipotentiaries conferred, but with-
out result. Jay held that such a thorny question should
be reserved for the new federal government then form-
ing, and such was the decision of Congress in 1788 upon
the ratification of the federal constitution by nine
states.24
The result of this new turn of affairs was twofold.
The decision of Congress to surrender for twenty of-
thirty years the navigation of the Mississippi pre-
cipitated a secessionist movement in the West. On the
other hand, Gardoqui warned Floridablanca from the
moment Congress adopted this resolution that it was
a moral certainty such a treaty would never be nego-
tiated, so great was the popular clamor against it.25
Out of this situation, as we shall see, grew the intrigue
between the American frontiersmen and Spain, but
not before Floridablanca had made one more attempt
to secure a treaty with the United States government.
>
CHAPTER VI
THE CHEVALIER OF THE ORDER OF
ST. LOUIS
FLORIDABLANCA's last effort to secure a treaty with
the Congress of the Confederation was made in 1787
and was intimately connected with certain proposals
that he had recently received in regard to the American
frontier. The first of these plans in order of importance
came from a Frenchman by the name of Pierre Wouves
d'Argès; the other, which was hardly more than a
suggestion, was offered by James White, a delegate of
North Carolina in Congress. By a judicious combi-
nation of their proposals with diplomatic pressure,
Floridablanca hoped to find a way out of the impasse
of the American negotiation and to strengthen Spain's
position in the Mississippi Valley.
FROM KENTUCKY TO SAN ILDEFONSO
In the spring of 1787 this d'Argès, a middle-aged
French gentleman of misfortune and a chevalier of the
Order of St. Louis, emerged from a three years' resi-
dence in the backwoods of Kentucky and presented
himself to the Spanish ambassador in Paris, Count
Aranda.¹ Explaining how ill health and ambition had
led him in 1783 to wander so far from the accustomed
haunts of chevaliers as to settle in Kentucky, he
warned Aranda that the weakness of Louisiana and
the rapid increase of the American West in population
and in hostility to Spain made it imperatively necessary
for the Spanish government to adopt a new defensive
system in the Mississippi Valley if it did not wish to
lose its North American dominions. He proposed a
78
i
CHEVALIER OF THE ORDER OF ST. LOUIS 79
twofold remedy: Spain should strengthen Louisiana
and weaken the American West by attracting to its
own territory as many of the American frontiers-
men as possible; and the frontiersmen who resisted
this seduction and remained in the American settle-
ments should be mollified by a partial opening of the
Mississippi, whose closure was their chief grievance
against Spain. Both these results could be accom-
plished, he said, by manipulating commercial regula-
tions on the Mississippi and by liberal land grants.
The river should be opened to the frontiersmen's
commerce subject to a twenty-five per cent duty, for
such a duty would be low enough to placate them and
yet so high that they would find it more advantageous
to emigrate to Spanish territory, where, d'Argès pro-
posed, they should be admitted as Spanish subjects and
enjoy the use of the river without the payment of any
duty whatsoever. The American immigrants should be
concentrated in Natchez, which was the cynosure of
American eyes and an important strategic point.
D'Argès, who according to Aranda spoke excellent
English, requested that he be sent back to the United
States as the agent of Spain in this affair. He mentioned
as one of his chief qualifications the fact that he
was already the agent of some five thousand Kentucky
families who wished to emigrate to Spanish territory.
Aranda, who had from the beginning of the American
Revolution warned his government in season and out
of season against the restless ambition of the Americans,
gave this project vigorous support. He emphasized
the value of Natchez as a bulwark against the rising
republican tide and suggested that Floridablanca sum-
mon d'Argès to Spain and hear him in person. After
consulting José de Gálvez, who now bore the title of
80 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
Marqués de Sonora, reminiscent of his distinguished
services in Mexico, Floridablanca agreed to hear the
Chevalier, but urged that the affair be kept a profound
secret, especially from the Americans.
2
The secretary of state's interest in these propositions
was not due solely to the advocacy of the powerful
Aranda. In the first place, war with England was
threatening. In the second place, two despatches
from Gardoqui had already prepared him for some such
measure as that proposed by the Frenchman. In
August, 1786, Gardoqui had a conversation with James
White, delegate of North Carolina in Congress.³ After
remarking on White's education, judgment and in-
fluence and his connections among the American
frontiersmen on the Cumberland, Gardoqui related
how in this conservation White assured him of the
Western frontiersmen's intense interest in the navi-
gation of the Mississippi, of their surprise and resent-
ment at Congress's approval of Jay's proposals relative
to its suspension, and of the probability that the
Western settlements would secede from the Union and
put themselves under Spanish protection in return for
its free use. At the same time Gardoqui informed
Floridablanca that it was impossible to secure a treaty
on the terms hitherto demanded by Spain and that Jay
would never dare to make use of the power granted him
by Congress to surrender the navigation of the Mis-
sissippi for a term of years.
A NEW DEVICE
Faced by a deadlock in the negotiation with Congress
and by a backwoods menace that, together with an
English war-scare, made every day's delay dangerous,
Floridablanca welcomed d'Argès's project as a possible
CHEVALIER OF THE ORDER OF ST. LOUIS 81
solution of both the diplomatic and the frontier prob-
lem. Conversing with d'Argès while with the court at
San Ildefonso, he was reminded by the Frenchman of
the significance of George Rogers Clark's recent
spoliation of Spanish merchants at Vincennes. Such
measures, said d'Argès, were avowedly adopted by the
frontiersmen by way of reprisal for the closing of the
Mississippi. With the Bourbon County episode a
recent memory, Floridablanca lost no time in consult-
ing the other members of the cabinet, notably Valdés,
who on the recent death of José de Gálvez had taken
over the colonial office, and in drawing up the necessary
orders and instructions. Under the date of August 23,
1787, a royal order relating to d'Argès's commission
was transmitted to the governor of Louisiana, and on
September 5 another to the same effect was sent
Gardoqui.
4
G
!
According to d'Argès's instructions, he was to go by
way of New York to Kentucky, under the title of His
Majesty's commissioner for adjusting the boundary.
While there he was to listen to the complaints of the
people against Spain and encourage them to expect the
opening of the Mississippi as far as New Orleans,
subject to a twenty-five per cent duty. He was also
instructed to consult and be guided by Gardoqui at
New York and by Miró at New Orleans. Although he
was being sent to Kentucky as an immigration agent
to secure settlers for Louisiana, his instructions made
no mention of that fact. This omission, it was explained
to d'Argès, was made so that they might give no
ground for an official protest by the United States in
case they should fall into unfriendly hands. In reality,
Floridablanca did not have perfect confidence in either
the discretion or the fidelity of his French agent.
82
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
1
One of the most notable by-products of d'Argès's
project was that the post of Natchez was converted
into a government, and that the post of governor was
filled, after several months' delay, by the appointment
of Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, later governor of Lou-
isiana and probably the ablest of all the Spanish
officials who served their king in the conflict with the
United States. Even Gardoqui lacked Gayoso's versa-
tility and his penetrating insight into the American
character. His winning manner and thorough know-
ledge of English fitted him for the command of a district
that the Spanish government expected to fill with
thousands of emigrants from the American frontier."
The order informing Gardoqui of d'Argès's appoint-
ment and its objects reveals the intimate connection
between Spain's Mississippi Valley policy and its
negotiation with the United States. In a letter to
Valdés, Floridablanca had declared that d'Argès's
commission should facilitate Gardoqui's negotiation
with Congress. Just before his departure that gentle-
man let it be seen that he regarded the opening of the
Mississippi as a fait accompli to be announced by
himself in the United States. In order to set him right
and to prevent any further misunderstanding in the
matter Floridablanca wrote him that he was to adhere
literally to his instructions and that Gardoqui was to
determine when effect should be given the order open-
ing the river. At the same time, the secretary of state
wrote Gardoqui warning him of d'Argès's impetuosity,
and directing the chargé categorically to make use of the
concession with regard to the Mississippi in order to
facilitate his negotiation with Congress, or, if that were
impossible, to get some advantage for Spain from the
Western Americans.8
CHEVALIER OF THE ORDER OF ST. LOUIS 83
There can be no doubt that Floridablanca's principal
object was still to conclude a treaty with Congress.
While the possibility of bringing about Western
secession by manipulating Spain's control of the Mis-
sissippi had been suggested to him by James White's
conversation of August, 1786, with Gardoqui, there is
no indication in any of the papers of Floridablanca's
office that he had the slightest intention of opening an
intrigue with the Western Americans at this time. We
certainly stand here on the threshold of the "Spanish
intrigue," but we have not yet crossed it. Of the three
objects of d'Argès's mission to assist Gardoqui's
negotiation, to attract immigrants to Louisiana and
West Florida from Kentucky, and to encourage the
secession of the American West- the first was un-
doubtedly foremost in Floridablanca's calculations.
The immigration policy was left incomplete: The
conditions to be offered the immigrants were not
specified, Gayoso did not sail for America until the
following year, and d'Argès was sent not directly to
Kentucky, but to New York, where Gardoqui was
engaged in his negotiation with Jay. The bid for
Western secession was to be made not by means of
intrigue and conspiracy, but by a change in Spanish
commercial regulations on the Mississippi. James
White's name does not occur anywhere in the orders
relating to d'Argès nor did Spain make any move at
this time to accept the obvious invitation to intrigue
contained in his conversation with Gardoqui. Further
proof of the true object of Spanish policy at this time
is contained in Floridablanca's statement in a letter
written to Gardoqui that His Majesty hoped for the
adoption of the new federal constitution in the United
States and the erection of a stronger central government
84
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
with which he might negotiate a lasting treaty.' The
d'Argès project carried with it a threat of intrigue with
the West, and it was this threat, as well as the actual
concessions on the Mississippi, that Floridablanca
expected to give it force with Congress. He merely
threatened the intrigue in order to obtain the treaty.
It was in accordance with this design that Florida-
blanca drew up a new plan for a treaty with the United
States.10 The date of the letter transmitting this plan,
when compared with that of the order relating to
d'Argès's commission, indicates the intimate con-
nection between the two. Both documents were dated
September 5, 1787. The proposed treaty was to be of
indefinite duration, though at the end of ten years it
might be denounced by either power. It contained
important concessions to the Americans. The southern
boundary of the United States was fixed at the thirty-
first parallel, except for the district of Natchez, which
was to remain in Spain's possession. Floridablanca's
previous insistence on Spain's exclusive control of the
Southern Indian tribes was abandoned. Even in regard
to the navigation of the Mississippi some concession
was made, for it was stipulated that a joint commission
be appointed to inquire into the validity of the Ameri-
can claims. While this concession would have brought
no immediate relief to American commerce on the
Mississippi, it nevertheless involved an important
surrender of principle by the Spanish government,
for hitherto it had refused even to discuss the claim
of the United States. This retreat was an evidence
of the terms Floridablanca was prepared to agree to
in the face of simultaneous threats from England
and the American frontiersmen. With the united force
of the d'Argès project and the new treaty plan, of intim-
CHEVALIER OF THE ORDER OF ST. LOUIS 85
idation and conciliation, he hoped to enlist the Atlantic
States in the defense of the Spanish empire against its
two most dreaded enemies, England and the American
frontiersmen.
ANOTHER FAILURE
The story of d'Argès's mission is soon told. Culti-
vated by the Spanish ambassador in Paris, treated with
consideration by the secretary of state in San Ildefonso,
enabled by the royal bounty to replenish his meagre
wardrobe and to secure a servant and three horses, and
given his passage on the royal packet from Coruña to
New York, the poor man began to encounter from the
day of his arrival in America a systematic frustration
of his and the ministry's plans that embittered his life
for the next year and ended only with his return in
disgust to Paris in 1789. He was to find how obedient
servants of the king could prevent the execution of His
Catholic Majesty's express orders.
The ship that brought d'Argès to New York brought
Gardoqui a double mortification. The new treaty plan
caused him by its very reasonableness the exquisite
anguish that comes from thinking of achievements that
might have been. For more than two years he had
labored vainly to win the distinction of success in this
his maiden effort in diplomacy, but the inflexibility
of his government's demands had prevented agreement
at the favorable moment when economic depression
and political chaos inclined the United States to con-
ciliation. Now that his government had at last moder-
ated its demands there was no longer an American
government with which Gardoqui could negotiate.
With a world of feeling latent in his discreet reticence,
he assured his chief that had the terms contained in
86
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
this new plan been offered in the beginning he could
have concluded the treaty without difficulty and to the
court's complete satisfaction." In the spring of 1788,
however, the old government of the United States
would not act pending the establishment of the new,
and yet the establishment of the new was still problem-
atical. In the field of diplomacy nothing could be
done to restrain the American frontier. Florida-
blanca's new plan fell on stony ground. The only hope
left Gardoqui was that he might convince his chief that
he was not to blame for the fruitlessness of his long
negotiation.
Not only was Gardoqui's past embittered by a vain
regret. His future as well was clouded by the ministry's
well-meant effort to assist him in his task. The d'Argès
project, which came too late to forward his negotiation,
threatened to strike from his hand the new instrument
with which he hoped to serve his king and secure his
own advancement in the royal service. Ever since his
confidential interview with James White in 1786,
Gardoqui had continued to take a lively interest in the
affairs of the American frontier, but pending Florida-
blanca's reply to the report of that conversation he
could take no further step in the matter. By the late
fall of 1787 Gardoqui had heard through Governor
O'Neill of Pensacola of James Wilkinson's favorable
reception at New Orleans. Renewing his leisurely
conferences with White, he was brought up with a turn
by d'Argès's arrival with a commission to visit the
Western settlements of the United States. For all the
chargé knew, d'Argès might gather into his hands
the threads of the Western intrigue. In order to un-
derstand Gardoqui's relentless animosity to the French-
man, one must remember that he had nothing whatever
T
CHEVALIER OF THE ORDER OF ST. LOUIS 87
to do with calling d'Argès to the attention of the
Spanish court, and consequently could claim none of
the credit for any benefit that Spain might derive from
the mission. The chargé had not taken any part in
initiating the project, nor could he insinuate himself
into it. D'Argès's orders stated that Gardoqui might
give him a companion for the Western journey, but
they also stated expressly that d'Argès might precede
his companion to Kentucky and summon him when it
seemed expedient to him.
Gardoqui's treatment of the court's agent was
annihilating. He first insisted that d'Argès take as his
companion one of the officials of the legation, Jaudenes
and Viar, and when the Chevalier objected that the
secretaries knew very little English and nothing about
Kentucky, Gardoqui darkly hinted to Floridablanca
that his reluctance indicated a guilty conscience and
treacherous designs. He then forced the Frenchman
to give up the itinerary approved by the court, and,
instead of going by way of Fort Pitt and the Ohio
directly to Kentucky, to take the absurdly long
détour by way of Havana and New Orleans. Instead
of a few weeks, many months would elapse before
d'Argès's arrival in Kentucky, if indeed he did not lose
his scalp on the dangerous path from Natchez through
the Indian country and Cumberland to Lexington.
Gardoqui wrote Floridablanca letters bristling with
charges and innuendoes against him, suggesting,
among other things, that he probably had been and
might still be in the pay of France. 12 The chargé then
wrote Miró a letter designed still further to delay
d'Argès on his arrival in New Orleans. 13 Then having
by these measures kept the field clear or so he
thought for his own agent, he hastened to despatch
Magkakak
-
▾
88
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
that agent, James White, to the Western settlements.
How White fared we shall see in another place.
THE SHADOW OF JAMES WILKINSON
Resentful, but obedient since Gardoqui held the
purse-strings, d'Argès left by sea to encounter fresh
disappointments in New Orleans. Miró also had his
project of intrigue from which he hoped to win pro-
motion and perhaps undying fame, and needed no
instigation from Gardoqui to induce him to interpose
further delays in the Chevalier's slow progress to the
American frontier. His pretext for delaying d'Argès's
progress was much better than Gardoqui's, for his
conspiracy with James Wilkinson, to which we shall
return presently, was further advanced than the
chargé's with White, and he was really justified in ex-
pecting an answer from the court at almost any time,
and therefore in detaining the Chevalier until the
answer arrived.14
Through no fault of Miró's, since the court's decision
on Wilkinson's memorial was long delayed, d'Argès was
kept waiting for almost a full year after his arrival at
New Orleans in May, 1788. In the interval he lost
patience and received permission to go to French Santo
Domingo on business pending further instructions.
When the order finally arrived from Spain, it showed
that d'Argès had been replaced by Wilkinson as
Spain's agent in Kentucky. At the same time, the order
expressed His Majesty's sense of obligation to the
Chevalier and directed Miró to employ him as a captain
of militia at some frontier post in Louisiana. Miró
accordingly offered him the command of the post just
established at New Madrid in the proposed colony of
George Morgan. Spurning this offer, d'Argès retired
CHEVALIER OF THE ORDER OF ST. LOUIS 89
to Paris, and we hear no more of him in the history of
the Mississippi Valley.15
Gardoqui's despatches made it clear that d'Argès's
mission had no chance of success in its principal object,
for Congress was too weak even to be frightened. The
negotiation could not be renewed until the new govern-
ment was established, and no one could say how long
that might be. In the interim Spain could not afford to
remain inactive, for the American West was in a tur-
moil of excitement, full of resentment against both its
own government and Spain. A storm was brewing on
the Ohio, and it was Floridablanca's duty to see that it
did not break over the Spanish empire.
CHAPTER VII
INTRIGUE AND IMMIGRATION
THE intrigue between the American frontiersmen and
the Spanish government has usually been regarded as
something essentially Spanish. Its very name, "The
Spanish Intrigue," indicates the interpretation put
upon it by American writers.¹ This may be due to the
conviction that intrigue is something essentially un-
American; that the countrymen of the Borgias could
reach a given objective only by a détour, while the
American frontiersman always moved, as did the bullet
from his trusty rifle, straight to the target. Whatever
the reason for its currency, the phrase is rather mis-
leading, for it gives the impression that the intrigue
was primarily the work of Spain. As a matter of fact,
the frontiersmen made the first overtures, deceived the
Spanish government as well as their own, and were the
sole gainers by the intrigue. A much more appropriate
designation would be "the frontier intrigue with Spain."
CONGRESS ALIENATES THE FRONTIERSMEN
The American frontiersmen took the initiative in this
correspondence. Two of their propositions, those of
d'Argès and White, made to Aranda and Gardoqui
respectively, we have already discussed, and we have
seen how, although they were only partially accepted
by Spain, they contained ideas that made a seductive
appeal to the embarrassed Floridablanca. Before taking
up the third proposition, that of James Wilkinson, and
observing how it was received at court, we must inquire
into the circumstances that disposed these secular
90
INTRIGUE AND IMMIGRATION
91
backwoodsmen to conspire with the government of
Torquemada.
One of the most powerful forces in American political
life in the 1780's, whether in the West, the East or the
South, was particularism. Traditions of British local
government and the practice of colonial times had given
it factual currency. Montesquieu's theory of the geo-
graphical influence in politics had given it the dignity
of an idea, and the Revolution had consecrated it. The
people of the Atlantic coast had nothing to learn from
the Mississippi Valley in this respect. What the
frontiersmen did was merely to take a widespread idea
and reinterpret it in conformity with their peculiar
necessities.
By the very mode of its settlement the West of our
period was dedicated to particularism. Its communities
were established by the individual initiative of land
speculator and pioneer in flat defiance of the colonial
governments of North Carolina and Virginia as in the
case of the Holston settlements of western North Caro-
lina and Richard Henderson's colony of Transylvania
in Kentucky — or with at most the passive acquiescence
of the revolutionary state governments, as in the case
of Cumberland.2 By their own efforts these settlements
maintained themselves, receiving from the foster-parent
state little more than the skeleton of government, which
they themselves had to invest with living substance.
The frontiersmen felt that the Atlantic States were
much more interested in Western lands than in Western
people, and that even with the best will in the world
legislatures sitting at Williamsburg, Virginia, and
Hillsborough, North Carolina, were incapacitated by
remoteness and the intervening mountains from giving
good government to the Mississippi Valley settlements.
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
Current ideas with regard to natural frontiers and the
economic basis of political systems pointed to the
erection of these Western communities. into separate
states with equal membership in the Federal Union,
if indeed they remained a part of it at all.³
92
The example of the American Revolution, so vividly
recent, exerted a powerful influence over the frontiers-
men, who now thought of themselves as playing the
part of oppressed colonists, with the Atlantic govern-
ments in the rôle of tyrant formerly filled by George III.4
Declaiming in the manner of Patrick Henry and Samuel
Adams against taxation and misgovernment, the fron-
tiersmen followed the process through its various stages
of conventions, petitions, and remonstrances to the
culminating step, a declaration of independence. At
first, however, they sought only what the Atlantic
colonists had at first tried to secure from England:
recognition as autonomous members of a federative.
empire. This was the situation from 1783 to 1786, when
the indignation of the frontier was directed against the
individual states alone and the frontiersmen professed
devotion to Congress.
In 1786 the situation assumed a new and dangerous
aspect. The frontiersmen's illusion of a beneficent
Congress was shattered and many of them began to
question the advisability of a continued union with the
Atlantic States on any terms whatever. "This change of
sentiment was due in part to the resolution of Congress
authorizing the conclusion of a treaty with Spain that
would close the Mississippi to American shipping for a
generation. The "secret" resolution of Congress was
adopted in August, 1786, and by the following Decem-
ber it was common property in Kentucky. The indigna-
tion of the people there was white-hot, and they pro-
INTRIGUE AND IMMIGRATION
93
tested that they had been sacrificed for the benefit of
Eastern fishermen and farmers.5
Other grievances increased their ire against Congress.
The state of Franklin had applied for admission to the
Union and had been rebuffed. Might other frontier
communities expect more friendly treatment? The
Indian policy of Congress was still more offensive to
them. Unable to protect the Kentuckians against the
Northern tribes, Congress seemed actually to favor the
Southern Indians over their white neighbors in western
North Carolina. Its commissioners negotiated a treaty
with the Cherokee Indians in December, 1785, that
aroused keen resentment in North Carolina and Vir-
ginia, not merely among the frontiersmen but on the
Atlantic coast as well, for it restored to the Indians,
under a perpetual guarantee, lands granted and settled
under the authority of the state of North Carolina.
One of the leaders of the state of Franklin, Alexander
Outlaw, declared that the commissioners of Congress
who negotiated this treaty were forcing the frontier
people to give up their "just Right," and Patrick Henry
roundly affirmed that Congress's whole treatment of the
Southwest revealed the determination of the jealous
Northern majority in that body to prevent the develop-
ment of the South and Southwest."
<<
THE MEN OF THE WESTERN WATERS
The result was that by the end of 1786 there were
many people in the West who were threatening not
merely separation from the parent states on the Atlan-
tic, but secession from the United States. It was no
longer autonomy but outright independence that the
more radical frontiersmen were planning, and this new
phase of particularism was all the more dangerous be-
94
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
cause its goal was a new Union, a Mississippi Valley
republic. The very phrase with which they described
themselves, "the men of the Western waters," suggested
unity by indicating the bond of union: all of these
settlements were situated on the waters of the Ohio on
or near the Cumberland plateau. Indian affairs and the
navigation of the Mississippi were matters of common
interest in these settlements, and when they were not
managed to the satisfaction of the people there, inflam-
matory addresses were circulated and committees of
correspondence formed in Kentucky, Cumberland,
Franklin, and even western Pennsylvania. So far the
frontiersmen had closely and consciously imitated the
patriots of '76, but there was still one step that they had
not taken they had not yet sought foreign aid against
the oppressor. There was curiously enough much talk
of British intervention, but it came to nothing. The
current of the rivers that passed their doors pointed to
Spain as the nation that should play the part of France
in this second American Revolution. Floridablanca,
however, was no Vergennes, and Wilkinson no Wash-
ington.
8
It was commerce, as we have said, that formed the
substantial basis of the Spanish intrigue, commerce
by the Mississippi and Alabama Rivers, commerce
already established and commerce only dreamed of.
Some question has been raised as to the genuineness of
the frontiersmen's interest in the navigation of the
Mississippi. It was said at the time, and has been
repeated since, that the opposition to Jay's proposals
of 1786 came not from bona-fide inhabitants of the
West, but from land speculators and anti-Federalists;
that the volume of commerce on the river was too small
to justify the outcry raised against Jay's proposals.⁹
7
INTRIGUE AND IMMIGRATION
95
It is true that land speculators were extremely active
in exciting this opposition,10 but it is difficult to draw
the line between speculators and frontiersmen, since
most of the leading frontiersmen were engaged in land
speculation. It is also true that the volume of American
commerce on the Mississippi was very small. In the
three years 1782-84 the port records of New Orleans
show that arrivals at that port from the American
settlements were only ten flatboats, and that their
total cargo consisted of 2640 barrels of flour. In the
three years 1785-87, owing to the closing of the river
by royal proclamation, there was not a single American
arrival at New Orleans. In 1788 the only arrivals were
James Wilkinson's five flatboats, whose cargo consisted
largely of tobacco. In 1789 there were no arrivals. In
1790, after the reopening of the river by Spain, eighteen
flatboats arrived with miscellaneous cargoes, principally
tobacco, beef and flour.11
The volume of this commerce is certainly not impos-
ing and it was one-sided, for goods were almost never
sent up the river to the American settlements. The
first impression gathered from these statistics must,
however, be corrected by two considerations. In the
first place, they are incomplete, since a great deal of
smuggling went on and since a large part of the exports
from the American settlements stopped at Natchez and
so was not recorded in the New Orleans office. In the
second place, not even the most complete and reliable
statistics would give us an accurate index of the impor-
tance of the Mississippi River to the Western settle-
ments of the United States. The leaders of the fron-
tiersmen were for the most part men who lived in the
future, who were engaged in real estate developments,
and whose success in their enterprises depended upon
96
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
the possibility of assuring prospective purchasers of
land a ready outlet for their products. The Mississippi
offered the only possible means of exporting bulky
products of the soil, for freight rates over the moun-
tains were prohibitive. Even in the case of manufac-
tured goods, freight charges from Philadelphia to
Knoxville amounted to about forty per cent of the cost
in Philadelphia.12 Ever since the line of settlement
passed beyond the tidewater region, the American
frontiersman has been profoundly interested in all
questions relating to transportation, and it would have
been surprising indeed if frontiersmen who could become
so excited over the building of a turnpike or the digging
of a canal had taken no interest in the opening of the
Mississippi, that most gigantic and comprehensive of
all their transportation problems.
THE ROMANTIC TRADESMAN
James Wilkinson, merchant, took it on himself to
lead his fellow-frontiersmen out of the wilderness. A
brevet brigadier general during the Revolution, he often
led the Kentucky militia against the Indians after its
close. Employed in the commissary department during
the Revolution, he soon became one of Kentucky's most
active merchants. Connected, though not implicated,
with Benedict Arnold, he used the same cyphers,
aprons" and other devices in his correspondence
with the Spaniards that Arnold had employed in his
correspondence with the British. Wilkinson was a
romantic tradesman. "My passion is military fame,'
he once confessed,13 and it was his ambition to make
himself the "Washington of the West"; but he also had
another passion, and one not so frankly confessed: to
make himself the Willing of the West, the merchant
66
""
INTRIGUE AND IMMIGRATION
97
prince of the Ohio Valley. So heavy were his shipments
to New Orleans after his first visit there that Governor
Miró felt obliged to write him a letter of protest, even
at the risk of offending his only agent in Kentucky.14
When Wilkinson first came to Kentucky in 1784, it
was merely as the agent of a mercantile company in
Philadelphia; but with the Irishman's usual flair for
politics, he succeeded in taking a prominent part in the
numerous Kentucky conventions of the next few years.15
When the events of the troubled year 1786 alienated
the frontiersmen from Congress, he quickly sensed the
trend of frontier sentiment and got in touch with the
Spanish officials of Louisiana. His opportunity came
with the action of his rival for military fame, George
Rogers Clark, in confiscating at Vincennes the property
of some French traders who were subjects of Spain.
Wilkinson and his friend, Colonel Richard Anderson,
speaking as the mouthpiece of the law-abiding citizens
of Kentucky, wrote the Spanish commandant at St.
Louis reprobating the violence of Clark and his accom-
plices. These two letters, Wilkinson's written in French,
were delivered by their messenger, who was doubtless
the bearer of more interesting verbal assurances from
these Kentuckians. Their overtures were well received,
and it was no doubt to this episode that Wilkinson owed
his success, where so many others had failed, in getting
safely past the Spanish posts on his way to New Orleans.¹
WILKINSON'S MEMORIAL AND THE SPANISH
16
COURT
Here he remained for three months in constant inter-
course of the most friendly nature with Governor Miró,
Intendant Navarro and the governor's secretary and
interpreter, Armesto. On September 5, 1787, just as
98 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
Floridablanca was issuing the orders relating to d'Argès's
mission, Wilkinson presented to Miró and Navarro a
memorial 17 which was doubtless the joint product of
their three minds. In this memorial he pointed out that
the population of the American West was increasing
with great rapidity, and that discontent was keeping
pace with growing numbers; discontent with Spain for
closing the Mississippi and with Congress for acquiesc-
ing in its closure. The consequences to Spain might be
disastrous, for the Westerners were determined to open
the river to their commerce and the weak defences of
Louisiana could not withstand an invasion. There
were, however, two means, and only two, by which a
catastrophe might be averted and the situation turned
to Spain's advantage. The government should either
build up a Spanish party in Kentucky by a judicious
manipulation of commercial regulations on the Missis-
sippi, and then foment a revolution that would result
in secession from the Union and the formation of a
close connection with Spain; or it should adopt an
immigration policy with such liberal concessions in
the way of land grants, religious toleration and polit-
ical privileges as would depopulate Kentucky and fill
the waste spaces of Louisiana. In either case James
Wilkinson was to occupy a privileged position as the
sole agent of Spain. He preferred the first of these
measures and asked that he be given a monopolistic
control of exportations from Kentucky down the
Mississippi, justifying this extraordinary demand on
the ground that such power was necessary to enable
him to build up a Spanish party in Kentucky. Two
weeks after submitting this memorial he was on his way
home. We shall see in the next chapter how he fared
on his return to Kentucky.
INTRIGUE AND IMMIGRATION
99
Miró and Navarro welcomed the proposals eagerly
and in a joint despatch forwarded the memorial to the
court with a fervid recommendation.18 Their enthusi-
asm is easily understood. Wilkinson had by all accounts
a pleasing presence and a plausible manner, and the
Spanish officials were keenly alive to the American
menace, against which Navarro had for seven years
been urging his government to prepare. The device
that he had recommended the economic strangula-
tion of the American West by the closing of the Missis-
sippi - had proved a failure. The means of defence
in Louisiana were scanty, and its governors had no
information service to warn them of an impending
invasion. Their first warning would be the appearance
of the invaders. To these considerations we must add
the common desire to merit promotion and win fame by
rendering a signal service to the crown.
Their joint despatch was dated September 25, 1787,
and Miró expected to have the court's answer by April,
1788. He actually received it in March, 1789. The
delay was due not to Spanish slothfulness, but to the
weightiness of the matter and to the fact that when
Wilkinson's memorial reached Madrid (January,
1788),19 the fate of d'Argès's mission and the related
negotiation of Gardoqui was still unknown to Florida-
blanca. It was not until April 19, 1788, that Gardoqui
wrote his final report on this subject, informing the
secretary of state that neither d'Argès's mission nor
threats nor persuasion could secure a treaty from the
moribund Congress of the Confederation and that the
negotiation must be suspended until the adoption of
the new federal constitution and the establishment
of the new government, both of which were still pro-
blematical.
100 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
Even after the arrival of Gardoqui's despatch, there
was still reason for delay. Untimely death had recently
deprived Floridablanca of two advisers on whose coun-
sel he was accustomed to rely in questions relating to
the Mississippi Valley, José and Bernardo de Gálvez.
There remained only one other person who possessed
both the requisite knowledge of the affairs of Louisiana
and the confidence of the court. That person was
Martin Navarro. Relieved of the intendancy at his
own request, he left Louisiana in May, 1788, for Spain.
On his arrival the papers relating to Wilkinson's memo-
rial were submitted to him for his advice and he was
consulted on other matters relating to Louisiana.
By this time (October, 1788) a mass of information
had accumulated in Floridablanca's office that related
in one way or another to Wilkinson's proposals, and it
gained added value from the fact that it proceeded
from many independent sources, from Havana, New
York and St. Augustine as well as from New Orleans.
Three important facts were brought out in high relief
by this information: first, that Floridablanca's Amer-
ican policy of 1787 must be modified, since Congress
was impotent either to make a treaty or to restrain
its frontiersmen from attacking Spain in America;
second, that there was a general disposition in the
southern and western parts of the United States to
drive the Spaniards out of Louisiana and the Floridas;
and third, that many Americans, Germans, Irishmen
and Frenchmen were desirous of settling in those prov-
inces as Spanish subjects.20 In the light of this infor-
mation, Navarro submitted his recommedations on
Wilkinson's memorial. Calling attention to the failure
of the system that he himself had recommended in 1781
and that had been adopted in 1784- namely, the
•
INTRIGUE AND IMMIGRATION
101
strangulation of the American West by the closing of
the Mississippi to American commerce- he pointed
out the urgent necessity of a new system and recom-
mended the adoption with modifications of both of
Wilkinson's proposals.21
On November 20 the Junta de Estado, or Council of
Ministers, met and decided as follows: Wilkinson was
substitued for d'Argès as Spain's agent in Kentucky,
but neither of his alternative plans was adopted out-
right. His proposal that Spain foment a revolution in
the American West was flatly rejected. The Junta
declared that until the frontiersmen established their
independence Spain could form no connection with
them. Nor did the Junta temper this refusal in any way.
The correspondence with Wilkinson was to be con-
tinued, but neither Miró nor any other Spanish official
was authorized to spend a single peso in encouraging a
frontier revolution or to make any promises to the
revolutionists or any engagements with them. The
Floridablanca of 1788 was on this point in perfect
agreement with the Floridablanca of 1778. However
much Spain might wish to profit by revolution, the
Spanish monarchy could not afford to be implicated
in fomenting it, least of all in a country so close to its
own dominions. Nor was Wilkinson's proposal with
regard to immigration and commerce on the Mississippi
adopted in the form in which he had made it. Instead
of granting him the monopoly right to issue permits for
the use of the river· a measure which he declared essen-
tial both in order to build up a Spanish party in Ken-
tucky and also to stimulate emigration to Louisiana
the Junta decided to permit all the American fron-
tiersmen without exception to use the Mississippi as
far south as New Orleans subject to a fifteen per cent
102 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
duty, which might be reduced to six per cent in indi-
vidual cases at Miró's discretion. Instead of making
Wilkinson its sole immigration agent in Kentucky, the
ministry established general rules for the admission of
immigrants and welcomed all comers. Land grants,
equal commercial privileges with other Spanish sub-
jects, and religious toleration were promised all im-
migrants who took the oath of loyalty and became bona-
fide settlers. The decision of the Junta took the form of
a royal order to Miró dated December 1, 1788, and
received by him in March of the following year. 22
To regard this order as solely or even primarily a
document in the history of the "Spanish intrigue"
would be utterly to misunderstand the policy of the
Spanish government. The order had three objects. The
first was to mollify the American West; the second,
to encourage a revolution in that region by indirect
means that would not implicate the Spanish govern-
ment; the third, to secure immigrants for Louisiana
and West Florida. The first object was apparently con-
sidered by the Junta of greater immediate consequence
than the second, for in deciding upon the concessions to
be granted the Americans on the Mississippi it adopted
not the system which Wilkinson had declared necessary
to precipitate a revolution, but a system which would
appease the wrath of the American frontiersmen. Most
important of all was the third object, immigration,
for while the Mississippi was opened under restrictions
to the Americans, their privileges were far inferior to
those of Americans who would emigrate to Spanish
territory and become Spanish subjects.
The immigration policy that Floridablanca, with the
approval of the Junta, adopted in this crisis represents
a heroic effort on the part of Spain to adapt its ancient
INTRIGUE AND IMMIGRATION
103
colonial policy to the needs of its frontier provinces,
Louisiana and West Florida. The cédula of 1782 had
liberalized the commercial system of these colonies, and
the royal order of December 1, 1788, similarly liberal-
ized their immigration system. Formerly none but
Spaniards and Catholics had been permitted to settle
in the colonies of Spain.23 Now two of them were thrown
open to aliens and heretics, who were not only permitted
but encouraged to settle there, to become Spanish
subjects, to accept free lands, to enjoy all the privileges
of subjects of His Catholic Majesty. The importance of
the grant of religious toleration can hardly be overes-
timated. The king of Spain was still the Catholic king,
Catholic above all others. Toleration was utterly at
variance with the whole of Spanish policy, and its grant
in the case of Louisiana and West Florida shows the
importance that the Spanish government attached to
the development of those provinces. It was an experi-
ment forced upon Spain by the requirements of its
frontier conflict with the United States, a device adopted
to aid Spain in that most vital phase of the frontier
conflict, the competition for immigrants.24
SETTLING THE GOTHS AT THE GATES OF ROME
A foolhardy experiment, one is inclined to say, this
attempt to make silk purses out of sows' ears, Spanish
subjects out of American frontiersmen; to turn the
Clarks, Seviers and Robertsons of the American West
into faithful vassals of the Catholic king. When Thomas
Jefferson heard of this policy of "settling the Goths at
the gates of Rome," he wrote in high glee: "I wish a
hundred thousand of our inhabitants would accept the
invitation. It will be the means of delivering to us
peaceably what may otherwise cost us a war." 25 In
104
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
the light of Spain's subsequent experience in West
Florida and Mexico's in Texas, the policy seems to have
been suicidal; and indeed the inimitable Wilkinson
in his "Memoirs" claimed the gratitude of his country-
men on the ground that this immigration policy,
adopted by Spain on his recommendation, had facili-
tated the acquisition of Louisiana by the United
States.26
And yet there was reason in this madness, reason that
appears if we remember the form in which this question
of policy was presented to the Spanish government.
The form was this: Would the American frontiersmen
be less dangerous to Spain in Louisiana or in Kentucky?
The geographical unity of the Mississippi Valley
required the problem to be stated in these terms. It
was not an abstract question of the merits of toleration
or the docility of the Americans, but a very concrete
problem of protecting the Spanish dominions against
the thousands of turbulent Americans in the Ohio
Valley. Spain had first tried through diplomacy (1782-
83) to check the growth of the American settlements
in the Ohio Valley. This had failed. She had then
tried to effect the same purpose by closing the Missis-
sippi to American commerce (1784-87). This too had
failed. She had simultaneously given diplomacy an-
other trial in Gardoqui's mission, and his tedious
negotiation (1785-88) had likewise failed. The day of
the Mississippi Valley had arrived. Its development
by the hand of the white man was progressing rapidly.
This development was taking place not in the Spanish
dominions, whose population increased slowly, but in
the territory of the United States, where a much more
liberal system than the Spanish prevailed.
Those who settled in the Ohio Valley that is, in
INTRIGUE AND IMMIGRATION
105
+
the territory of the United States were not only lost.
to Spain, but might also easily become the enemies
of Spain. The Spanish government must both increase
the population of its own frontier provinces and dimin-
ish the population of the American border settlements.
The quickest way to effect this double purpose was
to attract settlers from the American frontier into
Louisiana.
M
In any case, even had Louisiana not been in need of
immigrants, its safety required the reduction of the
neighboring American settlements. Unstable equilib-
rium characterized their social and political life. Re-
sentment against Spain might cause an invasion of
Louisiana. Disaffection towards the United States
might result in secession from the Union. Moreover,
many of these frontiersmen regarded their present
settlements as temporary and wished to move further
down the Mississippi nearer its mouth. Why not make
it possible for them to do so under Spanish rule? Indi-
vidually they did not seem formidable to Spain. It was
their situation that made them dangerous. The lack
of an established government made them unruly and
the lack of a market made them discontented. Their
chief military advantage over Spain lay in their remote-
ness, which made it possible for them to conduct in the
profoundest secrecy their preparations for an invasion.
All this would be changed if they were settled in Loui-
siana or in the district of Natchez. There they would
from the outset be accustomed to a firm governing
hand, and would have a ready outlet for their products;
and there, if they could not be trusted, they could at
least be watched.
There are two other considerations that must be
kept in mind if we wish to understand Floridablanca's
106 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
adoption of this immigration policy. In the first place,
all his informants assured him that the people of the
Western settlements were for various reasons indiffer-
ent or hostile to the United States, that they were for
the most part either of foreign extraction — French,
German, Irish or were refugees from the Atlantic
States Loyalists, debtors, criminals. Such people
could the more readily be made docile Spanish subjects,
as they were not bound by ties of sentiment to any other
country, and the strong government of Spain would
restrain their wayward tendencies. In the second
place, a somewhat similar experiment had already
been made in Natchez district and the results had been
very favorable. The district, conquered by Bernardo
de Gálvez in the recent war against England, was inhab-
ited almost entirely by people of English and American
origin, most of whom were Protestants. For seven
years now since the close of the war they had lived
quietly under Spanish rule, manifesting scant sympathy
for the Georgia commissioners at the time of the Bour-
bon County episode, and little disposition to rebel.
The contentment of this growing district gave Florida-
blanca some reason for thinking that Spain might
govern large numbers of Americans with success.27
We shall return later to the operation of this immi-
gration policy. For the moment we need only note that
its success depended on the government's ability to
provide a market for the immigrants' products, on its
giving them a decided preference over the inhabitants
of the American settlements in the use of the Mississippi,
and on its ability to secure them immunity from the
Indian attacks that vexed the American settlements.
Without these incentives to emigrate, the American fron-
tiersman might as well remain with his freer fellows on
INTRIGUE AND IMMIGRATION
107
the Cumberland, the Kentucky and the Holston. As for
the other objects of the royal order of December 1, 1788,
the frontiersmen would certainly be highly pleased with
even the partial opening of the Mississippi to their
commerce, but Spain must be careful to give no new
offence; and we shall see in the next chapter whether
they were inclined to rebel for Spain's benefit without
the aid of Spain.
#
CHAPTER VIII
THE UNION PRESERVED
WHILE Floridablanca was considering Wilkinson's
memorial and while the resultant order was on its way
to New Orleans, events were taking place on the
American frontier which seemed to give immediate
promise of the revolution that Floridablanca desired
but was not willing to pay for. To Wilkinson's protes-
tations of partiality for Spain on behalf of Kentucky
were added similar declarations by leading men in
Franklin and Cumberland. The Spanish government
might be justified in thinking that the Southwest was of
one mind, and that its mind was set on secession and
on an alliance with Spain. As it turned out, however,
there was, so far as Franklin and Cumberland were
concerned, only a brief intrigue with Spain, and no
conspiracy. There was no plot, and there were no con-
spirators. Overtures there were, inquiries and offers;
but the frontiersmen- and it was they who took the
initiative soon found that their interests and those
of Spain were irreconcilable. The intrigue was still-born
because Spanish policy could not grant what the
frontiersmen desired as the price of allegiance. There
was no conspiracy because Spain would not conspire.
In Kentucky the situation was different, and the in-
trigue went further and lasted longer than in the other
western settlements.
INTRIGUE AND LAND SPECULATION: FRANKLIN
Gardoqui's interest in an intrigue with the frontiers-
men was revived by the arrival of d'Argès in New York
108
THE UNION PRESERVED
109
early in 1788, and he urged James White to visit the
Western settlements in the interest of Spain. White,
who had just heard of Sevier's defeat in a factional con-
flict with Colonel John Tipton and thought that it
would incline Sevier to form a connection with Spain,
consented and set out for the West about May 1, 1788.¹
He found the situation in Franklin even more favorable
than he expected. For several years Sevier had been
engaged in an undertaking with other land speculators,
among them William Blount and Wade Hampton, to
establish a colony at Muscle Shoals. As we have seen,
this speculation was at first a private enterprise closely
connected with the creation of Houston County (1784)
under the authority of the state of Georgia. After the
establishment of the state of Franklin it became a part
of the expansionist programme of that state, and was
linked with Georgia's projected campaign against the
Creek Indians. Georgia's abandonment of the plan of
campaign at the end of 1787 brought about the collapse
of Sevier's Franklin government, which was signalized
by his defeat in the affray with Tipton in February,
1788. From February until July of that year, he lived
among the disorderly squatters of the extreme frontier,
harrying the Indians and marking their lands for
settlement, his interest in the Muscle Shoals scheme
still unabated. According to his own story, White found
little difficulty in persuading Sevier and other Franklin-
ites to enter into an intrigue with Spain. In July,
Sevier wrote Gardoqui a friendly letter. In September,
after his arrest had been ordered by Governor Johnson
and after North Carolina had failed to ratify the federal
constitution, he wrote two more letters to the Spanish
envoy. In the briefer of these two letters, which
probably gives us Sevier's chief reason for appealing
110
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
to Spain, he informed Gardoqui of his Muscle Shoals
project and asked that Spain use its influence with the
Indians to facilitate the colony's establishment.
That the execution of this scheme was the Franklin-
ites' chief object in their intrigue with Spain appeared
still more clearly when James White, returning to New
York, was sent by way of Havana to New Orleans to
continue the intrigue with Miró. White's own written
statement, the report of the governor of Havana, and
the letters of Gayoso, then in Havana on his way to
Natchez, all show White's eagerness to secure Spanish
support for an extension of the state of Franklin down
the Tennessee beyond Muscle Shoals, and to persuade
Spain to open the Alabama River as well as the Mis-
sissippi to the colonists of this frontier state.
Such a scheme was incompatible with the interests
and policy of Spain. The Spanish government was open-
ing the Mississippi partially and reluctantly, fearing
contraband trade; the opening of the Alabama would
greatly increase the risk of smuggling. The Spanish
defensive system depended in large measure on Indian
alliances, and Spain could not afford to offend her
savage allies by countenancing a further intrusion upon
their lands. Spain was seeking to break up the au-
tonomous American settlements in the Mississippi
valley, and the project of Sevier and White would, if
carried into effect, bring the American frontier two
hundred miles further down the Tennessee and danger-
ously close to Mobile and Natchez.
When White arrived in New Orleans (April, 1789),
Miró had just received the royal order of December 1,
1788, in answer to Wilkinson's proposals. In con-
formity with this order he drew up his reply to White,
informing him of the partial opening of the Mississippi
•
THE UNION PRESERVED
111
to the Western Americans and of Spain's inability to
negotiate with the frontier settlements so long as they
remained a part of the United States, and urging the
frontiersmen to settle as Spanish subjects in Spanish
territory. Verbally he tried to persuade White to incite
the people of Franklin and Cumberland to declare their
independence, but he gave no assurance as to how
Spain would aid the revolutionists or what treatment
it would accord them when their independence was
established. The court's ultimate decision in 1790 was
in effect a confirmation of Miró's provisional reply to
White. These mountaineers who longed for the plains
could get no help from Spain for their expansionist
project, and so Sevier abandoned the intrigue.
INTRIGUE AND INDIAN RAVAGES: CUMBERLAND
In Cumberland likewise the intrigue never got be-
yond the preliminary stage.2 As soon as each side
perceived what the other wanted, the correspondence
came to an abrupt end. Unlike the maturer and expand-
ing Holston settlements, Cumberland was still an
insecurely established outpost of the Southwestern
frontier. Its remoteness and its scanty population
scattered in a long thin line of "stations" along the
Cumberland River, made it an easy victim to Indian
attacks. Its competition in the Southern fur trade
brought down upon it the wrath of Panton and Mc-
Gillivray, and at the same time that the Creek began
their war on Georgia in 1786 they assailed Cumberland.
For the next three years they harassed it unmercifully.
McGillivray boasted at one time that he had broken up
the settlement, and Robertson admitted that trade and
immigration had been stopped by the Indian ravages
and that in a period of six months forty-eight of
112
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
the settlers were killed by the Indians. North Carolina
gave but little assistance. To their piteous complaints
Governor Johnston replied with the hard truth that
theirs was the common lot of frontier communities.
The Kentuckians would not admit Cumberland's plea
for incorporation in their proposed state, and Congress
showed no disposition to defend a country that it had
often and in vain asked North Carolina to cede to it.
3
The men of Cumberland cast about desperately for
a remedy. In April, 1788, they sent a delegation to
McGillivray offering to give him a town lot in Nash-
ville and to put themselves under Spanish protection
if only the Indians would cease their murderous
attacks. A few months later, having heard no doubt
rumors of the landing in East Florida of William
Augustus Bowles, reputed enemy of Spain and the
representative of British trading interests in the
Bahamas, and of McGillivray's momentary alienation
from Spain and friendship for Bowles, Robertson wrote
McGillivray hinting that Cumberland would gladly
join him in the conquest of the neighboring Spanish
colonies. McGillivray, however, was soon reconciled
to the Spaniards and gave Robertson no encourage-
ment. This was the situation that produced the
Spanish intrigue in Cumberland. The intrigue was
Cumberland's last resort in securing relief from Indian
attacks as it had been Sevier's last resource in securing
aid for his Muscle Shoals settlement.
Lack of space forbids us to follow the development of
the intrigue in detail. It is enough to say that it had its
origin in Gardoqui's letter of April 18, 1788, to Elisha
Robertson and in the suggestions of one of Spain's
French subjects at the Illinois, the trader André Fagot;
that Andrew Jackson, recently arrived in Nashville,
THE UNION PRESERVED
113
and James Robertson and Daniel Smith, colonel and
brigadier general respectively of the militia, were the
chief agents in the intrigue; and that their objects in
undertaking it were to induce Spain to restrain the
Indians, to frighten North Carolina into ceding its
western territory to Congress, and incidentally to
secure commercial privileges from Spain on the Mis-
sissippi.
UNDERSTANDING AND ANTAGONISM
Though James White apparently had nothing to do
with their writing, his arrival in New Orleans coincided
with the delivery of letters to Miró from James Robert-
son and Daniel Smith. These letters, like Wilkinson's
to the commanding officer of St. Louis in 1786, were
written in carefully guarded terms; but again as in
Wilkinson's case a confidential messenger delivered the
letters. Fagot, the bearer of Smith's letter, assured
Miró that the frontiersmen were burning with eager-
ness to rebel and form a connection with Spain.
Miró replied similarly with an unincriminating letter
illuminated by the most urgent verbal incitement to
rebellion. Both messages, as we have seen, were en-
trusted to White, and they were in fact the same replies
that the governor sent to Franklin, White serving as
the messenger to both settlements. In the case of
Cumberland, Miró added personal letters to Smith and
Robertson that contained little beyond polite phrases,
assurances of good will, a vague promise to continue to
use his good offices with the Indians for the relief of
Cumberland, and a pressing invitation to settle in
Louisiana.
Miró's reply showed that the Cumberland settlers
had as little incentive as those of Franklin to continue
114
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
the intrigue with Spain. Incessant Indian attacks
proved that Miró was either insincere or that he was
unable to control the Indians. The navigation of the
Mississippi was, although under considerable restric-
tions, open to the settlers at Cumberland in accordance
with the royal order of December 1, 1788, whose sub-
stance was communicated to them by White. The
Spanish immigration policy, as outlined in Miró's reply,
showed in the clearest possible manner the conflict of
interest between the frontiersmen and Spain. Men like
James Robertson were dedicated by years of perilous
hardship to the success of their settlements, in which
they had material and spiritual interests at stake.
Spain was evidently determined that they should
either emigrate or rebel. To emigrate was to sacrifice
all that they had achieved and all that they hoped for
in Cumberland. To rebel against the United States was
to put themselves at Spain's mercy; and what terms
could they expect from His Catholic Majesty? The
answer to this question was indicated by the terms
offered immigrants to Spanish territory: a narrow
measure of religious toleration, and no privileges of
local autonomy. Moreover, Spain was an absolute
monarchy, with none of those constitutional guarantees
of life, liberty and property consecrated by English and
American tradition. Another reason why Smith and
Robertson lost interest in the intrigue may be that Miró
subordinated them to Wilkinson, informing the latter
of their advances and writing them in September, 1789,
letters which Wilkinson himself drew up and delivered
at Nashville on his return from New Orleans to Ken-
tucky.4
The effect of Spain's policy was apparent even while
White was still in New Orleans. He became increasingly
THE UNION PRESERVED
115
reserved as he perceived the trend of Spanish policy,
and Gayoso became correspondingly suspicious of his
sincerity and fearful of the Americans' ambitious
designs. The alienation of these two men is the clearest
proof of the irreconcilability of the interests of Spain
and the frontiersmen. Both were possessed of a high
degree of intelligence and of an accurate knowledge of
conditions in their respective countries, and intimate
association over a period of several months facilitated
an exchange of views and sentiments. Their disagree-
ment arose not from misunderstanding but precisely
from mutual comprehension. Upon his return to
Cumberland, White abandoned the intrigue and was
active in dissuading the frontiersmen from emigrating
to Louisiana. Smith and Robertson wrote the governor
of North Carolina in such a way as to let him see, with-
out revealing their part in it, that Spanish influence was
at work in Cumberland. Protesting against the presence
of a Spanish immigration agent there, they urged the
cession of North Carolina's western territory to Con-
gress in order to "quiet the minds of the people." In
September, 1789, there was held at Nashville a con-
vention which Miró had expected to declare the
independence of Cumberland, but which in fact
petitioned North Carolina to make the cession to
Congress. It was a fortunate coincidence that the new
federal government was established just at the time
when these frontiersmen discovered how little Spain
could do for them.
THE KENTUCKY SEPARATISTS
In Kentucky, which was justly regarded by Miró
and the Spanish ministry as the most important of the
Western settlements of the United States, the Spanish
116
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
policy of 1788 had a similar effect. It must be remem-
bered, however, that the court's reply to Wilkinson's
memorial of 1787 was not received by Miró until
March, 1789, when the most favorable moment in
Kentucky was long past. The influence of the delay is
hard to estimate, for on the one hand the court's silence
hampered Wilkinson, who could give the Kentuckians
no authoritative assurance of Spanish aid or even of
Spanish sympathy; and yet on the other hand the
court's reply of December 1, 1788, would not have
aided Wilkinson in the least even had it arrived a year
earlier. Although the conflict of interest between
Kentucky and Spain was not so keen as it was between
the North Carolina frontier settlements and that
power, yet it was evident from the court's reply that
Spanish policy required Kentucky first to commit
itself to secession and then to make the best terms
with Spain that it could. The order also contained a
provision which Wilkinson had warned in his memorial
of 1787 would be fatal to the building up of a Spanish
party in Kentucky, namely, the opening of the Mis-
sissippi to all the Western Americans.
5
Despite these unfavorable circumstances, there can
be no doubt that there was a separatist party of con-
siderable strength in Kentucky. The particularistic
tendencies common to all the frontier communities of
that day were reinforced in Kentucky by the presence
of a larger number of men of position and education
than the other western communities could boast.
Accustomed to command and familiar with the current
theoretical justifications of particularism, they found
extremely irksome a distant and unintelligent rule and
provided capable leadership for the separatists. For
nearly a decade a group of such men kept up an inter-
THE UNION PRESERVED
117
mittent intrigue with Spain. What the strength of
their following was we cannot say, but it is unthinkable
that men of the intelligence of James Wilkinson, Harry
Innes and John Brown would have risked their high
standing in Kentucky had they not known that their
dangerous intrigue had considerable support and
consequently a reasonable chance of success. Mere
rascality or greed alone will not account for the per-
sistent intrigue of these men with Spain, although
Wilkinson and Innes were ready enough to capitalize
their connections at New Orleans. Wilkinson, the best
paid of them all, did not receive a penny from any
Spanish official until his second visit to New Orleans in
1789. As the court had not yet pensioned him, he was
then advanced $7000 as a private loan by Miró and
gave security for its repayment. It was not until 1792
that the king finally granted him the pension of $2000
a year recommended by Miró. Moreover, the com-
mercial advantages over the other westerners enjoyed
by Wilkinson and his associates were not great, and
Wilkinson's first and largest commercial venture in his
relations with Spain was not at all successful.7
6
Altogether it seems highly probable that there was a
powerful separatist party in Kentucky in the decade
from 1786 to 1796; but to call it a "Spanish" party
would be misleading. Even Wilkinson, who over and
over protested his own devotion to Spain, warned Miró
that the other separatists would not tolerate the idea
of subjection to His Catholic Majesty and that Spain
could hope for nothing more than an alliance with
independent Kentucky. Remembering how leaders in
the other frontier communities, Franklin and Cumber-
land, had tried to exploit the intrigue for their own
ends, we may safely conclude that the Kentucky
8
118 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
separatists were seeking to use Spain as a cat's-paw to
pull the chestnut of Kentucky independence out of the
fire.
9
The climax of the Spanish conspiracy in its first
phase came with the convention of July, 1788, when,
according to Wilkinson, Innes and Sebastian openly
urged the convention to carry Kentucky out of the
Union. We know but little of the proceedings of that
convention, or of the considerations that led the con-
vention to reject the proposal. It was obvious, how-
ever, that the analogy so often drawn by frontier
agitators between their situation and that of the
Atlantic colonies in 1775 was far from perfect. Even
admitting genuine grievances and a diversity of in-
terest, the numbers, wealth and political experience of
the frontiersmen were inadequate for the maintenance
of an independent state, and their geographical situ-
ation was extremely likely to entail either a conflict
with Spain or subjection to it. The time for independ-
ence had not yet arrived.
This was the judgment of the convention, it seems,
for that body decided to await the result of the new
federal experiment; and when the substance of the
royal order of December 1, 1788, was communicated to
Wilkinson it gave the separatist cause another blow,
if we are to believe the arch-conspirator.10 In the face
of this check and of changed conditions, notably the
establishment of the new federal government, Wilkin-
son descended to New Orleans a second time in June,
1789, in order to look after his business affairs and
bring the conspiracy up to date." On his return to Ken-
tucky he continued his correspondence with the Span-
iards and played a waiting game, hoping for better
times. His hope was fulfilled several years later and
•
THE UNION PRESERVED
119
under very different conditions, which will be dis-
cussed in another place.
Meanwhile the governments on the Atlantic coast
had heard reports of the progress of the Spanish in-
trigue and rumors of a British intrigue in the West.
Alarmed at the prospect of disunion, they took meas-
ures to placate the Westerners. The legislatures of
Virginia and North Carolina, both on their own ac-
count and in the interest of the frontiersmen, passed
resolutions (1788) asserting the inalienable right of
their citizens to the navigation of the Mississippi.
Virginia gave encouragement to the movement in
Kentucky to form a separate state and secure ad-
mission into the Union. North Carolina extended
government facilities in its West, creating in Novem-
ber, 1788, a district to which it gave the name “Miro”
and erecting new counties. In December, 1789, it
pardoned Sevier and restored him to his former office
of brigadier general of militia. In November of that
year it again ceded its western territory to Congress,
as Smith and Robertson had so often requested it to
do, and this time the act was not repealed. Congress
accepted the cession without delay.
WASHINGTON AND THE WEST
The United States government also was forced to
modify its policy with regard to the West. The pro-
posed treaty with Spain was not negotiated. Even
General Washington, whose respect for discipline was
offended by frontier turbulence and who at first
thought the time had come to "speak decisively" to
the frontiersmen, was so alarmed in 1787 by the ferment
in the West that he advised that Jay's offensive pro-
posals be quietly dropped.12 In July, 1788, the Con-
120 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
gress of the Confederation adopted a resolution defer-
ring the Spanish negotiation until the establishment of
the new government of the United States, declaring
that its citizens had a natural and inalienable right to
the navigation of the Mississippi.13
When the new government was organized in 1789,
one of its chief problems was to conciliate the out-
raged West. Washington's diary for the years 1789
and 1790 shows that he was keenly alive to the frontier
problems involved in Indian affairs, Spanish relations
and land speculation.14 There was a manifest design
in his administration to convince the Western frontiers-
men that a new era had begun, that Eastern provin-
cialism was no longer in the ascendant in national
councils, and that Western interests would be safe in
the hands of the new federal government. The appoint-
ment of Jefferson instead of Jay as secretary of state
was reassuring to the West,15 for Jefferson had taken
the lead in opposing Jay's recommendation regarding
the Mississippi. Even Hamilton, the representative
of the commercial interest of the North, let it be known
that he regarded the free navigation of the Mississippi
as indispensable to national prosperity.16
Conciliation of Western sentiment was also appar-
ent in the federal appointments to office in the West.
William Blount, whose connection with land specula-
tion was known far and wide and had been the subject
of scandalous gossip in North Carolina in 1786, but
who had influence among the frontiersmen and was
recommended for the office by Daniel Smith of Cumber-
land, received the appointment of governor of the
Southwest Territory and superintendent of Indian
affairs in the South.17 As brigadier generals under him
were appointed John Sevier and James Robertson,

34
90°
CHICKASAW
Creek Boundary, 1783
Cherokee
44
1785
1790
1791
Creek
Cherokee
KENTUCKY
Boundary Line
between the United States
(0
Oumberland
Nashville
and
The Southern Indians,
1783-1795
(Based on C.C.Royce, Indian
Land Cessions in the United States)
86°
Tennessee
R
CHEROKEE
Knoxville
DISPUTE, 1785-1802
-86
CREEK
Clinch R
HolstonR
CHEROKEE
CESSION,
1791'
R.
Oomulgee
Oconee
CREEK CESSION
1790
Ogeech
-82°
SOUTH
CAROLINA
Elberton
0
R.
VIRGINIA
NORTH
CAROLINA
Washington
Augusta
GEORGIA
R
-829
annah
Altamaha
Savannah
-80
THE UNION PRESERVED
121
Blount's associates in land speculation. Their con-
nection with the Spanish intrigue seems not to have
been suspected. In Kentucky the Spanish conspirators
received some of the choicest appointments in the gift
of the federal government. Wilkinson's treasonable
activities had been reported to Washington in 1789,18
and yet in October, 1791, he was commissioned lieu-
tenant colonel in the United States Army, and was
promoted to the rank of brigadier general the follow-
ing March.19 Sebastian was appointed United States
attorney-general and Harry Innes judge for the dis-
trict of Kentucky.20 The influence of their fellow
conspirator, John Brown, member of Congress from
Kentucky, doubtless weighed heavily in these appoint-
ments, but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that
the federal administration shrewdly turned a blind eye
to the delinquencies of such men as Wilkinson and
Blount, whose appointment would prove its catholicity
and attach to the Union these men of influence in the
wavering West.
-
In Indian affairs also the frontiersmen were con-
ciliated by Washington's government. Preparations
were made for a campaign against the Miami and
Wabash Indians who had been harrying Kentucky.
The obnoxious Cherokee treaty of Hopewell of 1785
was scrapped and, on July 2, 1791, a new treaty with
the tribe was negotiated on behalf of the United
States by William Blount.21 In this treaty the
Cherokee made a cession of land that carried the
boundary a hundred miles farther down the Ten-
nessee. In 1790 a large cession of land, though not so
large as the Georgians wished, was secured from
McGillivray and the Creek chiefs in the treaty of
New York, which will be discussed again in another
1224 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
connection. In pursuance of this treaty federal gar-
risons were established on the Georgia frontier.
Another frontier grievance was remedied when
Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792. Cumber-
land and the people of the defunct state of Franklin
were within the bounds of the Southwest Territory
whose government, organized in conformity with the
system established in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787,
contained a promise of statehood when the population
of the territory should warrant it.
We have now seen how disaster very nearly overtook
the United States in its frontier conflict with Spain, how
it was averted by the force of cultural antagonism and
by a conflict of interest between Spain and the Ameri-
can frontiersmen, and how the new federal government
under Washington cultivated the friendship of the
frontiersmen with studied care. In the next phase of
the Spanish-American conflict, which will be dis-
cussed in the remaining chapters, there were two
factors of great importance that had not existed in the
first phase of the struggle: the new government of
the United States, and the French Revolution with the
attendant mutation of alliances and ideas.
CHAPTER IX
YAZOO
In the course of the year 1790 the New World contrib-
uted two barbaric names to the vocabulary of inter-
national diplomacy: Yazoo and Nootka. A year earlier
these were familiar to none but Indians and a few
venturesome fur traders. A year later the frontier of
their fame had receded to the national archives of the
states concerned in the controversies that had raged
over the Yazoo River and Nootka Sound. But through-
out the year 1790 and well into the following year, one
or both of these names was on the lips of statesmen
in Whitehall and State Street, at San Lorenzo and Ver-
sailles, and well-informed observers perceived the bond
that united the Yazoo country on the Lower Missis-
sippi with Nootka Sound far up the California coast.
While one Scotch fur trader's activities on the Van-
couver brought the British government to the verge
of war with Spain, capitalists and frontiersmen of
the Southern States brought on a similar crisis between
the United States and Spain by their effort to break
the Scot Panton's monopoly of the Southern Indian
trade. The intricate intrigues of these two years im-
perilled first the integrity of the American Union and
then the existence of the Spanish empire in North
America.
LAND SPECULATION AND THE TREATY-MAKING
POWER
First came the Yazoo episode. The establishment of
the new federal government influenced in many impor-
123
124
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
tant respects the development of the American West.
The new government brought to the Westerner's door-
step and into his home the principle of close federal
union, and yet the settlement of the West had been
conceived and executed in a spirit of particularism.
What its inhabitants thought of the new plan of govern-
ment it is hard to say, for, while we have many evi-
dences of widespread opposition to its adoption, we
also know that its adoption was followed by the immedi-
ate collapse of the first intrigue between the frontiers-
men and Spain.
There was one clause in the Constitution of 1787
which made the whole instrument unpopular in the
West. This was the clause granting the President and
two thirds of the Senate the treaty-making power.
The reason for the frontiersmen's opposition to this
clause has seldom been understood by historians, for
they have generally assumed that what the "men of
the Western waters" feared was that this power would
be used to carry into effect Jay's plan of 1786 for bar-
tering away the use of the Mississippi for a generation.
It is true that a great deal was made of this point in
the Virginia ratifying convention of 1788, and that
Patrick Henry did raise the spectre of the Spanish
treaty in order to defeat the proposed constitution. It
is also true that, while Madison disposed of Henry's
argument so effectually that it could have no further
weight with any reasonable person, ten of the fourteen
members from the district of Kentucky voted against
the constitution; and that their opposition seems to
have been due to the clause in question. Since these
Kentucky members seem to have been at least normally
intelligent persons, we must look elsewhere for an
explanation of their action; and the explanation is
YAZOO
125
not far to seek. It was not in reality the treaty with
Spain that they feared, but treaties with the Indian
tribes or “nations" as they were then called. Although
the sovereignty of these tribes was not recognized,
the various state governments, the Congress of the
Confederation and after it the new federal government
concluded treaties with them as if each tribe were a
sovereign state. For example, the treaty of New York
between the United States and the Creek "nation,"
which will be discussed in this chapter, was negotiated
by the President and ratified by and with the advice
and consent of the Senate precisely as were Jay's treaty
with England and the treaty of San Lorenzo with Spain.
Now, while Madison could demonstrate with finality
that the treaty-making clause would not lead to the
surrender of the Mississippi claim, neither he nor any
one else could convince the frontiersmen that the new
government's policy in Indian affairs, its treaties with
the Indian tribes, would be equally unobjectionable
to them. For after all the Congress of the Confedera-
tion had not consummated, though it had authorized,
the surrender of the Mississippi; but, on the other hand,
it had pursued an Indian policy that was most offensive
to the frontiersmen of the Southwest. Its treaty of
Hopewell with the Cherokee, of which we have spoken
elsewhere, had alienated expansionists and land specu-
lators throughout the South.
Hence when it was proposed in the new constitution
that the federal government be given still greater power
in Indian relations, there was general alarm among all
those interested in Southwestern expansion. Patrick
Henry, who was speculating extensively in Southwestern
lands, declared that there was a conspiracy on the part
of the jealous Eastern States to check the development
gust
126
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
of the Southwest, and that the chief devices by which
the conspirators designed to effect their purpose
were the closing of the Mississippi and the protection
of the Southern Indians.¹ Arthur Campbell of south-
western Virginia and Harry Innes of Kentucky took
the same position, Innes going so far as to declare that
in his opinion the interests of East and West were irrec-
oncilable in Indian affairs and many other matters, that
the West could never expect fair treatment from the
dominant Eastern majority, and that the only remedy
lay in the establishment of Western independence.²
It seems probable that this state of mind was one of
the chief causes of the outburst of land speculation in
the Old Southwest in the years 1789 and 1790, for a
stronger federal government would be better able to
prevent the development of that region. The expan-
sionists must act before the national government was
established firmly enough to interfere with them.
Patrick Henry, whose notorious hostility to the new
system we have already had occasion to mention, was
one of the most active of this group of speculators,
and lamented that age prevented his seeking refuge
in the Southwest from national tyranny.
THE GEORGIA LAND COMPANIES OF 1789
3
In 1789 the first group of Yazoo companies, less
notorious but no less important than the vintage of
1795, secured provisional grants of land in the South-
west from the state of Georgia. There were three of
these companies. The Tennessee Company, under
the leadership of Zachariah Cox and with support in
the Holston settlements, secured the Muscle Shoals
district. The Virginia Company, among whose mem-
bers were Patrick Henry and a wealthy merchant and
1
YAZOO
127
fur trader, David Ross, obtained a grant on the Mis-
sissippi as close to Chickasaw Bluffs as Georgia's terri-
torrial claims would permit. The third and most active
of these groups was the South Carolina Yazoo Com-
pany, whose organizers were South Carolinians and
whose grant, lying on the Mississippi between the
Yazoo River and the lands of the Virginia Company,
included the important site of Walnut Hills at the
mouth of the Yazoo River. Altogether some fifteen
million acres were included in these three grants.
GREA
Like Bourbon and Houston Counties of 1784-85,
these speculative schemes of 1789 were organized under
the authority of the state of Georgia, but there were
two important differences. In the first place, the state
did not provide in the latter case for the extension of
its political system over its western territory. It
simply sold three enormous tracts of land, and made no
attempt, through the establishment of county govern-
ments or otherwise, to supervise the founding of the
new colonies or to establish any political connection
with them. Moreover, since Georgia did not recognize
the claim of Congress to this territory, it is difficult
to see what bond was expected to unite the new colonies
with the United States. In the second place, the South
Carolina Yazoo Company, the most important of this
group, made a determined effort as had Sevier and
White in their recent intrigue with Gardoqui and
Miró to enlist the support of the Spanish govern-
ment. The speculators of 1784-85, it will be remem-
bered, acted either independently of Spain or even in
direct opposition to it. This change of attitude indicates
the impression that Spain had made on the Americans
in the short space of five years. The lesson of the Bour-
bon County fiasco had not been lost upon them. In
128 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
short, the particularist tendencies that had long charac-
terized land speculation in the South were never more
strikingly in evidence than in these schemes of 1789.
Many ambitious speculators, busy in 1788 with their
private schemes, were drawn into the larger enterprise
of the Yazoo companies. George Rogers Clark, George
Morgan, James O'Fallon, James White, John Sevier, the
Baron von Steuben and others had approached the
Spanish government, through Gardoqui and Governor
Zéspedes of St. Augustine, with proposals for the estab-
lishment of colonies in Spanish territory or under
Spanish protection. Their proposals were due, at
least in part, to the widespread report of Wilkinson's
favorable reception at New Orleans in 1787.5 O'Fallon's
earliest correspondence with Zéspedes contains refer-
ences to Wilkinson's visit to Miró and was apparently
designed to discredit him with the Spanish government
in order that O'Fallon might supplant him as Spain's
agent in the Southwest. It seems likely that the propo-
sals of George Rogers Clark to Gardoqui for the estab-
lishment of a colony in Upper Louisiana were, like
those of O'Fallon, made in consequence of Wilkinson's
rumored success at New Orleans. In 1786 Clark had
seized the goods of Spanish merchants at Vincennes in
retaliation for the closing of the Mississippi, and had
threatened to invade Louisiana; but in 1788, just at
the time of Wilkinson's return to Kentucky from New
Orleans, he wrote Gardoqui proposing to establish a
colony that would protect the dominions of His Catholic
Majesty. The attempt of Sevier and White to secure
Spanish support for their Muscle Shoals project has
already been discussed; and it will be observed that
they broached the subject to Spain only in 1788, after
Wilkinson's return from New Orleans. In the same year
4
YAZOO
129
Joseph Martin wrote McGillivray in connection with
a colony that he proposed to establish on the Tombigbee
River, presumably under Spanish authority. Wilkin-
son himself was seized with the rage for speculation
that his return had done so much to cause, and addressed
Gardoqui a letter proposing that he, John Brown,
Sebastian and Harry Innes establish a colony under
Spanish authority in the Walnut Hills district.“
THE YAZOO PROJECT
Most of these speculators were drawn into the ambi-
tious project of the South Carolina Yazoo Company.
James O'Fallon was appointed general agent of the
company. On his arrival in Kentucky he engaged
James Wilkinson, and later George Rogers Clark, to
support the company's undertaking. John Sevier,
hearing of the plan, had already written asking ad-
mission to membership, and his services were accepted.7
The organizers of the company were probably associated
with earlier speculative schemes, such as Bourbon and
Houston Counties, in both of which several South
Carolinians were interested, among them Wade
Hampton.
8
One of the directors of the company was "poor Tom
Washington," as O'Fallon called him two years later
when Tom was hanged in South Carolina for counter-
feiting. The other directors were William Clay Snipes,
Isaac Huger and Alexander Moultrie, reputed men of
fortune and influence in South Carolina. The last two
certainly bear names that are respectably familiar in the
history of the state, and Moultrie had but recently held
the office of governor. Their agent, James O'Fallon,
was one of the most verbose and unimaginative liars
that ever penned a letter. His copious but undisci-
130 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
plined vocabulary convinced the undiscriminating of
his erudition, but few were deceived by his numerous
and equally undisciplined lies. Formerly a doctor and
formerly also, it was said, a Catholic priest, he threw
himself into Charleston municipal politics at the close
of the Revolution, aiding the popular party in its effort
to drive the dominant conservatives from power. The
failure of this attempt induced O'Fallon to try his
talents elsewhere, and, as we have seen, it was the
report of Wilkinson's journey to New Orleans in 1787
that pointed out to this Irish Catholic his next field of
endeavor.
His race and faith made it easier for him to approach
Governor Zéspedes of the neighboring town of St.
Augustine. Zéspedes was not at all favorably impressed
by O'Fallon's colonization proposals, but since rumors
were rife that the American frontiersmen were planning
to invade the Spanish dominions, he encouraged the
Irishman's correspondence as a source of information
that might prove valuable. In order to keep O'Fallon
longer in suspense, he directed him to forward his
colonization scheme to the court through Gardoqui,
the proper channel for communications from citizens
of the United States. Don Diego was quite as skeptical
as Zéspedes, but, with the same object as the governor
of St. Augustine, he replied with vague courtesy to
O'Fallon's proposals, promising to forward them to the
court.⁹
This Spanish connection got O'Fallon nothing from
Spain, but his expectations in that quarter and his
influence with the South Carolina Yazoo Company
seem to have been responsible for the company's deter-
mined effort to secure the support of the Spanish gov-
ernment for its colony. Director Moultrie wrote
&
YAZOO
131
Alexander McGillivray and the wealthy Benjamin
Farrar of Natchez, while Tom Washington approached
another influential inhabitant of Natchez district,
Peter Bryan Bruin, in order not only to enlist their
individual support for the company, but also through
them to conciliate Spain.10 The democrat O'Fallon,
however, was its chief ambassador to the Bourbon
autocracy. With the company's secret instructions in
his pocket O'Fallon journeyed to Kentucky. These
instructions 11 directed him to win the friendship of the
Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians, to proceed at once
to occupy the company's grant and to assure the
Spaniards of its ardent desire to cultivate amicable
relations with them and of its determination to estab-
lish an independent state which would serve as a
barrier between the United States and the Spanish pos-
sessions in North America. The comprehensive com-
mercial designs of the company are manifest in the
letters of O'Fallon and still more in those of Moultrie
and Washington. They included the slave trade, trade
with the Indians and land speculation; and Walnut
Hills was designed as the entrepôt for the commerce of
the whole of the Mississippi Valley above that point.
It was but natural, however, that in letters intended
for Spanish eyes the political aspect should be empha-
sized. Moultrie wrote of the large amount of European
capital engaged in the enterprise and the anti-federalism
of its American members. O'Fallon fairly outdid him-
self in expressions of devotion to Spain and of abhor-
rence for the United States.12 Postulating an Irishman's
hereditary love for Spain and misrepresenting shame-
lessly and foolhardily the nature of his relations with
Zéspedes and Gardoqui, he pictured the company as
converted by his influence into zealous Hispanophiles
132 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
panting for an alliance with the Bourbon monarch
against the United States. At the very same time
that he was writing in this tone to Miró, O'Fallon
addressed an equally perfervid letter to President
Washington, denouncing Spanish tyranny and offering
to conquer New Orleans with the company's forces
and turn it over to the United States government, if
only the administration would give the company's
enterprise its approval.13
Unscrupulous as he was, O'Fallon could not dissimu-
late. Indeed, one is inclined to accept Wilkinson's
interested but apt description of him as a "vain block-
head." Even when his first obligation was to reassure
the Spaniards, he could not resist the temptation to
boast of his strength and to warn Miró that, in case
Spain refused to sanction the enterprise, the company
would resort to the use of armed force and would have
the aid of thousands of soldiers from Cumberland,
Franklin, Kentucky, the British in Canada, and even
through a suicidal charity, we must suppose — of the
United States government itself.
The absurd maladroitness of this "vain blockhead"
must not blind us to the importance of the project. It
carried on a powerful tradition of American life, the
tradition of colonization by capitalistic enterprise.
It made a strong appeal to the interest of the investor
and, as a venture in state-making, it caught the imag-
ination of the romantic. Many people of influence in
the South Atlantic States and on the Western frontier
were committed to its prosecution, and it was legiti-
mated by a grant from the state of Georgia. It was
a far more formidable undertaking than Richard
Henderson's Transylvania Company, so influential in
the founding of Kentucky, and it gave greater promise
YAZOO
133
of success. For the new federal government, its suc-
cess would be a calamity. It would alarm the Indians
and perhaps precipitate that general Indian war which
Washington was striving so earnestly to avoid. It would
bring on a crisis in the relations of the United States
with Spain. If Spain sanctioned the establishment of
the colony, it would undoubtedly be on condition of
alliance or incorporation, thus imperiling the territorial
integrity of the United States and prejudicing infinitely
the pending diplomatic negotiation. If on the other
hand Spain refused to sanction the settlement and
opposed it with armed force, war might result, and the
United States government, as much as it might deplore
the cause, would almost certainly be involved. Hence
the execution of the scheme must at all costs be pre-
vented.
CHECKMATING THE SPECULATORS
One of President Washington's first steps was to
issue a proclamation warning the public against the
lawless projects of the companies.14 Georgia's territorial
claims, though still disputed by Congress, were not
called into question by the proclamation, which was
based on the federal government's control of Indian re-
lations and on the treaties of Hopewell of 1786 whereby
the perpetual possession of the lands involved was
guaranteed to the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes by
Congress. Governor Blount of the Southwest Terri-
tory was directed to enforce this proclamation, and a
mission was sent to the Indians to prevent them from
giving any aid to the companies.15
Washington's next step was to prevent McGillivray
and the Creek Indians from supporting the companies'
project.16 This was especially necessary because of the
134 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
strength of the tribe, McGillivray's influence over them
and the other Southern Indians, and the efforts of the
South Carolina Yazoo Company to draw him into their
project. The company claimed that it had succeeded
in doing so, and letters from Moultrie and others to
McGillivray on the subject were found by Panton
among the half-breed's papers during his absence from
home in 1790, but, other than his own statement that
he gave them some encouragement in order to discover
their designs,17 there is no evidence that he actually
joined the company. Even had he done so, Panton
would certainly have used all his powerful influence to
destroy the connection, for all of these schemes were
obviously designed to break his monopoly of the South-
ern fur trade. Washington, however, could not be
certain of this, and in any case he could not afford to
rely on this British favorite of the Spanish government
for the performance of a service so essential to the inter-
ests of the United States. The federal government
itself must detach McGillivray from any connection he
might have formed with the Georgia land companies.
There were other pressing reasons for the conclusion
of a treaty with the Creek. The war between these
Indians and the Georgians had continued intermit-
tently ever since its outbreak in 1787, despite the re-
peated efforts of the Congress of the Confederation
to secure peace, and Washington feared a general
Indian war in the West. One of the very first measures
of his administration was the appointment of a com-
mission of three influential and disinterested persons
to go to the Georgia frontier, inquire into the grievances
of both parties, and arrange an accommodation. Again
the negotiation ended in failure. The immediate reason
for the breaking off of the conferences was apparently
YAZOO
McGillivray's dislike for the chief negotiator, Colonel
David Humphreys, whose overbearing manner seemed
intolerable to the sensitive half-breed. McGillivray's
first impulse after his withdrawal was an Indian's
impulse to avenge himself for the Connecticut
Yankee's insults by scalping the Georgia frontiersmen;
but Miró urgently advised him not to continue hostili-
ties, and he thought better of it.18
There was a deeper reason for the failure of the nego-
tiations. While the Spanish government repeatedly
urged McGillivray to make peace with the Georgians,
Miró as often charged him to confine himself to a treaty
of friendship and limits, never to agree to any terms
that conflicted with the treaty of Pensacola of 1784,
and above all to refuse to make any concession to the
Americans in respect to trade or sovereignty.19 This
latter point was all the more important because of its
bearing on the negotiation pending between the United
States and Spain. While McGillivray had been deeply
offended with Miró in 1788 because the latter, on orders
from the court, had cut off the Indians' munitions
supply in order to induce them to make peace with the
Georgians, his resentment had led to no more serious
consequences than his brief intrigue with Bowles,
which we have already mentioned. The breach was
soon healed, Miró reopened the Spanish magazines to
the Creek, and McGillivray professed himself the
unwavering champion of Spanish interests. Just
before he and his fellow-chiefs left to meet the Ameri-
can commissioners he received through Panton, Leslie
and Company a fresh supply of munitions which, as
Panton prophesied, enabled him to "talk strong" in
the ensuing conference. Unable to agree with the com-
missioners on trade, limits or sovereignty, McGillivray
135
G
136 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
needed little provocation to make him break off the
negotiation and return to his plantation on the Coosa.
The commissioners naturally laid all the blame on
McGillivray and declared war inevitable, and the
secretary of war, General Henry Knox, was of the
same mind. It was felt in government circles, however,
that the commissioners were not themselves blameless,
and that, as Senator Maclay put it, Knox was moved
by the very natural desire to "labor in his vocation." 20
As a last resort, Washington sent Colonel Marinus
Willet as his personal messenger to invite McGillivray
to come to New York with his chiefs and make a final
effort for a peaceful settlement. Meanwhile Miró had
received with something approaching consternation
the news of the failure of the recent peace conference
and the imminent danger that the United States would
now at last aid the Georgians against the Creek. Once
begun, there was no telling where such a conflict might
end, for it was commonly believed that the Indians'
ravages had been instigated by Spain. Miró therefore
urged McGillivray to accept at once any offer that
might lead to the renewal of negotiations, and only
cautioned him not to forget his obligations to Spain.
This was the situation when Willet arrived, and, in
view of Miró's admonitions, it is not surprising that
McGillivray accepted the invitation and set out for New
York with more than a score of chiefs and interpreters
without waiting to consult Miró or even Panton.21
McGillivray riding on horseback and the chiefs
seated sedately in waggons, the cavalcade journeyed
northward. Fêted at Richmond, the party was met
at Murray's wharf in New York by a military escort and
by the largest crowd that had assembled since Wash-
ington's inauguration fifteen months earlier. The
YAZOO
137
necessities of the federal government and the incipient
romantic movement secured for these noble savages
a warm welcome. Presented to the secretary of war
and the president, they were lavishly entertained by
government officials and others, including the Order of
St. Tammany, and in turn regaled their hosts with a
war dance.22
THE TREATY OF NEW YORK
This flattering reception and the distribution of
pensions among McGillivray and his companions
secured the terms desired by the United States govern-
ment. The treaty was concluded on August 7, 1790,
and a week later McGillivray went so far as to sign an
oath of allegiance to the United States.23 By the treaty,
the Creek recognized the sovereignty of the United
States so far as their towns lay within its limits. McGil-
livray gave up his claim to the boundary of 1772, though
the territorial concessions that he made were not exten-
sive enough to satisfy the Georgians. All traders
without a license from the United States government
were to be excluded from the Creek towns. The latter
were authorized to expel by force any intruders on the
lands guaranteed them by the treaty. Although this
clause appeared in the earlier treaties of Hopewell,
McGillivray wrote Miró later that in this case it was
directed against the Georgia land companies, and that
he was repeatedly urged during the conferences pre-
ceding the treaty to break up the companies' settle-
ments, should any be made.
Two secret articles were added.24 One of them was
written under the influence of the Nootka crisis that had
just arisen between Spain and England. It was pro-
vided that in case the Creek trade by way of the Flori-
}
138 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
das should be interrupted by war or otherwise, $50,000
worth of goods annually might be imported duty free
through the United States into the Creek country. It is
possible that the whole treaty as well as this article was
agreed to by McGillivray because of the Nootka crisis.
War between Spain and England seemed inevitable,
and the defeat of Spain and the disorganization of
Panton's trade, at least for a time, seemed no less
certain. The treaty of New York was McGillivray's
provision against the rainy day that seemed at hand.
The other secret article provided that in satisfaction
of his claims against the state of Georgia McGillivray
should receive a pension of eighteen hundred dollars
a year from the United States government. This was
three times the amount of the only remuneration
that he was receiving from Spain at that time, namely,
a salary of six hundred dollars a year as the commis-
sioner of Spain among the Creek Indians. The munifi-
cence of this new pension must have had great weight
with McGillivray, who lived in the generous manner of
a Southern gentleman and, like most Southern gentle-
men, was often embarrassed for ready cash.
In the triangular contest between the United States
government, Spain and the Georgia land companies for
the support of the Creek Indians, the former had appar-
ently won a complete victory.25 So far as McGillivray's
relations with Spain were concerned, the victory was
not lasting. Panton's friendship and the alternate
threats and persuasion of Miró and Carondelet, who
raised his salary first to two thousand and then to thirty-
five hundred dollars, delayed its execution several
years.26 The mere fact that the treaty was negotiated,
however, was in itself an achievement of lasting impor-
tance. Despite Carondelet's attempt in 1792 to demon-
H
YAZOO
139
strate its invalidity, the treaty was negotiated with at
least as much formality as most of Carondelet's treaties
with the Southern Indian tribes, and as most treaties
between white men and Indians. Consequently it
afforded the United States what a strong power usually
seeks in a treaty with a weaker neighbor: a legal basis
for future penetration. Since the application of the
treaty was restricted to the Creek towns lying within
the United States and since most of the Creek towns
were situated in the territory still in dispute between
Spain and the United States, the precise significance
of the treaty remained in doubt until the two powers
came to an agreement as to the location of the southern
boundary of the United States. In two respects the
treaty was immediately beneficial to the United States:
The imminent resumption of the Georgia-Creek war
was averted, and McGillivray's aid was enlisted against
the Georgia land companies. In both respects, it is
curious to note, Spanish interests and Spanish policy
coincided with those of the United States.
CHAPTER X
NOOTKA
IN 1789, Spanish forces seized a British vessel in
Nootka Sound, which, Spain claimed, lay within its
territorial waters. The interests of British fur traders,
already active in that region, led their government to
make an issue of the case. A peremptory demand for
satisfaction was addressed to the Spanish government
in May, 1790, and Pitt began to concert with William
Augustus Bowles and Francisco de Miranda plans of
attack against Spanish possessions in North and South
America.¹ The affair at once became public property
and created a great sensation in Europe and America.
The insignificance of the offence, the doubt, arising from
the uncertainty as to the rights of the two countries,
whether any offence at all had been committed, the
curtness of England's language in addressing a sup-
posedly friendly power, and the rapidity and scale of its
preparations for war created the impression that the
British were determined to fight on no matter what
pretext while Spain's ancient ally, France, was crippled
by the Revolution.2
THE NOOTKA CRISIS AND THE YAZOO PROJECT
The Nootka crisis, whose influence on the treaty of
New York we observed in the preceding chapter,
exerted an even profounder influence on the develop-
ment of the South Carolina Yazoo Company's enter-
prise. The company's confidential instructions of 1790
to O'Fallon had directed him to assure the Spanish
colonial officials that its intention was to establish a
140
NOOTKA
141
colony which would serve as a barrier between the
United States and the Spanish dominions and to form
a close connection with Spain. What the Nootka crisis
did was to cause O'Fallon, with or without the com-
pany's consent, to convert the colonization project into
a plan of conquest, with Louisiana as the prize.
3
O'Fallon's first letters to Miró from Kentucky were
conciliatory enough, and he cultivated Wilkinson,
whose partiality for Spain was notorious. Wilkinson
responded readily. Indeed, he had written the company
in 1789 and again early in 1790, before O'Fallon's
arrival, setting forth the importance of enlisting the aid
of Spain and intimating that he himself was the very
man for that task and for the general agency of the
company in the West. Unfortunately for the company,
O'Fallon's appointment had already been made. Moul-
trie answered Wilkinson to this effect, and sought to
placate him with the offer of a share. The offer was
accepted and for a few months all went well. Wilkinson
may have been sincere, for his interest in such an enter-
prise had been shown by his application through
Gardoqui, which we have already mentioned, for
authority to establish a colony in the very same
territory now claimed by the company. He may have
been further disposed to support its project because the
separatist movement in Kentucky had come to a halt.
Conscious of failure and fearing exposure, he wished at
the same time to render a compensatory service to
Spain and to provide an asylum for himself. Whatever
the reason, he supported the project energetically for
a few months and wrote Miró urging him to recommend
it to the court.
Suddenly in August, 1790, he wrote Moultrie sever-
ing his connection with the company. Both to Moul-
142
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
trie and to Miró, to whom he sent a copy of his letter to
Moultrie, he explained his action on the ground that
O'Fallon had changed the whole character of the
undertaking and was perfidiously planning to invade
Louisiana with British aid. One may suspect that the
prospect of a commission in the expedition against the
Miami and Wabash Indians had its influence in detach-
ing from O'Fallon's colonial enterprise a man who once
declared, "My passion is military fame." It cannot
be doubted, however, that O'Fallon's plans had
changed and that the Nootka crisis was the cause.
This crisis offered the frontiersmen a golden oppor-
tunity. Those of them who were godly were for the
most part Protestants with no stomach for popery.
The ungodly frankly longed for the silver mines of
Mexico. Godly or not, they all resented the payment
of a duty of twenty-one per cent for the use of a river
which, they told themselves and all the world, God and
Great Britain had given them to use free of charge.
Yet as often as the frontiersmen had been tempted to
invade these invitingly defenceless provinces, as often
had they been restrained by the reflection that, even
though they might take New Orleans, Spain would still
control the Gulf with its navy and the mouths of the
Mississippi would still be closed.
The Nootka crisis seemed to solve the difficulty by
offering the Kentuckians what was needed to make the
conquest of Louisiana complete: the coöperation of a
British fleet in the Gulf. It also seemed likely that a
British land force from Canada would descend the
Mississippi and join in the assault. Washington was so
alarmed at the prospect that he took the advice of the
cabinet on the course that he should follow in case
British troops attempted to pass through the territory
Mad
w
NOOTKA
143
of the United States in order to attack Louisiana.
Differing in their opinion on this point, Jefferson and
Hamilton were agreed that the navigation of the Mis-
sissippi and the control of the territory about its mouth
were of the greatest importance to the United States.
In Kentucky also the crisis was earnestly discussed."
British intrigue in Kentucky had long been rumored
in the Atlantic States and, while rumor exaggerated
the danger, it was true that a British agent from
Canada, a Colonel John Connolly, had appeared in
Kentucky in 1788 inciting the backwoodsmen to in-
surrection. This tradition seemed to point the way to
O'Fallon, who, moreover, learned just at this time
that Miró was urging the Southern Indians to attack
any Americans who might attempt to settle in the
companies' grants. An indication of the changed
character of the enterprise is that the pro-Spanish
Wilkinson was now supplanted as O'Fallon's chief
adviser by George Rogers Clark, whose name both
before and after 1790 was so often associated with
plans for invading Louisiana. The new union was
sealed by the marriage of O'Fallon, aged fifty, to
Clark's youngest sister, aged fifteen; "an additional
proof of his circumspection and good sense," remarked
Wilkinson."
6
*.
This change of front was fatal to the company's
project. The Nootka crisis was soon over, for the
Spanish government, unable to secure aid from revolu-
tionary France on satisfactory terms, was forced to
yield to England. The freebooters of Kentucky were
disappointed in their hope of securing the coöperation
of England's navy. Spain's control of the Gulf was
unbroken, and a mere land conquest of Louisiana was
as futile as ever. All that O'Fallon had accomplished
144 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
was to give Spain irrefragable proof of his duplicity.
With England aloof and the Spanish and United States
governments hostile, success was all but impossible.
The company's coup de grâce, if we are to believe
Wilkinson, came from no less a person than himself.
He tells us that by sending a certain Captain Manning
to South Carolina to inform the company's directors of
O'Fallon's prodigality and incompetence he induced
them to refuse to honor O'Fallon's drafts on them.
His credit ruined by this stroke, O'Fallon's enterprise
had collapsed; and the simultaneous execution of
"poor Tom" Washington for counterfeiting cannot
have raised the company's prestige in either South
Carolina or Kentucky
8
The projects of the other two Georgia land companies
also came to nothing. Patrick Henry of the Virginia
Company yielded with bad grace to Washington's pro-
clamation against the speculators, but was consoled
when the paper money with which he was to have paid
the state of Georgia for the company's grant rose in
value with Congress's assumption of the state debts.⁹
The Tennessee Company, under the energetic leader-
ship of Zachariah Cox, actually made a settlement at
Muscle Shoals despite the opposition of Governor
Blount, who had lands of his own to sell. The settle-
ment was, however, broken up by a band of Creek In-
dians sent out by McGillivray.10
SHORT'S MEMORIAL ON THE MISSISSIPPI
The Yazoo projects and the Nootka crisis were also
responsible for the resumption of the negotiation be-
tween Spain and the United States. Since the Congress
of the Confederation had by its resolution of 1788
bequeathed the problem to the new government,
NOOTKA
145
neither Spain nor the United States had formally
attempted to reopen the discussion. Floridablanca
expected to find the new federal government more
compliant than the old Congress, but, warned by
Gardoqui that some time must be allowed for its con-
solidation, he was not pressing. Gardoqui was per-
mitted to return to Spain on leave (1789), and when,
shortly after his arrival at court, he was appointed to
the newly created post of director of colonial trade his
place in the United States was not filled. Jáudenes and
Viar, the young men brought over with Gardoqui in
1784 to assist in the work of the legation, were com-
missioned as Spain's agents in the United States, but
they were not given the rank even of encargado de
negocios (chargé d'affaires) for the conduct of the
ordinary business of the office, and no provision what-
ever was made for the resumption of the negotiation of
a treaty. The Spanish government took the position
that since the first conferences had been terminated
through the action of the old Congress the first over-
tures for another parley must come from the new
government. To fill the diplomatic hiatus, Florida-
blanca had adopted a more liberal immigration policy
and had taken up the western intrigue, which was
designed primarily to guard against the danger of an
invasion of Louisiana by the frontiersmen of the
American West, though it was also hoped that the
partition of the United States might ensue. The various
intrigues with the frontiersmen, however, soon demon-
strated a fundamental conflict of interest. Spain's
object in the intrigue was to enfeeble the American
border settlements. The frontiersmen's object was
almost invariably to promote the prosperity of com-
munities already established or to found new autono-
171
G
146 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
mous colonies on the American model within or near
the dominions of Spain.
Simultaneously with reports of the Yazoo and
Nootka affairs another proof of the futility of the
Western intrigue reached Floridablanca. At the same
time that Miró wrote to the court about O'Fallon's
proposals, he confessed the failure of Wilkinson's
scheme to separate Kentucky from the Union.11 Since,
as these disturbing notices showed, the American West
did not respond to direct treatment, and since to
Floridablanca diplomacy and the Western intrigue
were but alternative methods of restraining the fron-
tiersmen, it was clearly time to resume the interrupted
negotiation with the United States government. A
hopeful indication of the American government's sweet
reasonableness in Western questions was afforded by
its vigorous opposition to the Georgia land companies.
It was in these circumstances that Floridablanca
received from William Short, the chargé d'affaires of
the United States in Paris, a memorial insisting that
without delay Spain permit the citizens of the United
States to exercise their right to the free navigation of
the Mississippi River. Short had a brother living in
Kentucky,12 and was bound by ties of close personal
friendship to James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson.
Monroe was one of the leaders of the Mississippi party
in the old Congress, and one of the most resolute op-
ponents of Jay's treaty project of 1786. Jefferson's
solution of the difficult problem so clearly stated by
Jay how to secure the navigation of the Mississippi
from Spain without going to war was to take advan-
tage of one of the frequent European war-scares, in
which Spain was usually involved, and to extort a
favorable treaty as the price of neutrality.13
ading
NOOTKA
147
C
When the Nootka crisis arose, these connections left
no doubt as to the course Short should follow. Drawing
up a vigorous memorial on the right of the United
States to the free navigation of the Mississippi, he
submitted it to Vergennes' successor in the foreign
office, Montmorin, who transmitted it to Floridablanca
through the French chargé in Madrid.14 That the
French government, still nominally bound to Spain by
the Bourbon Family Compact, was willing to be in-
volved in so delicate an affair and one in regard to
which the Spanish court was very sensitive, may
perhaps be attributed to the influence of Lafayette, the
strong man of France at that juncture. Not only was
Lafayette sympathetic towards the republic to whose
establishment he had devoted years of his youth, but
he was personally involved in the negotiation be-
tween Spain and the United States. In 1783 he had
used all his influence to get Floridablanca to accept
the stipulations of the Anglo-American treaty with
regard to the southern boundary of the United States
and the navigation of the Mississippi, and had re-
ceived from the Spanish minister an equivocal reply
that became the subject of heated discussion at a
later time.15
Another factor which probably inclined the French
government to forward Short's memorial was its
resentment at Floridablanca's insistence on a formal
reply to his note demanding the aid of France against
England in the Nootka crisis. The French government
finally replied, but hedged its assent about with con-
ditions unacceptable to Spain, and Montmorin probably
welcomed the opportunity offered by Short's memorial
to retaliate for the embarrassment that Floridablanca
had caused him.
148
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
Spain's situation was extremely uncomfortable. The
united hostility of the English and the Americans, so
long feared by the court, seemed about to be realized
just as Spain was estranged from her one ally by the
French Revolution. Gardoqui, to whom, as a specialist
in relations with the United States, Floridablanca
referred Short's memorial, dwelt on the Anglo-American
menace and urged an accommodation with the United
States. His report is especially interesting because it
seems to suggest a surrender to the United States on the
questions of limits and navigation in return for a defen-
sive alliance and a mutual guarantee of the possessions
of the two powers in America.16
TWO ROYAL ORDERS
Upon receiving this report, Floridablanca issued
simultaneously two orders covering the relations of
Spain with the United States. One of these orders
related to the frontier situation and was sent to the
governor of Havana for transmission to Miró and
Gayoso.17 The governor was informed of the court's
rejection of the South Carolina Yazoo Company's
project and was instructed to prevent any settlement
by the Americans in the territory between the Ten-
nessee and Mississippi Rivers, all of which Florida-
blanca, in conformity with the Instruction of 1784,
styled Spanish territory. The order approved Miró's
decision to establish a fortified post at Los Nogales, or
Walnut Hills, in order to anticipate the company's
designs on that site. The correspondence with Wilkin-
son was ordered to be continued, though the question
of his pension was still left unsettled. Finally, a copy
of Short's memorial was enclosed and Miró was in-
formed that negotiations were in progress for the
NOOTKA
149
regular and peaceful settlement of all the points at
issue between Spain and the United States.18
The other order was sent to Jáudenes and Viar, Spain's
agents in the United States. Expressing His Majesty's
pained surprise at the tone of Short's memorial and
especially at his complaint against the dilatoriness of
Spain, Floridablanca very properly pointed out that
it was the United States that had broken off the pre-
vious negotiation, and that Short's memorial was the
first intimation Spain had received of his government's
readiness to resume it. However, continued Florida-
blanca, His Majesty wished his agents, Jáudenes and
Viar, to give a proof of his good will towards the
United States by informing the president of Spain's
willingness to conclude a comprehensive treaty. The
United States might send suitable persons with the
proper authority to Spain, or, if they preferred, the
king would send his plenipotentiary to the United
States.
The choice of the envoys to Spain was a matter of
some moment to that power, as the above summary of
the order suggests. The action of the United States in
response to this invitation illuminates its policy towards
Spain and is one of the clearest proofs that it was not
seeking to negotiate an equitable treaty but to maneu-
ver Spain into a complete surrender. A sincere desire to
negotiate would have led the United States to select
acceptable envoys for the Spanish mission and to
despatch them promptly. Nothing of the kind was
done. Before the appointment was made Jefferson had
a conversation with Jáudenes in which he asked the
Spanish agent if Carmichael, the American chargé at
Madrid, would be acceptable as the plenipotentiary
for this negotiation. Jáudenes gave it as his opinion,
150 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
merely personal but quite positive, that in view of the
wording of the invitation his appointment would not
be satisfactory to the Spanish government, and that
moreover His Catholic Majesty would never agree to
a treaty unless the emissaries sent by the United States
were persons of accomplishments and distinction.¹
19
Despite this warning the United States government
not only failed to send public characters of distinction
to Spain, but actually named the unwelcome Car-
michael one of the envoys. The other was William
Short, who had presented the memorial on the Mis-
sissippi, and who at the same time with this temporary
mission to Spain was given the permanent post of
minister to the Hague. An estimable person, Short was
certainly not distinguished enough to fulfill the Spanish
requirements. Jáudenes indeed wrote Floridablanca,
on the authority of Senator Butler of South Carolina,
that Carmichael and Short were almost unknown even
in the Senate, and that their appointment was con-
firmed merely in order to please Jefferson and the
President.20
It is doubtful whether the American government
could have persuaded more prominent persons to under-
take the mission, for it was quite clear to any one well
informed on the subject that its success was highly
improbable. Then why, it may be asked, did the
administration make any provision at all for a nego-
tiation? The answer is that, in the first place, the
United States could not openly ignore Spain's ad-
vances without incurring the odium of unreasonable-
ness and destroying the fiction of patient negotiation;
and that, in the second place, it must convince the
Westerners that it was doing everything in its power
to secure the free navigation of the Mississippi. It was
NOOTKA
151
in order to keep up appearances as economically as
possible that two diplomats already on the government
pay-roll and already in Europe were appointed to con-
duct the negotiation.21
It is also worthy of notice that while Floridablanca's
invitation was communicated to Jefferson in November,
1791, the envoys were not appointed until February,
1792, and Short did not actually arrive in Spain until
a year later, that is, February, 1793. This delay was
explained on the ground that Short's commission had
gone astray; 22 but it is an interesting coincidence
that this extremely long delay took place precisely dur-
ing the year 1792, a year in which the European
situation was least promising for the success of the
United States in its negotiation with Spain. Spain and
France were still at peace, and a rapprochement was in
progress between Spain and England that culminated
treaty of alliance and saved Spain from isolation
when she went to war with France early in 1793.
Jefferson still clung to his belief that time was on the
side of the United States, and there can be little doubt
that his enthusiasm for the French Revolution was
heightened by his conviction that it would hasten the
victory of the United States in its conflict with Spain.
As early as 1786 he had written that his only fear was
lest the Spaniards should be unable to hold their terri-
tory on the Mississippi "till our population can be
sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by
piece;"
"23 and the French Revolution seemed at first
to advance the day when the United States might
extend its possessions down the Mississippi to the Gulf.
Certainly Jefferson's enthusiasm was in part justified,
for to Spain the French Revolution was a disaster of
the first magnitude. For the present, however, this
152 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
was not apparent to any but the keenest observers.
Throughout the year 1792 and most of the following
year the Revolution seemed to have the contrary
effect, reconciling Spain with her traditional enemy
and bringing England and the United States to the
brink of war. It was only when the alliance with Eng-
land turned out badly and the war with France still
worse that the despatches of Short and Carmichael
and the instructions of their chief betrayed that eager-
ness for negotiations that they and others after them
have read into the earlier policy of the United States.
CHAPTER XI
HECTOR, BARON DE CARONDELET
A MAN OF ACTION
In the meanwhile, events were taking place in
Louisiana and West Florida that exercised a powerful
influence over the course of the diplomatic negotiation.
On December 30, 1791, Hector, Baron de Carondelet,
took over the government and intendancy of those
provinces from Esteban Miró, who had completed the
normal five-year term and who, on account of his age,
was permitted to return to Spain. The appointment of
Carondelet was, to put it mildly, deplorable. A wise
government would have promoted either Arturo
O'Neill, governor of Pensacola, or Manuel Gayoso,
governor of Natchez, both of whom were of sufficient
age and rank and possessed two indispensable qualifica-
tions in which Carondelet was absolutely lacking: a
thorough knowledge of the English language and an
intimate acquaintance with the state of affairs in the
Mississippi Valley. Carondelet knew not a word of
English, so far as the records show, and was dependent
for his translations upon his secretary, Armesto, who,
although he was the local schoolmaster, could boast but
a mediocre knowledge of the language.¹ Coming to
Louisiana from San Salvador, Carondelet was utterly
ignorant of the situation in his new provinces. Without
the necessary background, without competent advisers
at New Orleans, without the temperament that can
take advice, and yet at the same time a man of im-
mediate and strong convictions and a lover of direct
action, he was probably the worst man that could have
been found in the whole colonial service of Spain for the
....
153
154 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
ازی
command of these border provinces at such a crisis.
He probably owed his appointment to the influence of
his wife's family, the Las Casas, who bore a name
familiar in colonial affairs since the sixteenth century.2
Carondelet's brother-in-law, Luis de las Casas, was
governor of Havana and captain-general of Louisiana
and the Floridas from 1791 to 1796. It may be that the
Baron's knowledge of French - he was a Fleming —
was considered an important asset, since most of the
inhabitants of Louisiana were of French origin.
This man was dominated by a veritable passion for
direct action, a passion that may perhaps be explained
by his consciousness of his mental limitations. Realiz-
ing his inability to deal with a complex situation, he
would seek to resolve the most obvious of his perplex-
ities by the use of physical force. Even his handwriting
is not that of one who is by nature masterful, a com-
pelling man of action, but rather of a warden of some
tranquil college. What has this man to do with war?
we ask, as we turn over page after page of yellow paper
covered with the prim traces of his pen. And yet
violence, war, conquest he would have.
We could hardly find a better case to illustrate the
man's temperament than his conduct when he heard in
1794 that Elijah Clarke of Georgia was planning an
invasion of the Floridas. Forgetting or was it per-
haps remembering?-that a dozen important and
complex questions required his presence at the seat of
government in New Orleans, he urged the captain-
general to let him lead an expedition in person by way
of St. Mark's up the Appalachicola River to attack this
freebooter in the desert wilds on the border of the
Floridas and Georgia. We suspect that he was fleeing
from civil complexity to the simplicity of the battle-
3
ga
HECTOR, BARON DE CARONDELET
155
field, and that in this as in many other cases a sense of
weakness lay at the root of his belligerency.
""
The result was what might have been expected from
the appointment of such a man to such a post. Misin-
formation that was sometimes merely ludicrous, some-
times dangerously misleading, was sent by Carondelet
to the home government. In decoding Wilkinson's
important cipher despatches the most amazing errors
were made. Sometimes Carondelet's blunders were
corrected by his secretary, Armesto, before the despatch
was mailed, as for example when Carondelet wrote the
secretary of state in regard to the state of "Belmont,
obviously confusing Belmont, Kentucky, with the state
of Vermont. On one occasion he was thrown into a panic
by the report that fifteen thousand men were going to
invade West Florida by marching overland from
Georgia, and begged the captain-general for rein-
forcements to resist the invaders. As Miró pointed out,
when this letter was referred to him in Madrid, it
would have been next to impossible for such a body of
troops to pass through the intervening country of the
hostile Creek Indians or to support itself even if not
attacked by the Indians. On another occasion Ca-
rondelet solemnly assured the ministry that a body of
hostile troops could march from St. Louis to Santa Fé
in twenty-two days. Upon examination it appeared
that he based this assertion upon the experience of a
single Spanish official who, traveling under the most
favorable circumstances, had made the down-stream
part of the journey from Santa Fé to St. Louis in that
length of time.ª
Far more serious than such misinformation were his
errors of judgment, which seem to have been generally
due to his rudimentary powers of discrimination. In-
1
156 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
stances of these faults will appear in the following
pages. For the present it will suffice to call attention
to his failure to perceive the wide gulf that separated
the freebooters of the American frontier from the
federal government, George Rogers Clark from George
Washington. Gayoso and Gardoqui were more per-
spicacious than he, but Gayoso was merely one of
Carondelet's subordinates and Gardoqui was appointed
secretary of the treasury just after Carondelet's arrival
in Louisiana and was consequently not in a position to
make his influence felt in the political administration
of that province. Some of the consequences of Caron-
delet's blindness to this distinction will appear in
connection with the development of his Indian policy.
THE BARON'S DILEMMA
When he arrived in Louisiana he found the situation
serious and represented it to his government as most
alarming. Reliance had been placed in four measures
for the defence of this province and West Florida: the
maintenance of military posts, the Kentucky intrigue,
immigration, and Indian alliances. The posts, as Ca-
rondelet warned, repeating what Miró had so often said
before him to an unheedful government, were in a
ruinous state. Most of the forts consisted merely of
earthworks which were washing away and a wooden
palisade so rotten as hardly to be proof against a
musketball. The one regiment assigned Louisiana
was far from complete, and was utterly inadequate in
the face of the rapidly growing American settlements
and an impending war in Europe and America.5
The Kentucky intrigue, which had been designed to
weaken the United States by dividing it into two rival
republics, was almost dead of pernicious anæmia when
HECTOR, BARON DE CARONDELET
157
6
Carondelet arrived in Louisiana. The collapse of the
first attempt at secession had left Wilkinson nothing
to do but play the spy and immigration agent. The
rôles were not only unromantic but unprofitable as
well, for Spain had not yet granted him a pension, and
the return of the seven thousand dollars advanced him
as a loan by Miró might be demanded. Under these
circumstances and under the pressure of financial
difficulties he accepted a lieutenant colonel's commission
in the United States Army in October, 1791, and his
correspondence with his dear friends Gayoso and Miró
languished. A few weeks after Carondelet took over
the government of Louisiana he received the court's
order granting Wilkinson a pension of two thousand
dollars a year dating from January 1, 1789. He
hastened to write "our brigadier" the good tidings,
and thereafter the exchange of letters became more
frequent. Conditions were not yet favorable, however,
for a renewal of the attempt at secession, for admission
to statehood and the campaign against the Northern
Indians placated the Kentuckians for the moment and
absorbed their surplus energy and farm products. It
was not until 1794 that it was possible to renew the
intrigue in earnest, and in the meanwhile Carondelet
must seek safety in some other measure.
7
THE GOTHS REFUSE TO EMIGRATE
Despite an initial success that alarmed land-owners
in the American West, the immigration policy had
failed as completely as the frontier intrigue. We have
seen how in 1787 the court's resolution on the proposals
of d'Argès foreshadowed a profound change in Spain's
colonial immigration policy, and how this change was
effected in the royal order of December 1, 1788. A post
158
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
was established at New Madrid in the country that
George Morgan planned to colonize, and Natchez was
raised from a post to a government with the diplomatic
Gayoso at its head. Nogales also was thrown open to
settlement (1791). Free grants of land were made, the
importation of slaves was not only permitted but
encouraged, and Protestants were admitted, tolerated
and granted all the rights of Spanish subjects on taking
the usual oath of allegiance. These measures were
designed to depopulate Kentucky, Cumberland and
Holston and fill Louisiana and West Florida with
settlers.8
This remarkable effort at adaptation failed, and the
reasons for its failure are not far to seek. In the first
place, the political and religious privileges offered the
Americans were less than those they already enjoyed,
although far greater than Spain was accustomed to
grant. As one traveler, Colonel John Pope, remarked,
a Spanish subject could not even post a notice of a
stray horse without the consent of the military com-
mander of his district. Another observer warned the
Americans that Spain was ruled by an absolute monarch
and if they settled in Spanish territory they might be
compelled to become Roman Catholics within twenty-
four hours on pain of banishment.
9
By the beginning of Carondelet's administration it
was clear that no compensatory advantages over those
offered by the communities of the American West
could be hoped for under Spanish rule. Spanish sub-
jects enjoyed no considerable advantage over the
Americans on the Mississippi, for, as Wilkinson told
Miró, they preferred paying the duty imposed on their
river traffic from six to fifteen per cent to the
trouble and expense of moving to Spanish territory.10
HECTOR, BARON DE CARONDELET
159
Still more discouraging to immigration was the govern-
ment's reduction in 1790 of the amount of tobacco
purchased on the royal account for the factory at
Seville. One of the chief attractions of Louisiana and
West Florida in the 1780's was the fact that the heavy
purchases of tobacco on the government's account-
two million pounds a year at a price of first ten and
then eight dollars a hundred pounds assured the
planters a ready market for their tobacco and hard cash
in payment for it.11 A letter written by Joseph Martin
to Patrick Henry shows the interest aroused in the
American West by this policy, which inclined Martin
to establish a colony on the Tombigbee River not far
above Mobile.12
M
In December, 1790, a royal order was issued reducing
the amount to be purchased annually to the insignifi-
cant figure of forty thousand pounds, or, at the max-
imum price of ten dollars per hundredweight, four
thousand dollars' worth of tobacco a year. There were
excellent reasons for this reduction. The factory at
Seville was overstocked, and the tobacco of Louisiana
was said to be of inferior quality. Politically, however,
the measure was very unwise, for it was a striking
instance of the insecurity of property under the
Spanish government. The planters of Natchez pre-
sented a petition complaining loudly of the reduction,
declaring that it was only the prospect of a ready
market that had induced them to settle there, and to
contract debts in order to buy slaves and clear lands
for cultivation, and that unless two million pounds of
tobacco a year were purchased or free trade with
foreign countries permitted certain ruin would over-
take them.13 Ezekiel Forman, who came from New
Jersey with his family and fifty slaves to settle at
160 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
Natchez, found the planters despondent and the
situation discouraging when he arrived there in 1790.14
Wilkinson assigned the change in the tobacco policy
as one of the principal reasons for the cessation of
immigration from Kentucky; and Gayoso assured
the government that with the resumption of its tobacco
purchases or the grant of free trade the development of
a strong barrier-colony within ten years was a certainty,
but that without some such encouragement its growth
would be extremely slow.15 Nevertheless, the govern-
ment did not resume its liberal purchases, and, as we
shall see, the measure of "free trade" that it accorded
these frontier provinces in 1793 was narrowly limited.
At the same time that the attraction of a ready
market was lost by the people of Louisiana it was
gained by the Kentuckians. The United States Army
operating against the Northern Indians and the thou-
sands of immigrants that entered the state every year
consumed the surplus food-stuffs produced by the
Kentucky farmers.16 Hard times at Natchez attracted
few settlers from prosperous Kentucky.
Another of the putative advantages of Spanish sub-
jects soon proved illusory, for the Indians took scalps
in Natchez district as well as in Cumberland and
Kentucky. Despite all that the Spanish officials could
do or say, their Creek allies would not distinguish be-
tween Americans who had taken the oath of allegiance
to Spain and those who had not. Journeying from the
Alabama River through the Choctaw towns they
murdered an inoffensive Natchez settler and his
family, threw the whole country into a panic, brought
immigration to a pause and frightened away some who
had already made their homes in Spanish territory.
When one of these recent immigrants, Robert Stark,
HECTOR, BARON DE CARONDELET
161
a man of some means and influence who had settled at
Natchez in 1790, asked permission in 1793 to return to
the United States, he encountered another of the
peculiarities of the Spanish system. He was informed
that the land granted him in 1790 could not be sold but
must revert to the crown, since it had been granted for
settlement and not for speculation.¹7
Finally, in considering the reasons for the failure of
the immigration policy, it must be remembered that
the Spanish system forbade three forms of activity
common among the American frontiersmen: local self-
government in its various manifestations, such as
elections, conventions and associations; public Protes-
tant worship, to which many frontiersmen, especially
the Presbyterians and Baptists of the Holston region
were devotedly attached; and land speculation, in
which almost every frontiersman of any consequence
was engaged and which was consistently opposed
by the Spanish government.18 Land grants were
made to none but bona-fide settlers, were not always
transferable, and varied in size according to the number
of adult males, free or slave, in the grantee's family.
Some of the American frontiersmen said that Sunday
had not yet crossed the mountains, and no doubt many
of them could have got on quite comfortably without
a Sunday sermon; but one can hardly conceive of an
American frontier community, even under the Spanish
government, without its political conventions and its
land speculators.
Under these conditions it is not surprising that the
Spanish experiment failed. The extent of the failure
was brought out strikingly by Spain's experience at New
Madrid and Nogales (Walnut Hills). In both cases the
projects had originated with Americans, the former
162 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
with George Morgan and the latter with the South
Carolina Yazoo Company, and both had given fair
promise of success until Spain intervened. As soon as
Spanish authority was extended over the settlements
by the establishment of garrisons, immigration came to
a standstill and the colonies languished with a handful
of apathetic inhabitants.
Even had the policy been successful it was opposed
by so many influential Spaniards Carondelet himself;
his superior, the captain-general, Luis de las Casas; the
viceroy of Mexico, the Marqués de Revillagigedo; and
the secretary of war- that it would probably have
been modified in any case. As it turned out, the policy
was not merely modified but abandoned during the
conservative reaction in Spain following the excesses
of the French Reign of Terror, and its abandonment
coincided with the surrender of the diplomatic con-
troversy with the United States. In November, 1795,
two weeks after the conclusion of the treaty of San
Lorenzo, the Council of State had under consideration
a colonization plan proposed by a certain Louis de
Villemont of Louisiana, and based on the liberalism
that had inspired Floridablanca's immigration policy.
Times had changed since 1788. Godoy observed
severely that "a Catholic king cannot be indulgent in
the observance of the law of God," and the Council
disapproved of the plan because of "the absolute
impossibility of securing a large number of suitable
colonists from other nations on the proper terms," and
because of its "many highly objectionable features,
notably the freedom of religion and sects." In other
words, Spain at last confessed her inability to colonize
the Mississippi Valley.19
Mega
HECTOR, BARON DE CARONDELET 163
CARONDELET'S SEPOYS
Since, for the time being at any rate, Carondelet
could place little or no reliance in the Kentucky in-
trigue, immigration or the fortified posts of Louisiana,
there remained by elimination only one of the tra-
ditional means of defence against Spain's turbulent
American neighbors, namely, the Indian alliances.
During this first year of his administration (1792)
several events occurred which, given the general situ-
ation, convinced him that the United States govern-
ment was planning the immediate invasion of Louisiana
and West Florida and that the Southern tribes of
Indians would be an effective weapon with which to
repel the invaders.
During the early months of this year, the usual
rumors of hostile demonstrations on the American
frontier reached Carondelet, together with the news
that the United States government was gathering a
large force on the Ohio River. Obsessed by fear and
unable to distinguish between irresponsible frontiers-
men and the American government, he disregarded
Gayoso's assurances that the force was destined for
service against the Northern Indians, declared that the
rape of Louisiana was at hand and frantically besought
his brother-in-law, the captain-general, to rush troops
and munitions to his defence.20
At this juncture (March, 1792) the Baron had an
interview that was most unfortunate for him. William
Augustus Bowles, the rival of Panton and McGillivray,
had just been captured in the Creek nation. Brought
to New Orleans, he was questioned by Carondelet about
the state of affairs on the frontier. His attractive
personality and his plausible manner made the governor
164 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
an easy victim to his brazen lies to the effect that the
Creek Indians were overwhelmingly opposed to the
recent treaty of their chiefs with the United States
(New York, 1790), that they were ready to join in a war
against the United States, and that thousands of troops
were being raised by the state and federal governments
in Georgia and the Carolinas to invade the Spanish
provinces. Bowles was simply the tool of rival mercan-
tile interests in the Bahamas who hoped to supplant
Panton and McGillivray; and even had he been most
veracious he had got most of his information by hearsay.
Carondelet, however, was deeply impressed, for his
temperament inclined him to accept Bowles's trans-
parent fabrications as the truth. The situation was
little improved by the adventurer's departure, for
Carondelet then fell under the influence of Panton,
whose voice was always for war.21
Another event that moved Carondelet profoundly
was St. Clair's defeat by the Northern Indians, news of
which was received in New Orleans just after he took
over the government from Miró.22 It was probably this
event which betrayed him into the capital error of
assuming that the Indians were better fighters than
the Americans, that they would form an effective
defence against invasion by the Mississippi and that
they could even intimidate the American frontiersmen
into accepting a Spanish protectorate or drive them
back over the mountains. A worse blunder could
hardly have been made, and there was abundant
evidence to set him right had Carondelet only been
capable of weighing it. Persistent attacks by the war-
like Creek had not destroyed even Cumberland, the
smallest and most exposed of the frontier settlements.
The Indians' fickleness was proverbial, as the Spaniards
HECTOR, BARON DE CARONDELET
165
1
had found to their advantage at the siege of Pensacola
and to their sorrow in the treaty of New York. The
Indians were prone to take the winning side or the side
of their latest benefactor. Their mental processes were
totally different from those of the white man. Even
had they been faithful and docile, they could not have
been used as veteran troops as Carondelet planned to
use them, hurling them into the fray and withdrawing
them at will. They remembered bloodshed longer than
a gift, and war once begun could not be terminated at
his behest, as he assumed it could.
Even had conditions been as favorable as Carondelet
painted them, the Indian alliances would have been of
little military value; and conditions were much less
favorable. He overestimated the number of Southern
Indian warriors and assumed that unity of action was
possible among these tribes. In reality their bickerings
were incessant, not only between tribes, as for instance
between the Creek and the Chickasaw, but within
tribes also, as between the upper and lower Creek and
between the various factions of the Choctaw.
The Baron was far less judicious than his predecessor
in the handling of Indian affairs. On one occasion when
an invasion from the Ohio seemed imminent, Miró
declared that the Indians were expensive and worthless
allies. He very wisely confined his efforts to securing
a monopoly of the Indian trade and to forestalling any
attempt on the part of the Americans to stir the
Indians up against Spain. At the most, he thought
them useful for breaking up settlements of land spec-
ulators, such as the colony projected by the South
Carolina Yazoo Company at Walnut Hills. His policy
was defensive and pacific, in accordance with the royal
orders on the subject. Carondelet's attempt to convert
166 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
the Indian tribes into sepoys and the Indian treaties
into a military alliance of offence and defence con-
stituted an abrupt departure from Miró's policy, was
a direct violation of the express orders of the court, and
produced the most deplorable consequences.
THE INDIAN CONFEDERATION
Mistaken as his Indian policy was, it cannot be
denied that he executed it with vigor and with the
ability that he usually manifested in dealing with
simple problems. The situation in the Indian country
was most unfavorable to Spain at the beginning of his
administration. The treaty concluded at New York in
1790 between the United States and the Creek chiefs
led by McGillivray conflicted at several points with the
treaty of Pensacola (1784). In the other Southern tribes,
American trade and influence were making rapid ad-
vances through the efforts of Governor Blount of the
Southwest Territory, who was also superintendent of
Indian affairs for the Southern department, and of
James Seagrove, United States agent among the Creek
Indians. Carondelet's first step was to restore order in
the distracted Creek Confederacy. This he did by
sending out an expedition from New Orleans in Febru-
ary, 1792, to capture the interloper Bowles, who, dis-
carded by Pitt after the Nootka crisis, had returned to
the Creek country in December, 1791.23 Posing as the
defender of Muscogean liberties against American
aggression and against the exploitation of the Indians
by Panton and McGillivray and their Spanish masters,
he was in reality the agent of British mercantile in-
terests in the Island of Providence headed by the
governor, Lord Dunmore, Virginia's last colonial
governor, and by the wealthy merchant, John Miller.
HECTOR, BARON DE CARONDELET
167
Succeeding where McGillivray, Panton and their
henchman Milfort had failed, the governor's expedition
captured Bowles by an unscrupulous stratagem de-
vised by Carondelet himself. The adventurer was first
sent to New Orleans, where he had the interview with
the governor of which we have already spoken, and
thence by way of Havana and Spain to a long captivity
in the Philippines.
Carondelet then reduced McGillivray to obedience
by intimidation, by the influence of Panton, and by the
grant of a larger pension than the one paid him by the
United States. A Spanish officer of French origin,
Pedro Olivier, was sent as the governor's agent to reside
in the Creek nation and keep watch on McGillivray.
The latter's reduction was merely a part of Carondelet's
design of preventing the execution of the treaty of New
York, whose consequences would, he thought, be fatal
to Spanish influence in that tribe and to the integrity
of the Spanish defensive system. McGillivray was
induced to sign a new convention (1792) abrogating
the obnoxious treaty, and Olivier was instructed to
incite the Creek to drive the Georgians out of the ter-
ritory ceded to the United States. This last measure
was too much for even family affection to condone, and
the captain-general forced his bellicose brother-in-law
to countermand the order.24 Carondelet complied
for the moment, but appealed over Las Casas' head to
the secretary of war and continued to stir up trouble
between the Indians and the American frontiersmen.
Other measures to strengthen Spanish influence in
the Indian country were the appointment of an agent,
Juan de la Villebeuvre, to reside among the Choctaw
and Chickasaw Indians, and the establishment of a
connection, through Panton and one of his traders,
168 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
John McDonald, with the Chickamauga towns of the
Cherokee, a tribe hitherto beyond the Spanish pale.25
Having prepared the ground, Carondelet proceeded
to summon the Southern Indians to an assembly at
Nogales under Gayoso's presidency for the purpose of
forming an alliance against the United States. Had his
instructions to Gayoso been carried out at this con-
gress, a war between Spain and the United States would
almost certainly have resulted, for it was his plan to form
a permanent confederation of the four Indian tribes,
to conclude an alliance with this confederation on be-
half of Spain, and although the alliance was to be styled
defensive, to have the confederation send a delegation
of chiefs to the United States government and demand
the reëstablishment of the frontier line of 1772, with
war as the alternative.26 Panton had written Caron-
delet in 1792 that he had things in readiness so that he
could let loose "as bloody a war as ever the Southern
states have experienced." 27 Carondelet believed him
and was ready for war. Gayoso, however, knowing that
the Indians were deceitful and intractable and that
Carondelet's plan was foolhardy, virtually ignored the
instructions. Proceeding with the ostentation and
ceremoniousness proper to such occasions, he negotiated
a treaty which, while it was merely defensive and failed
to provide for the sending of a delegation of chiefs with
an ultimatum to the United States, created a con-
federation of the four Southern tribes under Spanish
protection, established a mutual territorial guarantee,
and stipulated that henceforth the annual present given
each tribe should be delivered to it in a lump in its own
territory. This last clause was designed among other
things to furnish Spain with a pretext for sending its
troops into the Indian country and thús pave the way
HECTOR, BARON DE CARONDELET
169
for the establishment of additional posts. The erection
of such a post in the Choctaw country was authorized
in the treaty, and consequently in 1794 a Spanish fort
was built and garrisoned on the Tombigbee River near
the site of the old French Fort Tombecbé. It was called
Fort Confederation in honor of the newly formed union
of Indian tribes.28
It has been said that Carondelet's Indian policy pro-
duced deplorable consequences. In the first place, it
interfered with the development of the intrigue with
the American frontiersmen. As Gayoso pointed out,
Carondelet was pursuing mutually contradictory
policies. Indian attacks on the American frontier had
been moderated in the last three years of Miro's
administration (1789-91), but were renewed with re-
doubled fury when Carondelet took over the govern-
ment in 1792. The frontiersmen rightly attributed this
change to Carondelet's advent; and the intrigue with
the frontiersmen suffered in consequence, the intrigue
in its second phase being confined to Kentucky, which
was more remote than Cumberland and Holston from
Spain's Indian allies.29 Even with the Indians them-
selves Spain's interests suffered from Carondelet's
belligerency, for many of them resented the effort of
any white man, regardless of his nationality, to involve
them in war with other white men.
In the second place, Carondelet's Indian policy had
a most unfortunate effect on Spain's negotiation with
the United States. The Spanish agents in Philadelphia,
Jáudenes and Viar, were at first on very friendly terms
with the administration, but in the course of 1792
Carondelet's pernicious misrepresentations led them
to charge the United States with pursuing an Indian
policy deliberately hostile towards Spain. One of the
170 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
principal proofs adduced in support of this assertion
was that Governor Blount had distributed among the
Indians medals bearing on one side an effigy of Wash-
ington and the inscription "Friendship forever,” and on
the other side, "Peace and trade without end." Such
a frivolous charge gave an air of absurdity to their
representation, but they pressed their case with the
utmost gravity and with the most objectionable
vehemence. As Carondelet's policy was unfolded, they
saw that it would bring a protest from the United
States government; and, on the principle that the
offensive is the best defence, they redoubled their
vehemence and warned Jefferson that, unless the
United States altered its Indian policy, the continu-
ance of peace was highly problematical. Equivalent to
a threat of war, which Jefferson wrote Monroe at this
juncture was almost certain,30 their note led the ad-
ministration to transfer the discussion to Spain and
to refuse to receive any further communication on the
subject from the Spanish agents.31 In Spain, as we shall
see, this controversy over Indian affairs enabled Short
and Carmichael to score the only diplomatic triumph
won by the United States in the whole course of this
twelve years' negotiation with Spain, and the American
envoys owed their success to Carondelet.
CHAPTER XII
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE SPANISH
EMPIRE
VIRTUE AND VITALITY
As Carondelet's frontier policy began to take shape
and just as Spain and England were being drawn into
the war against France, William Short arrived at
Madrid in tardy response to Floridablanca's invitation
of 1791. On February 6, 1793, he and William Car-
michael, the resident chargé, who held joint powers,
informed the secretary of state, Manuel de Godoy,
the Duke of Alcudia, that they were ready to begin
the negotiation.¹
It was just at this juncture that the Red Terror in
France reached its grand climacteric in the beheading
of Louis XVI, royal cousin of His Majesty of Spain and
the Indies. No event more disastrous to Spain has ever
occurred in its history, for it was thereby involved
inextricably in the European wars of the next twenty
years, with fatal results to the dynasty, the nation and
the empire. Even though we are concerned with only
a small corner of the colonial and diplomatic fields, and
that for a brief period of time, we shall have abundant
occasion to note how cruelly Spain suffered from the
convulsions that shook its neighbor to the north. In
Spain, as in England, liberalism was brought into dis-
repute by the excesses of the French republicans, and, as
we have seen, an interesting experiment in immigration
policy, based on religious toleration, was abandoned in
the conservative reaction of the 1790's at the Spanish
court. In the following pages it will appear how, in
other respects as well, such as colonial commerce and
finance, Indian trade and international relations, the
171
172
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
results of the French Revolution handicapped Spain in
its bloodless conflict with the United States.
The king of Spain at that time was Charles IV, whose
reign was one of the most disastrous in the history of
Spain, or for that matter of any European country.
The disaster was all the more poignant because of the
fair promise of the preceding reign, which ended with
the death of Charles III in 1788. For those who are
satisfied with such explanations, it may be said that
Charles IV was simple-minded and his queen a nympho-
maniac, and that the youthful chief minister, Godoy,
was one of the queen's lovers. If one tests this interpre-
tation by a comparison of the conduct of relations with
the United States in this reign and the one that pre-
ceded it, the hollowness of it becomes at once apparent.
Charles III was possessed of at least normal intelligence
and of a most extraordinary chastity, for during the
last twenty years of his life he had neither wife nor
mistress. His chief minister was no upstart youth, but
the tried and true Floridablanca. And yet a crisis was
never more incompetently handled than the one that
the austere king and his patriotic minister had to face
at the outbreak of the American Revolution. If the
youthful Godoy had at last to surrender to the Ameri-
cans, it was because the middle-aged Floridablanca
had let slip a golden opportunity and had not been able
to rectify his blunder in the nine remaining years of
his ministry after the end of the American Revolution.
It is difficult indeed to establish any causal relation
between the private morality of the ministers and the
issue of the struggle between Spain and the United
States. While Godoy lay in the arms of his royal
mistress, Alexander Hamilton was similarly engaged
with the wife of one of his underlings in the treasury
FRENCH REVOLUTION, SPANISH EMPIRE 173
department. It is also an interesting fact that Godoy
was a far more industrious person than George Wash-
ington.³ If we consider the case from the point of view
of public morality, the situation is not altered. On the
contrary, the Spanish government seems to have been
punished for its virtues. Loyalty to monarchy induced
it to undertake the disastrous war of 1793 with France,
and loyalty to the Catholic faith handicapped it hope-
lessly in the frontier competition with the United
States.
What Spain lacked was not virtues but vitality, the
power of adaptation. Perhaps she had neither the man-
power nor the money-power nor the brain-power to
maintain her heritage from another world, but cer-
tainly she was unable to adapt herself to the needs of
a changing age. For a generation past, enlightened
Spaniards had made notable efforts at readjustment;
but when the rhythm of change was accelerated by the
French Revolution the nation would not, and by its
very nature could not, keep pace. Soon hopelessly
maladjusted to the new world, the Spaniards resigned
the effort, canonized their faults, consoled themselves
with reveries of a glorious past, and dreamed away an
empire. The most heroic of ministers could have done
little more than shake an impotent fist in the face of the
storm that broke upon the just and the unjust in 1793.
THE ENGLISH ALLIANCE
Spain's first and most urgent need was an ally. Since
the Nootka episode the Family Compact had been as
good as dissolved, and for a time Spain stood in danger-
ous isolation. As the progress of the revolution in
France made the renewal of the Compact unlikely,
and as the contagion of republican ideas became more
174 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
menacing, Floridablanca suggested an alliance with no
less a power than the ancient enemy, England. His fall
and the rise to power of the Gallican Aranda interposed
a delay; but Aranda was supplanted by Manuel de
Godoy, Duke of Alcudia, in November, 1792, and the
English alliance was pressed to an early conclusion.4
The alliance was of course directed primarily against
France, but the treaty also provided that if either
power should be drawn into war with another power
through its measures against France, the other con-
tracting party must make common cause against the
new enemy. Thus if British restrictions on neutral
trade with France should result in war between Great
Britain and the United States, Spain would be obliged
under this treaty to come to the aid of the British.5
No matter how much one may sympathize with the
Spanish court in the terrible dilemma of 1793, and no
matter what cogent reasons it may have had for con-
cluding the English alliance, the fact remains that
Britain was the age-old enemy of the Spanish empire,
that French aid alone had long sustained the tottering
power of Spain in the Indies, and that the French and
the Spaniards now set merrily to work sinking each
other's ships for the greater glory of Great Britain.
The result might have been foreseen. It was foreseen
by some, among them the doughty old Count Aranda,
who warned his king of the wrath to come, and was
rewarded for his pains by dismissal, disgrace, and im-
prisonment at Granada in the palace of Charles V.
ECONOMIC PENETRATION
On the Spanish frontier in North America the dis-
astrous results of the French Revolution were soon
apparent. In the first place, the increasing gravity of
L.
FRENCH REVOLUTION, SPANISH EMPIRE 175
the European situation prevented the court from
carrying into effect its plan of 1789 for supplying the
trade of Louisiana and the Floridas with Spanish goods.
Since the colonists had long been accustomed to French
and English goods, the court had proposed in 1789 to
facilitate the change by duplicating in Spanish factories
the articles of common colonial consumption. Martin
Navarro, former intendant of Louisiana, was actually
sent to France and England, where he secured samples
and information with regard to methods of production
and marketing; but by the time that he returned to
Spain (1790) the menacing European situation had
diverted his government's attention to other matters."
And yet some provision must be made for supplying
these North American colonies. The commerce of
Louisiana was regulated by the cédula issued in 1782
and limited to ten years' duration, and was in the hands
of merchants of France, with which country Spain went
to war in May, 1793. To meet this situation, the
Spanish government issued in July, 1793, a reglamento
de comercio, which was to apply to East and West
Florida as well as to Louisiana." The reglamento con-
tained the apparently liberal provision that these
provinces might trade with all friendly nations with
which Spain had a commercial treaty; but since Spain
was at war with France and had no commercial treaty
with the United States, the practical effect of the
reglamento was to restrict the trade of the colonists
to Great Britain. Furthermore, the new regulations
required all foreign ships going to and from Louisiana
and the Floridas to touch at the port of Corcubión in
Galicia, a requirement which its sponsor supported by
the touching observation that it would be of great
benefit to that little port. This onerous provision was
176 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
subsequently repealed, in view of the strenuous protest
of the New Orleans cabildo or town council; but the
court had given convincing proof that it was either
ignorant of the interests of its North American colonies
or was willing to sacrifice them for the benefit of a
single insignificant Spanish port.
Worst of all, the French Revolution made it im-
possible to prevent Spanish subjects in Louisiana and
the Floridas from trading with the United States. On
the Mississippi Carondelet stretched to the utmost the
discretionary power granted him by the Royal Order
of December 1, 1788, and reduced from fifteen to six
per cent the duty on importations from Kentucky
which included fourteen thousand barrels of flour in
a single year (1792). In defence of his course, he de-
clared that the exaction of the higher duty would pro-
voke the Kentuckians to invade Louisiana and that in
that event they would probably be aided by a creole
insurrection, so great was the ferment caused by the
French Revolution. As for the seaborne commerce of
Louisiana, Carondelet warned that it was falling into the
hands of the United States, and frankly admitted that
American ships were trading at New Orleans, flying the
United States flag on the Atlantic and in the Gulf of
Mexico, and hoisting the Spanish flag only when they
entered the Mississippi River. In extenuation he not
only pleaded the danger of rebellion in Louisiana, but
actually espoused the cause of the colonists, arguing
economic necessity. Since, he said, the war with France
had closed the normal channels of Louisiana's trade,
but one market for many of the colonial productions
was left and that was in the United States. If this were
closed, the colonists would be ruined.8
While the court never approved Carondelet's course,
FRENCH REVOLUTION, SPANISH EMPIRE 177
neither did it take effective steps to cut off contraband
trade with the United States, and the opening of the
Mississippi to the United States shipping under the
treaty of San Lorenzo increased enormously the facili-
ties for smuggling. In conclusion, we are justified in
saying that the French Revolution had a most dis-
astrous effect on Spanish commercial policy in Louisiana
and the Floridas, for it not only prevented the execution
of the plan to supply their wants with Spanish goods
but actually opened the way to economic penetration
by the very nation, the United States, that Spain was
most anxious to exclude from contact with its frontier
colonies.
THE INDIAN TRADE
In that highly specialized branch of commerce, the
Indian trade, the French Revolution again exercised an
influence unfavorable to Spanish interests. Spanish
policy, as we have seen, was designed to control the
territory in dispute with the United States by keeping
the occupant Indian tribes, the Creek, Choctaw and
Chickasaw, dependent upon Spain, and this was to be
accomplished through the medium of trade. By the
year 1793, when Spain went to war with France, this
policy gave fair promise of success. Spanish influence
was paramount among the Southern Indians, whose
trade was falling more and more into the hands of
Panton, Leslie and Company. The company with
stores at St. Mark's, Pensacola and Mobile, and with
a business whose capital value in 1794 was estimated
by Panton and Carondelet at $400,000, seemed most
favorably situated to engross the fur trade as it re-
treated westward in the face of the advancing American
and Spanish frontiers. In addition to long-standing
178 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
connections among the Indian tribes and to a monopoly
protected by the Spanish government, the company
enjoyed several other advantages. First among these
was its direct communication with England, where its
correspondents, Strachan and McKenzie, sold its furs
and bought its next year's supply of goods for the
Indian trade; and these goods were bought in what was
then the cheapest market in the world. Furthermore,
economies were made possible by the magnitude of the
enterprise; and finally the finances of the company
were stabilized by its manifold activities, for it traded
not only with the Indians but also, sometimes openly
and sometimes surreptitiously, with the colonists; it
owned its ships, supplied the Indians with salt from its
own salt mine on the Island of Providence, imported
slaves, exported timber, and speculated in lands.'
Supported by the imprudent but vigorous Caron-
delet, the company made rapid strides in the period
1792-95. It prevented the execution of the Creek
treaty of 1790 with the United States, which would
have endangered the company's hold on the Creek
trade. It built up a powerful party among the Chicka-
saw, who had hitherto been largely under the influence
of the Cumberland settlers, and even began to pene-
trate the Cherokee, most of whose towns lay beyond the
extremest limit of Spain's territorial claims.10 In 1794
Fort Confederation and in 1795 Fort San Fernando
were built by Carondelet to strengthen the company's
hand among the Choctaw and Chickasaw; and Pan-
ton's store at San Fernando (Memphis) opened up to
him the Mississippi River fur trade and would have
made it possible for him to follow the trade as it re-
treated westward across the Mississippi.
This fair prospect was ruined by the wars of the
FRENCH REVOLUTION, SPANISH EMPIRE 179
French Revolution and the simultaneous rise of a strong
federal government in the United States. Spain's war
in alliance with England against France (1793-95)
resulted in many losses to Panton, Leslie and Com-
pany, for they were now unable to secure in England
the indispensable supply of guns for the Indian trade.
When they invoked Carondelet's good offices, he was
forced to send to the United States for the guns and
even then was unable to obtain them, since their
exportation was prohibited by the United States
government. The company suffered further losses
through French depredations, as its ships sailed under
the British flag; and to the delight of Panton's sworn
rivals, the Georgians, a French privateer brought one
of his richly laden ships a prize to the port of Savannah.11
At the same time, the increasingly vigorous Indian
policy of the United States, executed through Blount
at Knoxville and Seagrove in Georgia, gave Panton
great concern; and when in 1794 he learned that the
United States government itself was planning to take
over the Indian trade he was utterly dismayed and
sought the aid of the Spanish government. As he stated
in his memorial, the American project was a tribute to
his company's efficiency, since it was equivalent to the
admission that private enterprise could not compete
with him; but at the same time Panton admitted his
inability to hold the field against the United States
government.12
These and other difficulties led the company to beg
the court for a loan and other concessions, urging as the
only alternative the purchase and operation of its busi-
ness by His Catholic Majesty's government. Unfor-
tunately for Panton, the European war, which was in
a large measure responsible for his memorial, was
180
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
also largely responsible for Spain's inability to adopt
either of the alternatives that he proposed. Both
involved heavy expenditures, and these were lean years
for the Spanish treasury. Economy was the order of the
day, and we shall soon see how important a part an
empty treasury played in bringing about the Spanish
surrender to the United States in 1795. Left to shift for
itself, the company succeeded in controlling for another
generation the trade of the Indian towns nearest the
coast; but as early as 1796 one of its members, John
Forbes, wrote Carondelet that he was on his way to
Knoxville to close out the company's Cherokee trade
because of the "proximity and cheapness of the Ameri-
can supplys."
SPAIN RETREATS
To return to the mission in Spain of Carmichael and
Short: Until the end of 1793, they accomplished
absolutely nothing, and Short was more than once
inclined to give up the effort in disgust. The English
alliance and a few easy victories over the French made
Gardoqui for a few months quite indifferent to the
attitude of the United States, and a better man than
Gardoqui, appointed plenipotentiary to negotiate the
treaty, could hardly have been found to baffle the
American commissioners. He had an excellent excuse
for putting them off, since they had nothing to offer in
return for their extravagant demands. He had an
interest in putting them off, since his own family were
merchants at Bilbao, and since Spanish commerce, he
thought, was being ruined by colonial contraband trade,
which would be facilitated by the opening of the Mis-
sissippi River to the United States. Finally, he had a
genius for putting the Americans off, and not only the
FRENCH REVOLUTION, SPANISH EMPIRE 181
}
Americans but everyone, for he was a master of evasion
and, as the British ambassador wrote, "repeating what
falls from Gardoqui” was "next to saying nothing." 13
Not for long, however, did this happy state of affairs
endure. The British allier ce, so recently cemented,
soon cracked under the strain of the opposing thrusts
of Spanish and British interests, first at Toulon, then
at Santo Domingo and elsewhere. No longer could the
Spanish government stand so unyieldingly on its rights
in the American controversy as it understood them, and
it is interesting to observe that the first concession to
the Americans (many were soon to follow) was made in
frontier affairs, in the field of Indian relations. As we
have seen, Jáudenes and Viar, instigated by Caron-
delet, had taken an absurd position in regard to Indian
affairs on the Spanish-American frontier, and had main-
tained their absurdities in such offensive language that
Jefferson had transferred the discussion of the subject
to Madrid. Making skillful use of the data at their
disposal, Carmichael and Short forced Gardoqui and
Godoy from one position to another until finally, on
January 19, 1794, Godoy surrendered the argument,
admitting that the Indian allies of Spain had been the
aggressors against the unoffending American frontiers-
men and promising to use his authority to prevent
the recurrence of such episodes.14
Another concession soon followed that of January 19.
On March 7, 1794, Godoy laid before the Council of
State a copy of the treaty concluded by Gayoso at
Nogales in October, 1793, whereby a Southern Indian
confederation had been created in alliance with Spain.
On Godoy's advice, the King and Council approved the
treaty only on the express understanding that it did not
contain any provision that might endanger the con-
182 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
tinuance of friendly relations with the United States.
Jáudenes and Viar were informed of their decision and
instructed to communicate it to the United States
government. And so the treaty that Carondelet had
designed as a prelude to war with the United States
was used by his government to prove its earnest desire
for peace and friendship with that power.15
In the course of the first seven months of 1794, Godoy
received from various quarters of Europe and America
reports which broke down still further his will to resist
the Americans and determined him to press to an
immediate conclusion the pending negotiation. From
St. Augustine and Havana he learned of the imminent
invasions of East Florida and Louisiana planned by
Elijah Clarke and George Rogers Clark at Genêt's
instigation. From Philadelphia he learned of the
opposition of the United States government to Genêt's
plans and of its inclination to maintain friendly relations
with Spain.16 From London, the Spanish ambassador,
Bernardo del Campo, sent him the disquieting news that
an envoy from the United States was expected there to
negotiate a treaty.17 Almost every week brought a
fresh reason for dissatisfaction with the English alliance.
The campaign of 1794 in the eastern Pyrenees was
marked by the most alarming succession of victories
by the French invaders over the Spanish troops, and
already Gardoqui was warning the Council of State that
the finances of the crown could not stand the strain of
war much longer.18
Spain's change of policy in Indian affairs was soon
followed by its necessary complement, a modification
of its diplomacy. The same spirit that curbed Caron-
delet's belligerency led Godoy in May, 1794, to request
the United States to send a new plenipotentiary to
FRENCH REVOLUTION, SPANISH EMPIRE 183
Spain, a more eminent person than Short and Carmi-
chael and one armed with ampler powers. On May 9,
1794, seven days after the Council of State had dis-
cussed many fresh reports of forces gathering in the
United States to invade Louisiana and the Floridas,
an order was sent to Jáudenes instructing him to lay
this request before the President of the United States
at the earliest opportunity.19 Jáudenes did so in
August, and it was in answer to this invitation, though
after a considerable delay, that Thomas Pinckney
was appointed to Spain. Jefferson, who was offered
the appointment, declined it.20
Under the circumstances, it can hardly be doubted
that Godoy's invitation was dictated by a sincere
desire for an accommodation, especially when we
remember his simultaneous modification of Spain's
Indian policy for the express purpose of maintaining
friendly relations with the United States. On what
terms he intended to conduct the negotiation it is
impossible to state with certainty, but we may be sure
that a complete surrender was not intended. In view
of Gardoqui's influence with Godoy, his advice to
Floridablanca on Short's memorial of 1791, and the
inclination, recorded in the correspondence of Godoy's
office, of Jay and Jefferson 21 to agree to a mutual
territorial guarantee, in return for the thirty-first
parallel and the free navigation of the Mississippi, we
may suppose with no great probability of error that
Godoy hoped to secure some such settlement before
Spain's situation became still more disquieting.
Fate was against him. The French advance con-
tinued, funds were exhausted, and even the Spanish
aristocracy seemed tainted with republicanism. Early
in July, 1794, Godoy received from Jáudenes the
184 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
startling news that John Jay had been sent by the
United States government to conclude a treaty with
England.22 Godoy was terrified. The spectre of an
Anglo-American alliance that had so long haunted the
Spanish foreign office seemed about to assume corporeal
substance; and Spain's tenuous connection with Eng-
land offered her no security. Albion's perfidy was taken
for granted by the Spanish court.
The other portions of Jáudenes's despatches did not
afford Godoy the comfort intended. Describing the
unstable equilibrium of the American frontier, which
might incline the Kentuckians either to secession and
alliance with Spain or to an attack on the Spanish
dominions, Jáudenes failed to console his youthful
chief, for Godoy knew that the former alternative
would be as disastrous to Spain as the latter.
The only escape, it seemed, was to forestall England
by a quick negotiation with the American government.
Consequently Godoy laid the case before the Council
of State on July 7, 1794. After hearing a lengthy state-
ment of the diplomatic and frontier situation, the
Council determined unanimously to make fresh over-
tures to the United States.23 The next two weeks were
occupied in drawing up the necessary instructions,
Godoy writing out the first draft in his own hand,
a rare thing for the first secretary of state to do, even
in the time of the faithful Floridablanca. Before the
instructions were sent, however, Godoy received from
Carondelet letters of such a character as to require the
reconsideration of Spain's policy towards the United
States and its frontiersmen. The origin and contents
of Carondelet's letters and the government's resolution
thereon will form the subject of the next chapter.
24
CHAPTER XIII
THE INTRIGUE INFALLIBLE
66
A PREDISPOSITION TO BE DISSATISFIED
""
On the American frontier, as well as in diplomacy and
commerce, the French Revolution did much to shape
the course of Spanish-American relations in the period
1793-95; and for a long time it was uncertain whether
Spain or the United States, or either, would be the
gainer. There were two ways in which the American
settlements between the Ohio and the Tennessee were
affected by the European cataclysm. In the first place,
fresh currency was given to two ideas already familiar
to the frontiersmen, namely, particularism and natural
rights; in the second place, boundless possibilities of
violence were opened up by the alliance between Great
Britain, controlling the Lakes, and Spain, controlling
Mississippi, against France, which was the ally of
the United States and from which the frontiersmen
had for the past decade expected aid in opening the
Mississippi.
It seemed very doubtful, in the summer of 1793,
whether either Spain or the United States would be
able to derive any benefit from the situation thus
created. On the one hand, the danger of an invasion of
Louisiana by the Kentuckians, long the nightmare of
the Spaniards at New Orleans, was increased tenfold.
"Natural right" was the frontiersman's chief argu-
ment in support of his claim to the free navigation of
the Mississippi, and the weighty authority given the
idea of natural right by the French Republic increased
the frontiersman's sense of injustice, his indignation
against the Spanish tyrants who made him pay a six
185
186
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
per cent duty at New Orleans. It was not likely that the
French government, which had never forgotten Louisi-
ana, would neglect this opportunity to capitalize the
Kentuckians' resentment: nor, as it proved, was the
opportunity neglected. At the same time, the fever of
the French Revolution stirred up sedition among the
numerous French creoles of Louisiana and insubordi-
nation among the slaves; and the Spanish government,
with so many other demands on its feeble energy, was
able to do little or nothing for its exposed frontier
provinces.
It might be supposed that an international situation
so embarrassing to Spain would have been correspond-
ingly advantageous to the United States; but this was
not the case. The American government had relied on
a European war to enable it to bring Spain to terms;
but this war was too gigantic a thing to be manipulated
by so puny a power as the infant republic. The charac-
ter of the European struggle divided the sympathies
of the Americans, making it impossible for them to
take a decided part, and in 1793 no power was willing
to pay a high price for their neutrality. The alliance
of their immediate neighbors in North America, Great
Britain and Spain, was formidable, in appearance at
least, throughout 1793 and 1794. At the same time,
frontier particularism received from the French Revo-
lution a new form of expression in the Democratic
Societies, several of which were organized in Kentucky
from August to December, 1793.¹ The partitioning of
Poland was in progress, and the interests of both
England and Spain would be served by a partition of
the United States. Altogether, the situation was fraught
with great danger to the Union in view of the possibility
of a secessionist movement in the West, and of the
1
THE INTRIGUE INFALLIBLE
187
recovery of Louisiana by France 2 and of the Floridas
by England.
The greatest danger of all lay in the particularistic
tendencies of the frontiersman. Natural in their situa-
tion, these tendencies were intensified at this juncture
by their dissatisfaction with certain measures of the
federal government, such as the assumption and
excise acts, and the neutrality proclamation of 1793,
and by their resentment at its aristocratic tone and
its failure to secure the free navigation of the Missis-
sippi. "Neglectful" and "contemptuous" were ad-
jectives with which the Kentuckians described the
attitude of Congress towards them. So obdurate were
they in their discontent, and so exasperated was Presi-
dent Washington with their obdurateness that he wrote
in August, 1794: "There must exist a predisposition
among them to be dissatisfied.” 3
When Edmund Genêt proclaimed a holy war against
Spanish tyranny he found a ready response among the
frontiersmen from Georgia to Kentucky. George
Rogers Clark, O'Fallon, Lachaise, Depeau and Michaud
in Kentucky; Elijah Clarke, the Hammond brothers,
Tate and Mangourit in Georgia and South Carolina,
were his agents in the summer and fall of 1793 in raising
legions for the conquest of Louisiana and the Floridas.4
George Rogers Clark was moved by the bitter dis-
content of a neglected hero, the Hammonds by a desire
to supplant Panton, Leslie and Company in the South-
ern fur trade, others by love of excitement, by the
prospect of plunder, by resentment at Spain's long
denial of their "natural rights." Above all, the fron-
tiersmen were opportunists, ready to try any expedient,
and Genêt offered them a means of opening the Missis-
sippi. At the same time, there is every evidence of a
188
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
deep and widespread sympathy among the frontiersmen
for the French Revolution. Where sympathy for France
had been weakened in the United States since the close
of the American Revolution, it was generally due to
the influence of merchants trading with England, of
Congregationalist preachers scandalized by French
deism and immorality, or of Jay and Adams, with
their charges of French duplicity in the negotiations
of 1782.5 On the frontier, there was no Jay or Adams,
preachers of any denomination were few, and the mer-
cantile interests of the Mississippi Valley settlements
demanded the free navigation of the Mississippi, which
Genêt offered them. Where there was one William
Blount in the West in the 1790's to denounce the "Ja-
cobin incendiary Genêt," there were a dozen Andrew
Jacksons to hail the liberator "Boneparte."
6
The joint land and sea expeditions against Louisiana
projected by Genêt in 1793 caused great alarm to the
governments of both Spain and the United States.
With all his French sympathies, Jefferson looked with
favor on the project only as a means of securing the
Floridas for the United States. By this stroke the
controversy with Spain over the boundary, the naviga-
tion of the Mississippi, fugitive slaves and Indian
relations would be settled once for all, and the United
States would have made a good start towards taking
Spain's North American possessions from her "piece by
piece," as Jefferson had prophesied in 1786. Washing-
ton and Hamilton, however, looked on Genêt's plans in
another light, and Jefferson's hopes came to nothing.
In December, 1793, he resigned his office, and the
Westerners felt that they had lost a friend at court.
The year that followed Jefferson's retirement from
the state department was an acutely critical one in the
THE INTRIGUE INFALLIBLE
189
relations of the United States government with its
frontiersmen. The chief danger was the possibility of a
general insurrection in the West. The remedy lay in
the diminution of the frontiersman's grievances, and
the magnitude and complexity of the problem required
systematic treatment. Accordingly diplomacy was en-
listed. One of the principal aims of John Jay's mis-
sion to England (April, 1794) was to secure the sur-
render of the Northwest posts. Monroe, who was sent
to France at the same time, was instructed to exert
every effort to persuade the victorious republic to ex-
tort from Spain the terms desired by the United States.
In order to facilitate the Spanish negotiation, William
Short was given sole charge of it with the rank of minis-
ter to Spain, and Carmichael, no longer a persona grata
at court, was recalled." In the United States itself a
show of force was made to intimidate the seditious
when Hamilton and Washington marched against the
distillers of western Pennsylvania. To Kentucky,
where the situation was more dangerous, the adminis-
tration wisely sent not troops but a diplomat, James
Innes, attorney-general of the state of Virginia and
brother of the Spanish conspirator, Judge Harry Innes,
to convince the governor and people of that state that
the federal government was doing all in its power to
secure the free navigation of the Mississippi.8
W
CC COCHON DE LAIT" RENEWS THE INTRIGUE
Still more perturbed by the Kentucky ferment was
the timorous Carondelet. He was terrified by the vision
of Genêt's simultaneous invasions of Louisiana from
the Gulf and from Kentucky, aided by the rebellious
French inhabitants, who later, in their version of the
"Carmagnolle," dubbed Carondelet "Cochon de lait"
190 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
and promised him first place on the guillotine. These
dangers induced him to revive the moribund Kentucky
intrigue. While the promise of lasting benefit to Spain
was even less than when Miró conspired with Wilkinson,
this second conspiracy was fraught with great danger to
the United States. The widespread unrest, the domi-
nant political ideas of the day and the instability com-
mon to frontier societies made secession far from impos-
sible. While two of the communities that were involved
in the first intrigue, Franklin and Cumberland, took
no part in this second conspiracy, the conspirators in
Kentucky were more numerous and seemed to press
the affair with more seriousness than in 1788, and
Carondelet hoped, as had Miró, that the other frontier
communities would follow the lead of the Kentuckians.
It was James Wilkinson, as we should expect, who
was immediately responsible for the revival of the con-
spiracy. His correspondence with Miró and Carondelet
from 1791 to 1793 had been languid; but in January
and February, 1794, while Clark was raising his French
legion in Kentucky, Wilkinson wrote Carondelet that
the time had come when Spain must take a decisive
stand in its relations with the Kentuckians. The
people of that state, he said, had at last lost patience
with their incompetent federal government and were
determined to open the Mississippi at once, whether
by secession from the Union or by the conquest of
Louisiana. It depended upon Spain which course they
should follow. Once a revolution was begun in Ken-
tucky, it would be easy, he said, to turn it to Spain's
advantage.10 There was nothing novel in this informa-
tion, for it was substantially what Wilkinson had been
writing for several years. What made it impressive was
that he now assured Carondelet that what had long
THE INTRIGUE INFALLIBLE
191
been threatened was at last to be executed, that the
critical moment was at hand, and that the decision
between secession and conquest would be made within
the next few months. Carondelet had already been
deeply impressed by a similar warning from Michel
Lacassagne, a French merchant in Kentucky, who had
come down to New Orleans in the winter of 1793–94 to
collect six thousand dollars on Wilkinson's pension
account, and whom Carondelet described in his letters
to Godoy as one of the richest and most influential
men in Kentucky.11
In a series of letters to the secretary of state, Godoy,
from April to July, 1794, Carondelet warned him of
the dangerous ferment in the settlements of the Ameri-
can West, which, he said, could put 60,000 armed men in
the field. He declared that there were only two means
by which Spain could preserve Louisiana and the Flori-
das. The first was the strengthening of its military
defences, the repair and construction of forts, the send-
ing of reinforcements, and the stirring up of the Indians
against the American frontier. He urged Godoy to
secure the coöperation of the British in Canada, for,
as he wrote a few months later, Lord Dorchester's
notorious speech to the Indians at Detroit showed
that the Spanish and English governors were pursuing
the same Indian policy. Realizing, however, that the
war in Europe might not permit Spain to undertake so
expensive a policy, he proposed as an alternative the
separation of Kentucky from the Union. All the other
Western settlements of the United States, he declared,
would follow Kentucky's lead, and thus the colossal
republic would be split into two rival powers, which
Spain could play off against each other for her ben-
efit, and especially for the protection of Louisiana and
192
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
Mexico. Kentucky's separation could easily be brought
about, though at no inconsiderable cost to Spain, for
Wilkinson's pension must be increased, other leading
Kentuckians must be granted pensions, and munitions
must be sent to support the revolution. Once the rev-
olution was begun, said Carondelet repeating Wilkin-
son's assurance, it could easily be given a direction
favorable to Spain by the negotiation of a treaty be-
tween that power and the Kentuckians opening the
Mississippi as far south as New Orleans.12
The governor's reasons for urging the Kentucky
project on Godoy were, as the foregoing summary
indicates, that Louisiana's critical situation, in the face
of the Clark-Genêt projects, made some defensive
measure an immediate necessity, that a purely military
defence would probably be too expensive, and that
the only alternative was the revolutionizing of Ken-
tucky. Other considerations, however, seem to have
influenced the Baron strongly to urge the Kentucky
project upon his government with such vigor. One
of these considerations was that to his amazement and
chagrin he had just received from Gardoqui, minister
of finance, an order removing him from the post of
intendant, which, since Martin Navarro's return to
Spain in 1788, had been united with the governorship
of the province. The loss of pay and prestige led him
to protest bitterly to Godoy, who curiously enough
knew nothing of the change until he received Caronde-
let's complaint.13 This reverse doubtless convinced
Carondelet that he must render some signal service
that would offset his failure in the intendancy and
secure his promotion at the end of his five-year term
in Louisiana. An opportunity for such a service was
offered by the Kentucky intrigue.
THE INTRIGUE INFALLIBLE
193
Another consideration that led him to urge the pro-
ject was his desire to secure free trade privileges for the
port of New Orleans, that is, to have it thrown open
to the commerce of all friendly nations subject to a
six per cent import and export duty. Navarro had
urged this measure as early as 1780 and repeatedly
thereafter, and Miró had renewed the recommenda-
tion.14 All of them saw the economic and political possi-
bilities of the Mississippi Valley and wished to make
Spain the beneficiary. Local circumstances had already
led Carondelet to relax the commercial restrictions in
Louisiana as far as his discretionary powers extended.
By a very liberal interpretation of the royal order of
December 1, 1788, he reduced the duty on all impor-
tations from Kentucky from fifteen to six per cent.
He granted frequent "special permissions" to ships
to call at the ports of the United States, and strongly
supported the New Orleans cabildo's memorial against
the commercial regulations of 1793. It was indeed his
economic liberalism that brought about his removal
from the intendancy of Louisiana, but even then he
stuck to his guns and assured Godoy that the economic
welfare as well as the loyalty of Louisiana required
that New Orleans be made a free port.15
The renewed intrigue with Kentucky opportunely
enabled the governor to advance another and a com-
pelling argument in favor of this measure. Kentucky,
he pointed out, should by all means receive its imports
as well as despatch its exports by way of New Orleans.
All economic intercourse between the American West
and the Atlantic States must cease. New Orleans
merchants must undersell those of Philadelphia in
Kentucky. In order that this might be done, the cost
of European goods in New Orleans must be reduced,
194 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
and this reduction in turn would be secured if New
Orleans were made a free port and its market thrown
open to the competition of the merchants and manu-
facturers of all countries. This was the only means,
asserted Carondelet, of converting a fugitive intrigue
with the Kentuckians into a firm friendship and lasting
alliance.
Before writing these despatches to Godoy, he had
received encouragement from other quarters in Ken-
tucky. Judge Harry Innes wrote Gayoso in January,
1794, expressing a willingness to negotiate with Spain,
but warning Gayoso that the vague promises hitherto
received from Louisiana must be converted into precise
assurances before the Kentuckians would take a step.16
In the correspondence that ensued there was a sharp
disagreement between Innes on the one hand and
Gayoso and Carondelet on the other as to procedure,
but they made some progress towards an agreement.17
Other correspondents of Spain were Michel Lacassagne,
whom we have already mentioned; another French
merchant of Louisville, Benjamin Tardiveau, and one
of Wilkinson's associates in the earlier intrigue,
Benjamin Sebastian, who offered as his chief gage of
loyalty to Spain his Spanish surname.
So great was Carondelet's confidence in a favorable
decision by Godoy that, without awaiting further
orders, he sent Wilkinson large sums of money and
urged him to come down in person or to send authorized
deputies to conclude the treaty of alliance and com-
merce with Spain on behalf of Kentucky. The mes-
sengers employed by Wilkinson in this correspondence
were Henry Owens, a quondam schoolmaster; Henry
Collins, whom Wilkinson once described as an “un-
polished diamond" and later as a "great villain;”
•
THE INTRIGUE INFALLIBLE
195
Thomas Power, the most indefatigable traveler of
them all; and the notorious Philip Nolan, "my young
friend . . . honorable, discreet, courageous and ac-
tive." 18
Despite Carondelet's eagerness to give and Wilkin-
son's to receive, not all went well. Of the $16,000 sent
"our Brigadier" by the Baron in 1794, only $5100
actually reached its destination. Lacassagne pocketed
$1400 of the $4000 sent by him. In June, 1794,
Carondelet sent another $12,000, half of it by Owens
and the other half by Collins, ostensibly in payment of
a balance long overdue on a legitimate commercial
transaction, but actually to reimburse Wilkinson for
his alleged expenses in buying off George Rogers Clark
and to provide funds for the prosecution of the intrigue.
Owens, who returned to Kentucky by way of the Missis-
sippi and Ohio Rivers, was murdered by the Spanish
crew sent with him, and the money was never recovered.
Some of the murderers were captured and brought
before Judge Harry Innes, who hastened to hand them
over to Wilkinson, and he in turn sent them on to
the Spanish commandant of St. Louis lest their trial
in Kentucky should lead to unpleasant revelations.19
Collins, going by sea with the other $6000 to Charleston,
South Carolina, returned safely as far as Pittsburgh,
and finally paid Wilkinson $2500 of the $6000.2⁰ “Our
Brigadier" in his turn disappointed the Baron, for he
failed either to descend to New Orleans or to send
authorized deputies, and Gayoso detected disturbing
contradictions between Wilkinson's statements and
those of Innes. Wilkinson explained, however, that
the Indian campaign had required his attention, and
that more time and money were necessary to prepare
the ground in Kentucky, and renewed his assurances
196 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
of ultimate success. Carondelet accepted his explana-
tions, overlooked the contradictions, and, under the
influence of proposals from the "Secret Committee of
Correspondence of the West," repeated his fervent
representations to the Court for instructions and funds.
THE SECRET COMMITTEE OF CORRESPONDENCE
OF THE WEST
Jáudenes and Viar were responsible for the address
of the committee just referred to. When in August,
1793, the Spanish agents in Philadelphia learned of
Genêt's projects against Louisiana, they sent Caronde-
let a warning by sea, and despatched as their messenger
to New Madrid and St. Louis a young man by the
name of Thomas or Medad Mitchell. Since Mitchell
was known to Gayoso and Carondelet, Jáudenes and
Viar gave him important despatches to the Spanish
commandants of Upper Louisiana. Having delivered
his despatches punctually, Mitchell continued down
the Mississippi to New Orleans, and asked for an ap-
pointment in the Spanish service; but Carondelet,
after conversing with him, came to the conclusion that
he was a restless, unreliable young man, and used the
pretext of important despatches for Jáudenes and Viar
to send him back to Philadelphia. From Philadelphia
Mitchell was once more despatched on a Spanish
mission, this time to the American settlements on the
Ohio, where he had a conference with David Bradford
of Whiskey Rebellion fame, and still more important
conversations with the Spanish conspirators in Ken-
tucky. On his arrival in Philadelphia, he wrote out
from memory, since he had feared to bring it in writing,
the representation of the "Secret Committee of Cor-
respondence of the West." This committee, as we learn
THE INTRIGUE INFALLIBLE
197
from Carondelet's correspondence, was composed of
Wilkinson, Innes, Sebastian and James Murray. They
put their case bluntly. The coming year (1795) would
see either a pro-Spanish revolution in Kentucky or the
invasion of Louisiana by the Kentuckians, for the latter
were determined to have the Mississippi opened to their
traffic. If Spain wished to avert an invasion, she must
aid the revolution, sending arms and munitions for
ten thousand men, extending liberal credits to the
Kentuckians, and opening the Mississippi to them duty
free. Definite assurances of Spain's agreement to
these terms must be returned to Kentucky by April 1,
1795; otherwise, Louisiana would be invaded without
delay. In return for Spain's aid, they offered to guaran-
tee to that power all the territory south and west of
the Tennessee River and north and west of the Illinois.
Jáudenes was deeply impressed. Sending a copy of
this representation by sea to Carondelet, he despatched
another to Godoy, together with a long letter urging
this intrigue as an alternative to the negotiation with
the United States government.21 Unlike the timorous
Gardoqui of 1788, he wished to direct the intrigue him-
self, instead of turning it over to the governor of New
Orleans.
GODOY MAKES HIS CHOICE
It was just after the Council of State of July 7, 1794
had approved Godoy's proposals and had directed
him to make fresh overtures to the United States and
just before the consequent orders were issued that
Godoy received Carondelet's letters of April 7 and
May 1, 1794, promising the certain success of the re-
newed intrigue. Corroborated by Jáudenes and Viar,
Carondelet's optimistic interpretation of the delicate
198 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
situation in the American West posed directly before
Godoy the question of Spain's policy towards the
United States and its frontier. Should he carry out his
plan of conciliating the American government? This
he had every reason to know could be done only at the
cost of extensive concessions. Or should he seize the
heaven-sent alternative, revolutionize the American
West, split the United States into two hostile camps,
and so retain control of the east bank of the Mississippi,
of the southern Indians and their trade, and of the
commerce on the Mississippi?
Such a momentous question was not for one man
to decide, and so Godoy laid it before the Council of
State on July 25, 1794. After a lengthy discussion, but
with no sign of hesitation or dissent, the council advised
and the king ordered that the diplomatic démarche
resolved upon a fortnight earlier should be executed
without modification.22 The Kentucky intrigue was
not to be abandoned altogether, but it was subordinated
to the negotiation with Washington's government,
that is, it was to be continued in order to prevent an
invasion of Louisiana while the negotiation was pending
and as a last resort in case the negotiation failed. On
the following day, July 26, Godoy despatched to
Jáudenes the order resolved upon in the Council of
July 7 directing him to lay before Washington the new
treaty proposals.23
Once the decision was made, Godoy adhered to it
resolutely, despite the increasingly optimistic tone
of the despatches of both Carondelet and Jáudenes.
Carondelet's confidential despatch of June 3, 1794, in-
formed Godoy of Harry Innes's overtures and spoke
of the success of the intrigue as "infallible." Godoy
remained unmoved. His decision, contained in a mar-
THE INTRIGUE INFALLIBLE
199
ginal note on this letter dated September 12, 1794,
directed that the results of the proposals of the pre-
ceding July to Washington be awaited. Again in a
letter of October 8, 1794, Carondelet wrote urgently on
the same subject, and again Godoy turned a deaf ear
to his entreaty. Even when the secretary of state had
read the latter of Jáudenes and Viar enclosing the pro-
posals of the "Secret Committee of Correspondence
of the West," he would do no more than authorize
Jáudenes to open negotiations with the Kentuckians
for the very limited purpose, carefully stated by Godoy,
of preventing the spread of ideas unfavorable to Spain
and of weakening England's influence with the Ken-
tuckians. Jáudenes was instructed that his course
must be in conformity with the order of July 26, 1794.
Orders to this effect were sent to Carondelet as well as
the envoy in February, 1795.24
There are several indications of the considerations
that guided the Council of State and Godoy in their
decision on this matter. In the first place, the project
of making New Orleans a free port, which Carondelet
linked inseparably with the Kentucky intrigue, was
too progressive a measure for the Spanish court,
especially at a time when the very word “free” was in
disfavor with all the courts of Europe. Even the scanty
privileges accorded Louisiana by the cédula of 1782 had
excited great opposition in Spain, and although in 1793
they were made somewhat more extensive, it was speci-
fied that the use of the word "free" should be avoided,
because of its republican connotation. In any case, the
Council of State could not bring itself to grant free trade
out of hand to New Orleans, and merely referred the
question to Gardoqui for a report which, as far as the
records show, was never made. It was therefore impos-
:
200
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
sible to adopt Carondelet's proposals for revolutionizing
Kentucky, since he insisted that the success of the meas-
ure was impossible without the simultaneous grant of
free trade to New Orleans.
Other weighty considerations against fomenting a
revolution in Kentucky were suspicion of Wilkinson,
the fear of a war with the United States, with England
and with England's Indian allies, and the great expense
that the intrigue and revolution would entail, even if
Spain were not drawn directly into the revolutionary
war.25 Spain's finances were in disorder and were
inadequate to the military activities already under-
taken. Additional burdens could not be borne. At
the very same meeting of the Council (July 25, 1794)
at which Carondelet's proposals were rejected, Gardoqui,
as minister of finance, presented a report showing the
staggering expenses of the current campaign and the
great difficulties that would attend the raising of funds
for another.
Defeated in the competition with the American
frontier for immigrants, Spain was forced to reject her
successes in other phases of the frontier struggle. The
Indian alliances and the Kentucky intrigue were
painstakingly brought to fruition by Carondelet, only
to be discarded by his more discreet superiors in the
moment of success. Where success itself was failure,
Spain might as well yield; and so, as we shall see,
Godoy finally surrendered the last of Carondelet's
gains, the territorial, and with it the points that had
given rise to this now hopeless conflict.
CHAPTER XIV
SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY
A SOUTH CAROLINA GENTLEMAN
ON October 27, 1795, at the palace-monastery of San
Lorenzo a treaty was signed whereby Spain surrendered
its dispute with the American republic. It was a crucial
document that was signed on that day by Manuel de
Godoy, the handsome guardsman of Badajoz, and
Thomas Pinckney, South Carolina gentleman; for the
treaty of San Lorenzo marks the beginning of the disin-
tegration of the Spanish empire as well as the first stage
in the territorial expansion of the United States. The
following pages will show how the concatenation of
events in a Swiss town, on royal Spanish backstairs,
and in the backwoods of North America forced this
portentous surrender.
It was in November, 1794, that Thomas Pinckney,
minister to Great Britain, was directed by his govern-
ment to undertake a special commission to the Spanish
court. His appointment was made in response not to
Godoy's proposals of July 26, 1794, but to his invitation
of the preceding May. Curiously enough, the royal
order of July 26, the result of such earnest and pro-
longed deliberation in the anxious Council of State, had
not the slightest effect on the course of the Spanish-
American negotiation. Its contents were never formally
conveyed, by Jáudenes or otherwise, to the United
States government, and it played no part in the final
negotiation between Pinckney and Godoy. It may at
first sight seem incomprehensible that Jáudenes, a diplo-
matic agent of the humblest rank, should have failed
to obey the positive command of his king to commu-
•
201
202
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
nicate to Washington's government the contents of the
order. It has been suggested by way of explanation
that Jaudenes was engaged in an intrigue with the
Kentuckians and was unwilling to have it interrupted,
as it might have been had he obeyed the order.¹ The
most probable explanation, however, seems to be that
just one week before he received the despatch of July 26,
he had written informing Godoy of Pinckney's appoint-
ment to Spain. Since this appointment tied the hands
of the United States government, it would have been
worse than useless for Jáudenes to reveal his royal
master's eagerness for a treaty.
}
The period from July 26, 1794, the date of the order to
Jáudenes just mentioned, to June 29, 1795, the date of
Pinckney's arrival at the Spanish court, was marked
by the almost complete suspension of the negotiation
between the two governments. The same period, it
may be remarked by way of anticipation, was one of
intense activity on the Mississippi Valley frontier,
where Spanish officials and American frontiersmen
ploughed an independent furrow, with little knowledge
of the plans of their respective governments and with
little regard for their wishes.
The length of this diplomatic hiatus of eleven months
was due to Pinckney's delay in reaching Spain; and his
delay is in turn explained by various causes. In the
first place, one of the considerations that led to his ap-
pointment seems to have been Washington's desire
to placate the Kentuckians. There was little hope in
administration circles that a new minister would suc-
ceed where Short had failed; but the whole American
West was in a ferment, many Kentuckians angrily
demanding that the Mississippi be seized while Spain
was engaged in war at home. Something must be done
SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY 203
to quiet the clamor on the Ohio; and it is significant
that at the same time that Colonel James Innes was
sent to Kentucky to convince its governor of Washing-
ton's determination to open the Mississippi, the Presi-
dent resolved to accept Godoy's invitation of May,
1794, and send a new and more distinguished envoy
to Spain. As one writer has expressed it, the king of
Spain asked for a gentleman, and Washington sent
him Thomas Pinckney; but it is interesting to recall
that first Thomas Jefferson was offered and declined the
apparently futile appointment.
MALADROIT DIPLOMACY
In view of the origin of his mission, there seemed to
be no reason why Pinckney should proceed post-haste
to Spain; and the maladroit policy of the United
States government actually delayed his departure from
London. So long indeed was it delayed that he lost all
the immense benefit that he might have derived from
Jay's mission to England (1794). The American gov-
ernment's policy has been called maladroit because it
relied on the worst and neglected the best means of
extorting the desired terms from Spain. Reliance was
placed in the good offices of France, which, it was hoped,
would utilize its victories over Spain to secure the
terms desired by the United States. This fatuous
optimism found its best expression in the letters of
James Monroe, American minister at Paris, who wrote
in 1795 that France was giving us material aid in the
Spanish negotiation.2 As a matter of fact, the French
government was engaged at that very time in a deter-
mined effort to secure from Spain the retrocession of
Louisiana, and in order to carry its point was exciting
Spain's fear of the ambitious Americans and was prom-
204 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
ising to keep the Mississippi River closed in order to
check their westward expansion.3
The opportunity neglected by Washington's govern-
ment was afforded by Jay's mission. The hindsight test
is often unfair, and yet it seems strange that Randolph,
Jay and Pinckney, the three best-informed persons in
the diplomatic service of the United States at that junc-
ture, should all have failed so utterly to perceive the
real relation of Jay's mission to the negotiation between
their government and Spain. They either knew or
should have known by the winter of 1794-95 that the
Anglo-Spanish alliance was in danger of dissolution,
that the secrecy surrounding Jay's mission and his
treaty with Grenville had created great alarm in Spain,
and that this Spanish fear of an Anglo-American alliance
would be the most effective means of extorting a treaty
favorable to the United States. Since, as these three
diplomats knew, Jay's treaty did not in fact provide
for an alliance between England and the United States,
it would seem as plain as day that Pinckney should have
hastened to Spain before the veil of secrecy was lifted
from Jay's treaty and while Godoy was still haunted
by the spectre of Anglo-American union.
Instead, the American diplomats followed the oppo-
site course. On the advice of Jay and with the approval
of Randolph, Pinckney deliberately awaited in London
news of the ratification of Jay's treaty by the United
States Senate; and it was only when he learned that
there would be a long delay in the consideration of the
treaty that he proceeded to Spain. This maladroit
diplomacy secured its immediate object, for Jay's treaty
was ratified while Pinckney was in Spain and news of
the ratification and the text of the treaty reached Spain
a full month before the conclusion of the treaty with
4
SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY 205
5
Godoy. As might have been foreseen, and as Pinckney
now frankly admitted, this news was prejudicial to his
negotiation. It might indeed have wrecked it but for
an abrupt change in the European situation which the
American diplomats could not have foreseen.
GODOY DESERTS ENGLAND
This abrupt change was brought about by the treaty
of Bâle (July, 1795) whereby Spain deserted England
and made peace with the victorious French Republic.
The negotiation was kept even more profoundly secret
than Jay's with Grenville, for Godoy feared to face
British resentment until the treaty with France was
a fait accompli. When we consider the desperate straits
to which Spain had been reduced in the winter of
1794-95, it must be admitted that Godoy came off very
well at Bâle, for the only price that he had to pay to
secure peace with France and the evacuation of the
Spanish provinces conquered by French arms was the
cession of Spanish Santo Domingo to the republic.
Louisiana he stubbornly refused to surrender, possibly
out of deference to opinion in Spain, possibly for use in
a future bargain."
It was while negotiations at Bâle were in progress
that Thomas Pinckney arrived at court (June 29, 1795);
and of course he was unable to make the slightest
progress until that affair was terminated. Once the
French treaty was concluded, Godoy gave the North
American situation his immediate attention. On
August 4, 1795, King Charles IV ratified the French
treaty. Ten days later (August 14) the Spanish Council
of State completed the diplomatic retreat begun in the
time of Floridablanca and decided to surrender the
dispute with the United States. In the first stage of
206
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
the controversy (1780-87), Spain had refused to con-
cede on any terms the navigation and boundary
demanded by the United States. In 1787, under the
combined pressure of a frontier menace and European
complications, Floridablanca had offered boundary
concessions in return for an alliance with the United
States. In 1791, he was apparently ready to include
the navigation of the Mississippi in the bargain; and
in the despatch to Jáudenes of July 26, 1794, Godoy
had virtually declared Spain's willingness to concede
both points in return for a defensive alliance and terri-
torial guarantee. Now in August, 1795, the Council
of State decided to surrender both points without
exacting the equivalent alliance. What were the con-
siderations that led it to make this momentous de-
cision?
Ever since the publication of Godoy's Memoirs,
most American historians have been content to repeat
his statement that the surrender was due to the secrecy
surrounding Jay's treaty and the consequent fear that
the treaty included an alliance between Great Britain
and the United States." We now know, however, that
this product of the blurred memory of an old man in
exile is not supported by the facts; for, far from being
ignorant of the terms of Jay's treaty, Godoy had a copy
of it in his possession a full month before he signed
the treaty with Pinckney, and far from facilitating,
Jay's treaty actually rendered more difficult Pinckney's
negotiation. Even before the publication of its terms
Jay's treaty had ceased to be a decisive factor in shap-
ing Spanish policy. It was not even mentioned in the
lengthy minutes of the Council of State of August 14,
1795, when the surrender to the United States was
agreed upon.
SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY 207
8
It was not Jay's treaty with England but Godoy's
treaty with France that made possible Pinckney's
triumph at San Lorenzo. By concluding a separate
peace with France at Bâle, Godoy violated Spain's
treaty of 1793 with England and he knew that as soon
as he had made peace with the former he would have to
face the angry resentment of the latter. Even in 1794,
while the unnatural union was still in existence, the
perfidy of Albion had been taken for granted at the
Spanish court. After the treaty of Bâle, the danger
seemed tenfold greater. Godoy's best informant, the
trusted ambassador Bernardo del Campo, showered
him with letters from London in August, September
and October, 1795, warning him to prepare immedi-
ately against British aggression. The blow might fall
in Santo Domingo, or in Mexico, or somewhere else;
but in any case it appeared certain that Great Britain
was about to assail some colony of Spain in the neigh-
borhood of the Gulf of Mexico. In that case the attitude
of the United States would be of the utmost importance.
An alliance with the Americans would be of great value;
their neutrality at least was indispensable, and Thomas
Pinckney could not be suffered to leave Spain unsatisfied.
Hence it was that only ten days elapsed between the
Spanish ratification of the treaty of Bâle and the deci-
sion of the Council of State to yield to the United States
in the matter of the boundary and the navigation of the
Mississippi. Six months after San Lorenzo, Godoy
himself gave this explanation of its terms. In a conver-
sation (May, 1796) with Earl Bute, the British ambassa-
dor, Godoy complained that Britain's hostile prepara-
tions against Mexico in 1795 had forced him to make
extensive concessions to the United States.⁹
}
208
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
BACKSTAIRS INTRIGUE
It was not only Spain's insecurity in Europe and
America, but also Godoy's insecurity in Spain that led
to the capitulation at San Lorenzo. Most precarious was
the royal favorite's situation in the summer and early
fall of 1795. Heavy taxation had created intense dis-
content, and military reverses had done much to dis-
credit the youthful minister's conduct of affairs. So
cordially was he hated at this time that he rarely showed
his face in public; and on one occasion, when the court
was moving from one royal estate to another, the danger
of popular violence was so great that he deserted his
own carriage and took refuge with the king and queen.10
One result of this widespread discontent was the
Malaspina plot, a typical backstairs episode of the old
régime. In it were implicated Antonio Valdés, one of
the most influential, though the laziest, of Godoy's
colleagues in the ministry; the confessors of the king
and queen; and the naval officer and explorer, Malas-
pina, an Italian by birth. The object of the conspirators
was simply to persuade the king to get rid of Godoy,
who they said was endangering the monarchy by his
incompetence; but to the favorite their intrigue seemed
nothing less than treason. To meet the crisis, he first
set to work to remove the chief grievances, which were
military reverses and heavy taxation. Clearly the only
way to remove both grievances at once was to make
peace. Peace was accordingly made with France, and,
to avert war with the United States, the treaty of San
Lorenzo was signed. Having thus strengthened his
position, Godoy proceeded to crush the conspiracy,
imprisoning the confessors, exiling Malaspina, and
forcing the resignation of Valdés. Finally, to justify
SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY 209
himself against the charge of incompetence, he read
before the Council of State a review of his services to
the crown, and one of the two achievements on which
he laid most emphasis was the treaty of San Lorenzo.¹¹
From Spanish backstairs to the backwoods of North
America may seem a far cry, and yet backwoods as well
as backstairs played an important part at San Lorenzo.
Had not Spain's frontier policy proved a failure by
1795, and had not Godoy been acutely conscious of the
failure, it hardly seems probable that he would have
made so complete a surrender of the Mississippi Valley
controversy. Had the Indians proved themselves
trusty allies, had immigrants poured into the Floridas
and Louisiana, had the West rebelled just as Spain
desired, and had the Spanish treasury been equal to
the ever-mounting demands of its frontier provinces,
Godoy might well have tried to placate the American
government with the commercial treaty that it so
eagerly desired.
CARONDELET COURTS THE KENTUCKIANS
While diplomacy drifted in the doldrums from the
summer of 1794 to the summer of 1795, Carondelet
fought the Americans tooth and nail on the frontier.
His object was twofold: To defend Louisiana, and to
aid Spanish diplomacy by tightening Spain's grip on
the Mississippi Valley. In Miró's time, this object had
been pursued through Floridablanca's immigration
policy, with the Kentucky intrigue playing a distinctly
subordinate part, since the court considered it a remote
possibility. Upon Carondelet's arrival in Louisiana
(1792), he had modified the immigration policy beyond
recognition, and since the Western intrigue gave but
faint promise of success, he had devoted all his energies
210 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
to the elaboration of an aggressive Indian policy.
Baffled in this effort by his unsympathetic superiors
and the intractable Indians, and threatened with
invasion from Georgia and Kentucky, he had welcomed
with open arms the treasonable overtures of General
James Wilkinson and Judge Harry Innes in the early
months of 1794. At the same time, the Baron began
to execute a plan that he had long had in contempla-
tion: the military occupation of the east bank of the
Mississippi River up to its junction with the Ohio.
The Kentucky intrigue was nothing new, as we have
already had abundant occasion to see; but it was now
given a decidedly novel character by Carondelet.
Hitherto, according to various orders of the court, the
revolutionizing of Kentucky had been neither the
immediate nor the sole object of the intrigue. Florida-
blanca's purpose in cultivating it had been to use the
Kentucky conspirators as propagandists and informa-
tion agents for Spain; the revolutionizing of the Ameri-
can West was regarded as a remote possibility; and
Spain was to have no open dealings with the conspira-
tors until after they had set up a separate government.
Now Carondelet's avowed object was to foment an
immediate insurrection in Kentucky, to bring Wilkin-
son and other leading conspirators into Spanish terri-
tory and conclude an alliance with them, and, by
supplying them liberally with munitions and money, to
aid them in establishing their independence. Thus
divided into two rival powers, he said, the United States
would no longer be a serious menace to Spain in North
America. We have already discussed, in connection with
Spanish diplomacy and the royal order of July 26, 1794,
his despatches of that year to Godoy on the subject of
the conspiracy; but to Wilkinson also, without waiting
S
SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY 1
211
to receive the court's reply, he began to communicate
his designs.
We have no space here to trace the sinuosities of the
intrigue, but it may be pointed out that despite the
lukewarmness of the American frontiersmen as well
as his own government, the Baron continued the
intrigue to the bitter end. Already, early in 1795, he
had received a disconcerting proof of the indifference to
Spain of even the most discontented frontiersmen. After
the collapse of the Whiskey Rebellion, David Bradford,
one of its leaders, took refuge in Spanish territory;
and when he was examined by Governor Gayoso at
Natchez he did not even pretend that he and his
followers had had any desire to form a connection with
Spain.12 In Cumberland, as Carondelet knew, the
Clark-Genêt plan of invading Louisiana had met with
a ready response, and he also knew that even in Ken-
tucky, which he regarded as the stronghold of the
Spanish interest, many besides Clark were the sworn
enemies of Spain.
13
C
Nevertheless, the Baron went doggedly ahead with
his plans. On July 16, 1795, he wrote Wilkinson a letter
that was designed to bring the intrigue to a head at
once. "My letter of the first instant," he wrote, "was
already signed when I received orders from his Majesty
very satisfactory to the Western states: since his
Majesty being very desirous of giving them a commerce
reciprocaly advantageous to both parties has authorized
me to treat privately with the Agents chosen & sent by
the State of Kentucky to New Madrid on that purpose.
Consequently I send to Colonel Gayoso the necessary
instructions, & sufficient powers to agree privately with
the aforesaid Agents upon every point and object of
this momentous plan. . . ." The letter concluded with
212
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
the following: "G. W. [General Wilkinson] can aspire
to the same dignity in the western states that P. W.
[President Washington] has in the eastern." 14 Caron-
delet knew his man.
This letter was sent to Gayoso with an order direct-
ing him to proceed at once to New Madrid, forward
it to Wilkinson, and negotiate with the Kentucky
envoys who should come down in response to the invi-
tation. His powers were narrowly limited, as he was
instructed to conclude only a commercial convention,
and even that was to be kept secret at first from all
but the "notables" of Kentucky; but we learn from
Carondelet's other correspondence that in his shallow
optimism he expected this proof of Spain's generosity
to effect the separation of Kentucky from the Union.
Thereupon it was the Baron's plan to conclude an
offensive and defensive alliance with Kentucky and to
aid their revolution with ammunition, twenty field
guns and ten thousand rifles.15
Gayoso ascended the Mississippi to New Madrid,
as he had been directed, and from September to Decem-
ber, 1795, he was engaged in correspondence with
Wilkinson, Lacassagne and Innes. Wilkinson displayed
little enthusiasm at the opportunity of embracing his
dear friend, Gayoso, to whom he had once written that
he would willingly sacrifice one arm if he might embrace
Gayoso with the other. Now he protested that he had
a difficult game to play, as he was suspected by both
his commander-in-chief, Wayne, and by Washington,
and that the ground had not yet been sufficiently pre-
pared in Kentucky. Nevertheless, though he could not
visit Gayoso himself, had not consulted Innes, and did
not trust Lacassagne, he finally sent a delegate, Benja-
min Sebastian, to confer with the Spaniard, adding
SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY 213
that, while Sebastian had no power to make a treaty,
the conference would undoubtedly forward Spain's
interests in Kentucky. In order to prepare the ground in
Kentucky and oil the wheels of intrigue, he urgently
requested the immediate remittance of twenty thou-
sand dollars and an increase in the amount of his pen-
sion. In December, 1795, Sebastian actually descended
the Ohio and conferred with Gayoso; but the powers
of both were so limited that it was soon decided to
adjourn the discussion to New Orleans and, under
Carondelet's guidance, concert a plan of action. Arriv-
ing at the capital early in January, they were busily
engaged in hatching a scheme when, to their consterna-
tion, despatches from Havana brought news of the
treaty of San Lorenzo.16
The witch's pot of intrigue in the West was being
stirred up at the same time by the unhappy Jáudenes
and Viar. Hardly had Sebastian left Kentucky to join
Gayoso when a certain Antonio Argote arrived there,
ostensibly to secure recognition as Spanish consul in
Kentucky, but with secret instructions to get in touch
with the Spanish conspirators and to enlist the services
of Governor Shelby in the good cause. An interview
with the governor was obtained, and although it was
disappointing, Argote was still hopeful of success when
news of Pinckney's treaty arrived and paralyzed his
efforts.17
FORT SAN FERNANDO: FUR TRADER AND LAND
SPECULATOR
The extension of Spain's military frontier was, as we
have seen, Carondelet's second device for gaining the
upper hand in the controversy with the United States.
As early as his first year in Louisiana (1792), he had
214 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
persuaded the Cherokee to request the establishment
of Spanish posts at Muscle Shoals and Chickasaw
Bluffs (the Barrancas de Margot, or Ecores à Margot,
the site of the present Memphis, Tennessee), both of
which localities, by the way, were outside of the
Cherokee hunting grounds. Various circumstances had
prevented his granting this complaisant request; but in
1794 a step in that direction was taken when, under
circumstances already described, Fort Confederation
was built on the Tombigbie River, well within the
territory claimed by the United States.
Just as the designs of the South Carolina Yazoo
Company had led Miró to occupy Walnut Hills (Los
Nogales) in 1791, so in 1795 the activities of the Georgia
land companies were immediately responsible for the
erection of Fort San Fernando de las Barrancas at
Chickasaw Bluffs. Towards the end of 1794, land
speculators interested in the Yazoo country began
to bestir themselves, perhaps encouraged by the federal
government's assurance that it was at last going to
force a settlement of the dispute with Spain. Gentle
pressure was brought to bear on the Georgia legislature,
and once more in the history of the American frontier
political power was exploited in the interest of land
speculation. Their pockets bulging with shares and
banknotes, the legislators deeded away principalities
for a pittance. Millions of acres of Georgia's western
territory were conveyed to three companies, two of the
grants lying on the Mississippi between Natchez and
Chickasaw Bluffs, and one on the Tennessee River
around Muscle Shoals.18
As soon as Gayoso heard of the designs of the com-
panies he hastily forwarded a detachment up the Missis-
sippi to hold the Bluffs until his arrival with well-armed
SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY
reinforcements, for he was much disturbed by a visit
that Cumberland settlers had paid to the Bluffs in 1794,
and by their influence among the Chickasaw. Caron-
delet, when advised of Gayoso's action, gave his ap-
proval, took command of the situation, and despatched
instructions, reinforcements and supplies. Most impor-
tant of all, he persuaded Panton, Leslie and Company
to send one of its partners, John Forbes, with a boatload
of goods to open a store at the new fort. Again the
American land speculator and frontiersman found the
Anglo-Spanish fur trader in their path.19
As the Chickasaw Bluffs extend for many miles
along the Mississippi, the site of the fort was not chosen
until after Gayoso's arrival. That done, a review of
the troops was held and the construction of the fort
begun on May 30, 1795; and since that was the name-
day of the Prince of Asturias, Fernando, the fort was
called San Fernando de las Barrancas, St. Ferdinand of
the Bluffs.20 Thus the last outpost of Spanish advance
in the Mississippi Valley received the ill-omened name
of that prince who later, as the notorious Ferdinand
VII, lost the bulk of Spain's empire in America.
By the judicious employment of the means usual in
such cases presents, rum and flattery- — Gayoso
obtained from a friendly faction of the Chickasaw a
treaty ceding to His Catholic Majesty the site of the
fort and a small strip of territory around it. Panton's
store was then established; and, despite vigorous
protests from Governor Blount and General Wayne,
fort and store were maintained there until the spring
of 1797 when, in compliance with the treaty of San
Lorenzo, Carondelet ordered its evacuation. Shortly
thereafter, having learned of Blount's conspiracy and
determined to postpone the treaty's execution, he
M
216
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
countermanded the order; but the second messenger
arrived too late. The lonely garrison had executed the
first order with alacrity, and no attempt was made to
reoccupy the Bluffs.21
GODOY LOOKS AT THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
In despatches that still glow with pride and tremble
with eager hope, Carondelet informed Godoy of his
achievements in Kentucky and at Chickasaw Bluffs.22
In a despatch of June 10, 1795, he reported the estab-
lishment of Fort San Fernando, which, he declared,
forestalled the Americans, strengthened Spain's hold
on the Mississippi, and would promote Panton's trade
and Spain's influence among the Chickasaw and Choc-
taw, at the same time that it advanced the Western
intrigue by facilitating communications with Kentucky.
This conspiracy was the subject of a despatch of July 1,
and the burden of the Baron's song was a plea for funds,
more funds, and still more funds. The plan to revolu-
tionize Kentucky was feasible, he declared, and such a
revolution was almost essential to the safety of Spanish
North America; but tens of thousands of dollars must
be made available at once for propaganda, bribery
and aid to the insurgents. Whether this were done or
not, he continued, still larger sums must be placed at
his disposal to consolidate his recent gains on the fron-
tier. Forts San Fernando and Confederation as well as
the older forts must be strengthened, their garrisons
reinforced, Panton subsidized and the annual Indian
presents increased to meet the competition of the
United States government. Otherwise, he concluded,
Spain must face the necessity of surrender in the contro-
versy with the United States, and all the dire conse-
quences that would flow from the surrender; but
SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY 217
such a calamity need never occur, since, thanks to
Carondelet's Kentucky intrigue, Indian alliances and
string of forts, His Majesty held the fate of the Missis-
sippi Valley in the hollow of his hand.
These despatches Godoy received more than a week
before he signed the treaty of San Lorenzo and almost
a week before Pinckney brought the negotiation to a
crisis by demanding his passport. Had Godoy been
convinced by the Baron's eager optimism, he would
have issued the passport that Pinckney had requested
but did not expect or desire to receive. The situation
thus created was similar in many respects to that of
July, 1794. On both occasions the Council of State,
on Godoy's advice, had decided to make concessions
to the United States in the frontier controversy, and
on both occasions, after the decision had been made but
before its execution, despatches had been received from
Louisiana urging continued resistance and giving posi-
tive assurance of success. The parallel was completed
when, on October 27, 1795, as on July 25, 1794, Godoy
turned a deaf ear to the Baron's rhetoric and consum-
mated the surrender. This time there was no miscar-
riage. Pinckney was on hand, the treaty was signed,
and both the disputed territory and the control of the
Mississippi were irrevocably lost to Spain.
We have already intimated that the treaty of San
Lorenzo was essentially a frontier treaty. It is of course
true that, as we have seen, the European situation was
one of Godoy's reasons for concluding the treaty, and
that it contained provisions of no little significance in
the history of neutral rights on the high seas in time of
war. At the same time, it is equally true that by far
the most important terms of the treaty related to the
Spanish-American frontier: the disputed territory, the
218 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
navigation of the Mississippi, the right of deposit at
New Orleans; and that one of the chief reasons why the
Spanish government agreed to these terms was that
it had failed, and knew that it had failed, in its frontier
conflict with the United States.
That the most important terms of the treaty related
to the frontier is so obvious that the mere statement
of the fact would be sufficient, since that fact requires
not proof but emphasis. It may, however, be well to
remind the reader that the navigation of the Mississippi
was an essential element in the frontier controversy,
for while the exclusive control of the river was still
prized by Spain as a means of suppressing contraband
trade, it was prized still more as a means of checking
the growth of the American West, separating it from the
United States, and stimulating immigration into Louisi-
ana and West Florida.
That the fact as well as the terms of the Spanish sur-
render was conditioned by Spanish failure in the frontier
conflict stands more in need of proof; for historians,
relying on Godoy's Memoirs, have generally explained
his course at San Lorenzo by the existing diplomatic
situation. These Memoirs, however, were written
nearly forty years after the event, and contemporary
records tell a different story, a story in which the fron-
tier plays a prominent part.
On August 14, 1795, occurred a meeting of the Council
of State to which reference has already been made. Two
official accounts of the deliberations of the Council
have been preserved, each relating to a separate aspect
of the subject under discussion. The first of these
documents possesses great interest for us, since it
throws a flood of light on the reasons for Spain's
surrender to the United States and since it has never
SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY 219
been utilized by any previous writer on this subject.
According to this record, Godoy carefully explained the
nature of the controversy to the Council with the aid
of documents and maps, and in his exegesis he estab-
lished two "capital facts." The first of these was that
Spain's failure to protest against the Anglo-American
treaty of 1783 was taken by the Americans as the silence
of consent. The second "capital fact" was the small im-
portance of the disputed territory and the forts contained
within its limits; the unsatisfactory state of relations
with the "barbarous, voluble and perfidious nations of
Indians" of that region, who were incessantly menacing
the possessions of Spain; and the undesirability of con-
tinuing a very uncertain and very expensive dispute.
Godoy concluded with the observation that, even if
this controversy were settled according to the "mod-
erate ideas" of the United States, Spain would still
have "possessions, peoples and rights quite sufficient,
and important to our navigation and commerce in those
and other principal parts of the two Americas." 23
There are many omissions from this document and
there are some distortions in it. For example, the "mod-
erate ideas" of the United States had long been regarded
as "absurd pretensions" by the Spanish government,
and Godoy's novel characterization was simply a sugar-
coating to render palatable the bitter pill of defeat.
Our interest, however, lies in the second of his two
"capital facts," for it shows that the treaty of San
Lorenzo was not signed until the Council had canvassed
the situation on the Spanish-American frontier and
had decided that the chances of success did not justify
the continuance of the struggle. From the second report
of the Council's deliberations on August 14, and from
other documents, we learn that at this time the govern-
220 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
ment was much alarmed by two other developments
in the Mississippi Valley, namely, by the activity of
British fur traders in the upper Missouri Valley, and
by the efforts of Americans to establish settlements
at Muscle Shoals and Chickasaw Bluffs.24
It may be observed that neither of these reports of
the Council's deliberations mentioned the Kentucky
conspiracy. Other sources show that Spain did not
trust Wilkinson, and was unwilling to incur the expense
of revolutionizing Kentucky or the danger of war
with the United States. Hence it was that Godoy
was unmoved when, on October 18, 1795, he read
Carondelet's perfervid despatches about the progress
of the western conspiracy. Like Floridablanca, he had
no stomach for dealing with the American frontiers-
men. His first object was to check their progress
through Spain's frontier, and since that appeared
impossible he preferred a treaty with the established
government of the United States to an intrigue with
its irresponsible frontiersmen.
STRIPPING FOR ACTION
Our task is now done, for we are not concerned either
with the details of the Pinckney-Godoy negotiation,
or with the execution of the treaty. Pinckney conducted
himself most becomingly and quite creditably; but
in no essential respect did he get more than Godoy was
ready to concede when their conferences began, and
he failed to secure either a commercial treaty or a
satisfactory article on the right of deposit. His rôle
was very much like that of Monroe and Livingston
at Paris in 1803, when Napoleon tossed Louisiana into
their laps. As for the long delay in the treaty's execu-
tion, we must content ourselves with pointing out that
SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY 221
a frontier event, William Blount's conspiracy, provided
Spain with its chief pretext for postponing compliance
with its terms.25 When Natchez, the chief post in the
disputed territory, was at last evacuated (1798), it
was no less a person than General James Wilkinson
who took possession of it in the name of the United
States government.
From what has been said, it should be apparent
that the treaty of San Lorenzo did not so much change
the situation in the Mississippi Valley as accord recog-
nition to changes that had taken place there since
1783. Even before the treaty was signed, citizens of
the United States were enjoying the navigation of the
Mississippi River from its headwaters to its mouth.
From Kentucky down to New Orleans, their commerce
had been legalized by a royal order; from the mouth
of the Mississippi up to New Orleans, it was connived
at by the governor of Louisiana, who informed his
government that no other course was possible. As for
the disputed territory, Spain was still in actual posses-
sion of it in 1795; but it was by that time apparent
that this territory as well as upper Louisiana would fall
an easy prey to the United States in case of war. For
Spain indeed the treaty of San Lorenzo was one of
momentous significance, for it was in effect an admis-
sion of the failure of Floridablanca's attempt to make
of the Mississippi Valley another Mexico. The admis-
sion of failure on the east bank of the Mississippi
involved the tacit admission of failure on the west
bank as well. The treaty of San Lorenzo of 1795 found
its fitting, its inevitable complement in the treaty of
San Ildefonso of 1800, whereby Spain retroceded Louisi-
ana to France.
For the United States as well this treaty was one of
222
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN FRONTIER
great significance. It was a victory not only for the
United States over Spain, but also for expansionists
in the United States over particularists, both Eastern
and Western. It appeased frontier discontent, gave a
mortal blow to separatism, and secured the Union from
a serious menace to its integrity. It completed the work
begun by Jay's treaty and established the frontiers
claimed by the United States at the end of the Revolu-
tion; and yet it did more than Jay's treaty, for the
rights that it established had hitherto rested on a
dubious legal basis. By terminating a dangerous con-
troversy and by securing the American government's
terms without the formation of the alliance which
Spain had long required as the price of concession,
the treaty carried one step further the government's
policy of cutting loose from the European state system ;
a policy which, in retrospect, seems a kind of stripping
for action in the western hemisphere. Finally, by con-
firming the United States in the possession of virtually
the whole of the east bank of the Mississippi and by
validating the Americans' claim to the free navigation
of that river, the treaty laid a substantial foundation
for the further extension of the new republic in North
America.
NOTES
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AHN: Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, Spain.
E:, Sección de Estado.
ACE:
AJE:
Actas del Supremo Consejo de Estado.
Actas de la Suprema Junta de Estado.
A. H. R.: American Historical Review.
AI: Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain. Numerals follow-
ing this abbreviation (e.g., 86-6-16) refer to the estante, cajón
and legajo in which the document was found.
Papeles de Cuba.
PC:
AME: Archivo del Ministerio de Estado, Madrid.
AMAE: Archives du Minstère des Affaires Étrangères, Paris.
États-Unis.
EU:
A. S. P., F. R.: American State Papers, Foreign Relations.
I. A.: American State Papers, Indian Affairs.
B. P. R. O., F. O.: British Public Record Office, Foreign Office.
C. R. N. Ca.: Colonial Records of North Carolina.
exp.: expediente.
H. A. H. R.: Hispanic American Historical Review.
1.: legajo.
LC: Library of Congress, Washington.
M. V. H. R.: Mississippi Valley Historical Review.
S. R. N. Ca.: State Records of North Carolina.
CHAPTER I. RIVAL EMPIRES
1. Cf. H. E. Bolton, Arredondo's Historical Proof of Spain's Title
to Georgia, Introduction, passim; and V. W. Crane, "Projects for
Colonization in the South, 1684-1732," in M. V. H. R. xii, 23,
discussing other and earlier phases.
2. Danvila y Collado, El Reino de Carlos III; M. Colmeiro,
Historia de la Economía Política en España; J. F. Bourgoing,
Tableau de l'Espagne moderne (2 ed., Paris, 1797).
3. H. I. Priestley, José de Gálvez, passim.
223
224
NOTES
4. H. vander Linden, L'Expansion coloniale de l'Espagne, 329–
37, and map of Upper California in Priestley, op. cit.; C. E. Chap-
man, A History of California: the Spanish Period, 216-417.
5. A. V. Goodpasture, "The Watauga Association," in Am. Hist.
Mag., III, 110; A. Henderson, Conquest of the Old Southwest; Roose-
velt, Winning of the West, 1, 166.
6. AI, 146–3–11, Rendón to J. de Gálvez, Feb. 28, 1783, No. 72.
7. Information given me by Prof. I. S. Harrell. See his recent
book, Loyalism in Virginia.
8. Maryland Journal (newspaper), Tues., Oct. 11, 1785, extract
of letter from Caswell County, Frankland.
9. Etting Col. (mss., Hist. Soc. of Pennsylvania), Old Congress
Mss., Autograph Letters, Wm. Grayson to--, Dumfries, Sept. 11,
1783; S. R. N. Ca., xvi, 459–60.
10. Gazette of the State of Georgia (newspaper), April 14, 1785.
11. J. A. Robertson, ed., "Spanish Correspondence concerning
the American Revolution," in H. A. H. R., 1, 311. Cf. S. R. N. Ca.,
XIV, 234-46.
12. Juan F. Yela Utrilla, España ante la independencia de los
Estados Unidos, 11, 187. Referred to hereafter as Yela.
13. Ib., 11, 42-43; and see note 4, ch. v.
14. Yela, op. cit., 11, 342–50.
15. Ib., 1, 477–80; M. Conrotte, La intervención de España en la
independencia de los Estados Unidos, 164.
16. S. F. Bemis, Pinckney's Treaty, 44-65. Referred to hereafter
as Bemis.
17. Ib., note 7, pp. 49–50.
18. AI, 146–3–11, Rendón to J. de Gálvez, April 12, 1783, No. 75.
19. This fact was called to my attention by Prof. S. F. Bemis.
20. Yela, 1, 305–70, 484–85; Conrotte, 8.
21. Conrotte, 182-88; Yela, 1, 480.
22. AHN, E, ACE, Aug. 14, 1795.
CHAPTER II. PROTAGONISTS AND FIELD OF ACTION
1. H. Adams, History of the United States in the Administrations
of Jefferson and Madison, 1, 340.
2. Secret Journals of Congress, Foreign Affairs, IV, 45 et seq.;
A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 337, and
The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Inde-
pendence, 116, 125, 126; A. S. P., F. R., 1, 261–63.
NOTES
225
3. AMAE, CP, E-U, vol. 32, Otto to Montmorin, Dec. 15,
1787, No. 107 (transcript in LC); Secret Journals of Congress,
Foreign Affairs, IV, 44-63; Bemis, 170-72.
4. AI, 86-6-7, El Conde de Gálvez to José de Gálvez, Jan. 26,
1784, and draft of (José de Gálvez) to Zéspedes, Jan. 23, 1784.
5. AI, PC, 1. 4, Miró to Grand-Pré, Oct. 30, 1787, No. 283, and
enclosed impreso.
6. AHN, E, AJE, April 26, 1790.
7. AI, PC, l. 177, Floridablanca to the Governor of Louisiana,
Oct. (no day), 1791.
8. AHN, E, ACE, Aug. 14, 1795.
9. For a different view, see Roosevelt, III, 127.
10. See below, chs. v and VIII.
11. AI, 87-3-22, Zéspedes to Antonio Porlier, Sept. 8, 1789, No.
12.
12. Navarro's "Political Reflections," in J. A. Robertson, ed.,
Louisiana under Spain, etc., 1, 237 et seq.
13. AI, 87-3-19, contains a valuable expediente on the commerce
of Louisiana and the Floridas at this period.
14. Financial reports for Louisiana have been published by
C. H. Cunningham in M. V. H. R., vi, 391.
15. Cf. J. R. Swanton, Early History of the Creek Indians and
their Neighbors, 437–49; A. S. P., I. A., 1, 38, 39.
16. "Observations of John Stuart," in A. H. R., xx, 818-20.
17. These figures are only approximate. Gayarré (cf. note 1,
ch. 1), 172–75; AI, PC, I. 199, Panton to O'Neill, March 15, 1786.
18. P. J. Hamilton, Colonial Mobile, 246; cf. note 16, above.
19. Roosevelt, 11, 16; S. C. Williams, The Lost State of Franklin;
reference in note 10, ch. IV.
20. AHN, E, 1. 3899, Campo de Alange to the Prince of the
Peace, Dec. 2, 1795, reporting the dictámen of the Junta de Generales
on Louisiana.
21. Washington, Writings (ed. W. C. Ford), XI, 41-42, 78, and
note to p. 43; Rufus King Papers (mss., N. Y. Hist. Soc.), R. King
to E. Gerry, June 4, 1786.
CHAPTER III. THE SPANISH BARRIER
1. C. Gayarré, History of Louisiana, III: The Spanish Domi-
nation, 157–60. Referred to hereafter as Gayarré.
2. See below, ch. v.
226
NOTES
3. H. vander Linden, op. cit., 403; Gayarré, 1-34, 101-11. See
also note 4, below.
4. The original of this cédula, dated Jan. 22, 1782, is in AI,
87-3-21. It is published in part in M. Serrano y Sanz, España y
los Indios Cherokis y Chactas, 15-18; Priestley, op. cit., 4.
5. AI, PC, 1. 11, El Conde de Gálvez to Miró, April 24, 1785,
and enclosed memorial; ib., 86–7–24, expediente on letter from El
Conde de Gálvez to J. de Gálvez, Oct. 27, 1785, No. 56.
6. AHN, E, I. 3885, exp. 17, Campomanés to J. de Gálvez,
Sept. 14, 1784; AI, 86-6-16, Copia del Discurso Preliminar sobre
Indios,by Zéspedes, Nov. 16, 1786.
7. W. H. Siebert, "The Loyalists in West Florida and the
Natchez District," in M. V. H. R., 11, 465.
8. Georgia Papers, 1732-1908 (mss., LC), fol. 116, copy of a
circular letter from Gov. Lyman Hall of Georgia, Aug. 25, 1783.
9. AI, PC, 1. 203, Panton to Miró, Aug. 31, 1789, and enclosure,
and same to same, July 22, 1789; ib., l. 2352, O'Neill to Gálvez,
Oct. 31, 1785, No. 3.
10. Ib., 1. 203, McGillivray to Panton, Aug. 10, 1789, copy;
A. J. Pickett, History of Alabama, 429–31 and 342 et seq.; L. Mil-
fort, Mémoire; ou, Coup-d'œil sur mon Séjour dans la
Nation Creek (Paris, 1802), passim, to be used with great care.
11. AI, PC, l. 197, McGillivray to O'Neill, March 26, 1784, and
same to Miró, March 28, 1784; ib., C. McLatchy to O'Neill, March
4, 1784.
•
12. AI, 86–6–7, Zéspedes to Gálvez, Aug. 16, 1784, No. 21 de
preferencia, and enclosures, including Spanish translation of memo-
rial by Panton, Leslie and Co., July 31, 1784.
13. AI, PC, 1. 1375, Sonora to Gálvez, May 8, 1786; AHN, E,
1. 3901, extracto summarizing correspondence on this subject from
March 22, 1784 to May 8, 1786.
14. AI, 86–7–15, memorial of Francisco Fernández de Ravago,
Feb. 6, 1787, and many other documents relating to this affair;
ib., 86–6-16, Miró to Valdés, Nov. 3, 1787, No. 8, and enclosures.
15. AHN, E, 1. 3885, exp. 22, contains many documents relat-
ing to these congresses, including copies of the treaties; AI, PC,
1. 1394, Miró to Ezpeleta, Aug. 1, 1784; Jane M. Berry, "The
Indian Policy of Spain in the Southwest, 1783-1795," in M. V.
H. R., III, 462 et seq.; Gayarré, 160-62; Serrano y Sanz, op. cit.,
82-85.
NOTES
227
16. AHN, E, 1. 3898, El Conde de Gálvez to J. de Gálvez, May
6, 1785, No. 27.
17. AI, 86-6-17, Miró to Valdés, May 20, 1789, No. 180; ib.,
PC, 1. 202, Panton to Miró, April 7 and July 31, 1789.
18. AI, PC, I. 1394, Miró to Ezpeleta, Aug. 1, 1784.
19. AI, 87-1-19, Navarro to J. de Gálvez, April 16, 1784, No.
216.
20. An instance is related in Miró and Navarro to El Marqués
del Campo, March 4, 1788, draft: AI, PC, l. 104.
21. Ib., l. 1375, J. de Gálvez to El Conde de Gálvez, May 30,
1784.
CHAPTER IV. THE WESTWARD COURSE
1. A. Henderson, "The Creative Forces in Westward Ex-
pansion," in A. H. R., xx, 86, and "Richard Henderson," in Tenn.
Hist. Mag., II, 155.
2. For the official statement of Spain's boundary claim, see
below, p. 70.
3. S. R. N. Ca., xvII, 13–14, 15–16.
•
4. A. S. P., I. A., 1, 17; Georgia Hist. Soc., Collections, v, part
2, No. 2, 205–14, 215, 220-21; Knox Papers (mss., Massachusetts
Hist. Soc.), vol. XVIII, fols. 46, 54, 108; Georgia Records (mss.,
LC), Council Correspondence, Gov. Elbert to Elijah Clarke, June 9,
1785, and passim; S. R. N. Ca., XXII, 649-50; ib., XVIII, 696–700 ;
Calendar Virginia State Papers, IV, 37.
5. AHN, E, 1. 3885, exp. 1, "Breve Relacion de las Fronteras
medias
cited in note 6, ch. v.
""
6. F. J. Turner, "State Making in the Revolutionary Era," in
A. H. R., 1, 70, 251; Calendar Virginia State Papers, IV, 45–46;
L. P. Summers, History of Southwest Virginia, 264–66, 399; Papers
of the Continental Congress (mss., LC) 48, 297, Chas. Cumming to
the President of Congress.
7. S. C. Williams, The Lost State of Franklin, is the latest and
best account of this subject.
8. J. H. DeWitt, ed., "The Journal of John Sevier," in Tenn.
Hist. Mag., v, passim, especially pp. 162, 170-71, 175, 184, 189, 194,
233, 236.
9. S. R. N. Ca., XXII, 699-700.
10. AI, PC, 1. 3, Miró to Gálvez, Dec. 10, 1785, No. 258, enclos-
ing copy of letter from L. Chacheret; S. R. N. Ca., xx, 731.
228
NOTES
11. A full discussion of this subject, with references, will be found
in my article, "The Muscle Shoals Speculation," in M. V. H. R.,
Dec., 1926.
12. E. C. Burnett, ed., "Papers relating to Bourbon County,
Georgia," in A. H. R., xv, 66 et seq.; AI, 86–6–15, Zéspedes to
Sonora, Dec. 24, 1786, No. 13 reservada, and enclosures, show the
efforts of the Bourbon County promoters to interest Sevier.
13. AHN, E, 1. 3893, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, Havana, Feb.
23, 1785; Burnett, op. cit., 68–71.
14. AI, PC, 1. 2352, Miró to Bouligny, Nov. 10, 1785, No. 99;
ib., 1. 104, Gardoqui to Miró, Oct. 21, 1785.
15. This appears from statistics given by C. H. Cunningham in
M. V. H. R., vi, 391-97.
16. Burnett, op. cit., 334-35.
17. Ib., 336; AI, PC, 1. 200, McGillivray to Miró, July 25, 1787;
ib., Ben James to Mather and Strother, July 23, 1787; ib., l. 11, Bou-
ligny to Miró, Oct. 4, 1785, No. 68; ib., 1, 37, O'Neill to Miró, July
18, 1787; S. R. N. Ca., XXII, 719–21.
18. AI, PC, 1. 1446, McGillivray to (Miró), Jan. 1, 1784, Spanish
translation, enclosed in Carondelet to Las Casas, Aug. 23, 1792,
No. 43 res.; Burnett, op. cit., 299–303; AI, PC, 1. 2352, McGil-
livray to Miró, July 10, 1785, Spanish translation.
19. A. S. P., I. A., 1, 49, and references in note 4, above.
20. AI, PC, 1. 199, McGillivray to O'Neill, March 28, 1786,
announcing the immediate beginning of the campaign.
21. Ib., 1. 203, Panton to Miró and Navarro, Jan. 28, 1788; cf.
Zéspedes to Sonora, June 12, 1786, No. 7 res.
22. AI, 86-6-15, Miró to Sonora, June 28, 1786, No. 136, res. de
preferencia, and enclosures; ib., PC, 1. 4, Miró to O'Neill, June 20,
1786, muy res. By Sept. 18, 1786, O'Neill had given the Creek 3750
pounds of powder and 7400 pounds of ball: ib., 1. 37, O'Neill to
Miró, Sept. 18, 1786.
23. Ib., l. 176-2, Sonora to the Governor of Louisiana, Nov. 12,
1786; ib., l. 1394, Valdés to the Governor of Louisiana, July 31,
1787, copy; ib., l. 1375, Sonora to Gálvez, May 8, 1786.
24. See below, pp. 116, 139.
CHAPTER V.
GARDOQUI'S MISSION
1. AI, 86–7–24, (José de Gálvez) to Floridablanca, Dec. 20,
1783, draft, written in margin and at foot of Floridablanca to J. de
NOTES
229
Gálvez, Dec. 9, 1783; ib., El Conde de Gálvez to J. de Gálvez,
Dec. 20, 1783.
2. AHN, E, 1. 3885, exp. 24, Floridablanca to J. de Gálvez, July
29, 1784, and accompanying documents.
3. AI, 87-1-19, Navarro to J. de Gálvez, March 12, 1784, No.
202; ib., PC, l. 3, Miró to El Conde de Gálvez, March 12, 1784, No.
108; AHN, E, 1. 3885, exp. 18. A British vessel from Jamaica also
appeared and claimed the right of free navigation under the treaty.
4. AHN, E, 1. 3885, exp. 2, Navarro to J. de Gálvez, Sept. 10,
1781, and Dec. 15, 1781, both res.; ib., J. de Gálvez to Florida-
blanca, March 26, 1782.
5. Cf. E. S. Corwin, French Policy and the American Alliance,
227-28.
6. AHN, E, 1. 3885, exp. 20, El Conde de Gálvez to J. de
Gálvez, May 23, 1784; ib., Rendón to J. de Gálvez, Dec. 16, 1783,
No. 91; ib., exp. No. 1, "Breve relacion de las fronteras " in
Gardoqui's handwriting, endorsed: "Pertenece a la carta No. 7 de
16. de Nove. de 1783. de Dn. Bernardo del Campo."
•
7. AI, 146–3-11, Rendón to Gálvez, Feb. 12, 1785, No. 124.
8. AHN, E, 1. 3457, exp. 23, “Instruccion sobre limites de las
floridas y la Luisiana y sobre la navegacion del Misisipi," dated
July 29, 1784, copy; ib., 1. 3885, exp. 24, El Conde de Gálvez to
J. de Gálvez, Aug. 4, 1784.
9. This fact was called to my attention by Prof. S. F. Bemis.
10. On the merits of this dispute, see Corwin, op. cit., 230, note
13; R. G. Adams, History of the Foreign Policy of the United States,
49; Jay, Correspondence (Johnston, ed., 1890-93), 1, 248, and II,
1, 296; and Bemiş, 51, 52.
11. AI, 146–3–11, Rendón to Gálvez, July 30, 1784, No. 104.
>>
12. AHN, E. 1. 3885, exp. 21, "Instruccion para Dn. Diego de
Gardoqui.. unsigned and undated; AI, PC, 1. 1375, (El
Conde de Gálvez) to Floridablanca, Oct. 26, 1784, acknowledging
the receipt of the royal order of Oct. 2 in regard to Gardoqui's
appointment; Conrotte, op. cit., 270-76, publishes the instructions
and gives the date as Oct. 2, 1784.
13. Yela, 1, 481, and Bemis, 70, erroneously state that Gardoqui's
appointment resulted from the proposals of Adams, Franklin and
Jefferson to Floridablanca through Aranda. As a matter of fact,
Aranda's letter of transmission was written on Oct. 4, 1784, at
Paris, two days after the final orders had been issued to Gardoqui.
230
NOTES
14. AI, 146–3–11, Miralles to Gálvez, Dec. 28, 1778.
15. Yela, 11, 66.
16. Conrotte, op. cit., 293-95; Yela, 1, 382-83, II, 325-26,
375-77; other documents are in AHN, E, l. 3884, exp. 4, and ib.,
1. 893.
17. Ib., l. 3894, Gardoqui to (Miguel de Otamendi), no date;
AI, PC, 1. 104, Gardoqui to Miró, Feb. 14, 1788.
18. E. Channing, History of the United States, III, 408–27.
19. AHN, E, I. 3885, exp. 25, Rendón to Gálvez, April 20, 1784,
and enclosed translation of letter from Robert Morris; ib., 1. 3893.
Gardoqui to Floridablanca, Aug. 23, 1785, No. 14.
20. M. Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, 1, 583-84,
603-05; Rufus King Papers (mss., N. Y. Hist. Soc.), King to
Adams, Nov. 2, 1785.
21. J. Elliot, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the
Adoption of the Federal Constitution, III, 365–66.
22. Secret Journals of Congress, Foreign Affairs, Iv, 45 et seq.
23. Ib., 81-84. For Jay's first instructions, see ib., III, 568–71,
585-86.
24. AHN, E, 1. 3894, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, Oct. 24, 1788,
No. 298.
}
25. Ib., 1. 3893, same to same, Oct. 1, 1786, not numbered; Oct.
28, 1786, No. 124; and Dec. 31, 1786, No. 153.
CHAPTER VI. THE CHEVALIER OF THE ORDER OF
ST. LOUIS
1. AHN, E, l. 3889, exp. 6, Aranda to Floridablanca, April 2,
1787, No. 594, three enclosures. This expediente contains many
other documents relating to d'Argès. A very different account of
Spain's relations with d'Argès and White will be found in Bemis,
ch. VII.
2. AHN, E, 1. 4255, Campo to Floridablanca, London, July 13,
1787, with long note on cover by Floridablanca; ib., autograph
note by Floridablanca, Oct. 8, 1787.
3. AHN, E, 1. 3893, “Resumen de cierta conversacion
New York, Sept. 18, 1786, signed “D. G.,” i.e., Diego de Gardoqui.
4. AHN, E, 1. 3889, exp. 6, memorial by d'Argès. Clark is not
mentioned by name, but the allusion is clear. Ib., Floridablanca, to
Valdés, August 3, 1787.
I
""
NOTES
231
5. AI, PC, l. 176-2, Valdés to the Governor of Louisiana, Aug. 23,
1787, copy; AHN, E, 1. 3889, exp. 6, (Floridablanca) to Gardoqui,
Sept. 5, 1787, No. 5.
6. Ib., Floridablanca to Valdés, Aug. 24, 1787; ib., exp. 5, five
documents relating to Gayoso's appointment; AI, PC, I. 176–2,
Valdés to Gayoso, Nov. 3, 1787 res.
7. Floridablanca to Gardoqui, cited in note 5, above.
8. AHN, E, 1. 3889, exp. 6, (Floridablanca) to d'Argès, Oct. 6,
1787, draft; ib., (Floridablanca) to Gardoqui, Oct. 6, 1787, draft;
cf. note 23, ch. XII.
9. AHN, E, 1. 3894, (Floridablanca) to Gardoqui, May 24, 1788,
No. 5, draft; ib., 1. 3893 bis, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, Nov. 1, 1787,
No. 217.
1
10. Ib., l. 3893 bis, a document containing in parallel columns
the treaty plans of 1786 and 1787.
11. Ib., 1. 3894, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, April 18, 1788, No.
235.
12. Ib., l. 3889, exp. 6, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, Feb. 16, 1788,
No. 231; ib., same to same, April 18, 1788, No. 246; ib., d'Argès
to Floridablanca, March 27, 1788. On July 6, 1787, Gardoqui had
written Floridablanca that there was a chevalier of St. Louis living
with much ostentation in Danville, Kentucky, and said to be a
French agent: ib., 1. 3893, No. 17 res.
13. Gardoqui to Miró, Feb. 21, 1788, copy, enclosed in Gardoqui
to Floridablanca, No. 246 (see note 12, above).
14. AI, 86-6-8, Miró to Valdés, March 15, 1788, No. 19 res.;
AHN, E, 1. 3889, exp. 6, d'Argès to Floridablanca, May 22, June 17,
Aug. 27, 1788, and Jan. 2, 1789 (four letters); Gayarré, 217–18.
15. Ib., Miró to Valdés, March 16, 1790, No. 48 res.
CHAPTER VII. INTRIGUE AND IMMIGRATION
1. The Spanish archives are indispensable for the study of the
frontier intrigue with Spain, and no comprehensive account, based
on those sources, has ever been written. An excellent beginning
has been made by W. R. Shepherd (A. H. R., IX, 490) and I. J. Cox
(ib., XIX, 794), but much remains to be done. My own articles, based
on research in Spain, are in M. V. H. R., Sept., 1925, and Dec., 1926.
See also A. Henderson, in Tenn. Hist. Mag., III, 229, and The Con-
quest of the Old Southwest; T. Bodley, Introduction to Reprints of
Littell's Political Transactions, etc. (Filson Club Publications:
232
NOTES
No. 31); and M. Serrano y Sanz, El Brigadier Jaime Wilkinson, etc.
Mr. Bodley made no use of Spanish sources. Older works dealing
with the subject are Gayarré, 193–301; Roosevelt (cf. index);
T. M. Green, The Spanish Conspiracy; and H. Marshall, The His-
tory of Kentucky. So far as Wilkinson is concerned, Prof. Shepherd
first called attention to the frontier initiative in the intrigue: loc.
cit., 491.
2. A. V. Goodpasture, op. cit., 110-12; A. Henderson, "Richard
Henderson and the Occupation of Kentucky," in M. V. H. R., Dec.,
1914; C. R. N. Ca., IX, 982.
3. E.g., S. R. N. Ca., XXII, 651–52.
4. Wilkinson made this point in his "Essay" or memorial of
1787. See note 18, below.
5. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Iv., 242; Green, op. cit.,
76-77, 109-10, 385-86.
6. W. W. Henry, Patrick Henry, III, 374–77; S. R. N. Ca.,
XVIII, 483, 756-59, 775-77; XXII, 1005; xx, 761-62; A. S. P., I. A.,
1, 17; Papers of the Continental Congress (mss., LC), 78, vol. XXI,
fol. 481, Sevier to the President of Congress, Nov. 2, 1787.
7. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Iv, 242–43; Draper Mss.
(Hist. Soc. Wisconsin), 5 XX 18 and 6 XX 105; Green, op. cit.,
109-10.
8. S. R. N. Ca., xxII, 676-78, Green, op. cit., 110-12.
9. Letters of R. H. Lee (ed. Ballagh), 11, 424; Washington,
Writings, x1, 78.
10. W. W. Henry, Patrick Henry, III, 292–97; Green, op. cit.,
109-10; Papers of the Continental Congress (mss., LC), 78, vol. xxi,
fol. 477, and 150, vol. III, fol. 17; Gazette of the State of Georgia
(newspaper), April 3, 1788, letter from John Sullivan to Gov.
Pinckney. Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, one of the leaders
of the Mississippi party in Congress, seems to have been interested
in Western lands.
11. Compiled from "Entries and Sailings at the Port of New
Orleans" (transcript, Harvard College Library, obtained by Prof.
E. Channing from AI); W. W. Carson, "Transportation and
Traffic on the Ohio," M. V. H. R., vii, 33.
12. A. S. P., I. A., 1, 252.
13. AI, PC, 1. 2374, Wilkinson to (Carondelet), Dec. 15, 1792.
14. Ib., Miró to Wilkinson, Sept. 20, 1790. In his residencia,
Miró was accused of making 2000 pesos a year through his trans-
NOTES
233
actions with Wilkinson. The charge was not substantiated: AHN,
Consejos, Consejo de Indias.
15. Bodley, x, note 11.
16. AI, PC, 1. 199. Wilkinson's letter is dated Dec. 20, 1786;
Anderson's, Jan. 1, 1786 (sic: 1787). I am preparing an article on
this subject for early publication in H. A. H. R.
17. AI, PC, 1. 2373, contains the original of this memorial, in
Wilkinson's handwriting and signed by him. Another copy of the
original, which I have not seen, is reported to exist in the archives of
the Louisiana Historical Society: See Publications of that Society,
IX, 45-54. See also W. R. Shepherd in A. H. R., Ix, 748 et seq.
18. AHN, E, 1. 3888 bis, Miró and Navarro to (the Ministro de
Indias), Sept. 25, 1787, No. 13 res., enclosing an English copy and
a Spanish translation of Wilkinson's memorial.
19. Ib., extracto beginning "Resvda Nueva Orleans 25 de Sepre
de 1787 . . .,” dated at end: “a 23 de En[e]ro de [17]88.”
20. These numerous documents form an expediente, which is in
AHN, E, 1. 3888 bis.
21. Ib., Navarro to Valdés, Nov. 11, 1788.
22. AHN, E, AJE, Nov. 20, 1788; ib., l. 3888 bis, (Valdés) to the
Governor of Louisiana, Dec. 1, 1788; A. H. R., 1x, 749–50.
23. AI, PC, 1. 4, Sonora to the Governor of Louisiana, Jan. 12,
1786, copy.
24. For another view, see W. R. Shepherd in A. H. R., Ix, 492,
possibly misled by Wilkinson, Memoirs of my Own Times, 11, 111–13.
25. Jefferson, Writings, v, 316. The phrase alluding to the
Goths occurs in a personal letter from Prof. S. E. Morison.
26. Wilkinson, Memoirs, II, 117.
27. The best statements of the considerations that guided the
Spanish authorities are contained in the letters of Miró and Navarro,
referred to in notes 18 and 21, above.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE UNION PRESERVED
1. This subject is discussed in detail, with references, in my
article, "The Muscle Shoals Speculation," in M. V. H. R., XIII, 365.
2. This subject is discussed in detail, with references, in my
article, "The Spanish Intrigue in the Old Southwest: An Episode,”
in ib., XII, 155.
:
1
3. A bibliographical note on Bowles will be found in C. M.
Brevard, A History of Florida, 1, 23, note 21.
234
NOTES
4. AI, PC, 1. 2373, Wilkinson to Gayoso, Nashville, Nov. 10
(16?), 1789, and Lexington, Jan. 26, 1790; and drafts of (Miró) to
Daniel Smith, Sept. 15, 1789, and to James Robertson, Sept. 16,
1789.
5. Cf. Letter from Harry Innes to Gayoso, cited in note 16,
ch. XIII.
6. AI, 86-6-17, Miró to Valdés, Dec. 31, 1789, No. 46 res.
7. Ib., 86–6–8, Miró to Valdés, June 15, 1788, No. 20 res. ; ib.,
PC, 1. 2373, (Miró) to Wilkinson, Aug. 6, 1788, draft.
8. Ib., Wilkinson to Miró, Feb. 12, 1789. Wilkinson added that
after Kentucky had seceded from the Union the king of Spain could
"dictate his own terms."
9. Ib., Wilkinson to Miró, Feb. 12, 1789; cf. Green, op. cit.,
186-97, and Bodley, xlvii-liv.
10. AI, 86-6-17, Wilkinson's second memorial, undated, but
written on Sept. 17, 1789, and enclosed in Spanish translation in
Miró to Valdés, No. 46 res.; A. H. R., IX, 751-64.
11. Ib.; Wilkinson, Memoirs, II, 237 and Appendix, No. I,
deposition of Oliver Pollock, June 8, 1808.
12. Washington, Writings, XI, 43, note; ib., 163-64.
13. AHN, E, 1. 3894, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, Oct. 24, 1788,
No. 298.
14. J. J. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Diaries of George Washington, IV,
54, 74-77, 87, 90, 95–96, 127, 132-33, 157, 196.
15. Innes Papers (mss., LC), vol. XIX, fol. 3, John Brown to
Harry Innes, Sept. 28, 1789.
16. Hamilton Papers (mss., LC), vol. IX, fols. 1138-55, cabinet
opinion, Sept. 15, 1790.
17. Draper Mss., 4 xx 18a, Caswell to Sevier, July 12, 1786;
A. S. P., I. A., 1, 203–06; Pickering Mss. (Mass. Hist. Soc.), Western
Indians, 1786–1793, fol. 16, Information of Captain Wellbank;
"The Papers of General Daniel Smith," in American Hist. Mag.,
vi, 218-19. Anthony Wayne made a vigorous effort to secure this
appointment: Wayne Mss. (Hist. Soc. Pennsylvania), vol. xix,
passim.
18. Green, op. cit., note to pp. 250-53; cf. 239 and note.
19. Heitman, Historical Register of the United States Army, I,
1037.
20. Bodley, lxix.
21. A. S. P., I. A., 1, 124–25.
NOTES
235
CHAPTER IX. YAZOO
1. Draper Mss., XI DD 87a, Henry to Joseph Martin, March
10, 1790; W. W. Henry, Patrick Henry, III, 412-15.
2. Draper Mss., IX DD 48, Col. A. Campbell to "Mr. Davis"
(June, 1788); ib., IX DD 51, Harry Innes to A. Campbell, Sept. 19,
1788.
3. A. S. P., I. A., 1, 112–13; C. H. Haskins, "The Yazoo Land
Companies,” in Am. Hist. Assn., Papers, v, 395 et seq.; AI, PC,
Wilkinson to Miró, 1. 2374, April 29, 1790.
4. AHN, E, 1. 3894, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, April 18, 1788,
No. 252 (von Steuben); AI, PC, 1. 104, Gardoqui to Miró, Oct. 4,
1788 (Morgan); AHN, E, 1. 3894, Gardoqui to Floridablanca,
July 25, 1788, No. 280 (O'Fallon); ib., same to same, same date,
No. 282, enclosing Spanish translation of letter from G. R. Clark to
Gardoqui, March 15, 1788.
5. AI, PC, 1. 2373, Wilkinson to (Miró and Navarro), March
16, 1788; ib., 86-6-8, Miró to Valdés, Nov. 3, 1788, No. 29, res.,
enclosing a Spanish translation of a news item in the Pennsylvania
Gazette (Carlisle), Aug. 6, 1788. For O'Fallon, see note 4, above.
6. AHN, E, 1. 3894, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, June 25, 1789,
No. 316, and enclosures.
7. Draper Mss., Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, V, 72,
Alexander Moultrie to John Sevier, March 8, 1790.
8. AI, PC, 1. 2374, James O'Fallon to Wilkinson, April 10, 1791,
copy.
9. AHN, E, 1. 3894, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, July 25, 1788,
No. 280, enclosing Spanish translation of O'Fallon to Gardoqui,
May 26, 1788; AI, PC, 1. 2373, unsigned document in Wilkinson's
handwriting, stating that these "crude memorandums" were de-
signed for Miró and Navarro.
10. Ib., 1. 202, Moultrie to Farrar, Jan. 24, 1790; 1. 203, Moultrie
to McGillivray, Feb. 19, 1790, copy; 1. 2371, T. Washington to
Col. Bruin, March 16, 1790.
11. Draper Mss., Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, V, South
Carolina, 73, dated March 9, 1790.
12. AI, PC, 1. 2371, O'Fallon to Miró, May 13, 1790, and May
24, 1790; ib., 1. 1446, same to same, July 16, 1790, Spanish
translation, enclosed in Miró to Las Casas, Oct. 7, 1790, No.
9 res.
236
NOTES
13. Ib., 1. 2374, Wilkinson to Miró, March 19, 1791, enclosing
copy of letter to Wilkinson from J(ohn) B(rown), Feb. 10, 1791.
14. AI, 86-6-20, Las Casas to Campo de Alange, Aug. 3. 1791,
No. 12 res., enclosing copy of Washington's proclamation of March
19, 1791, referring to earlier proclamations of Aug. 14 and 26, 1790.
15. A. S. P., I. A., 1, 112–13; "Correspondence of General James
Robertson," in American Hist. Mag., 1, 192–93.
16. AI, PC, 1. 203, McGillivray to Miró (original) and to Panton
(copy), May 8, 1790, reported that Col. Willett, agent of President
Washington, said that the United States government desired a
treaty with the Creek as a means of defeating the Georgia com-
panies.
17. AI, PC, 1. 203, McGillivray to Panton, May 8, 1790.
18. A. S. P., I. A., 1, 65-68; F. L. Humphreys, Life of David
Humphreys, 11, 4-15; E. S. Maclay, ed., Journal of William Maclay,
128–33; AI, PC, I. 202, McGillivray to Miró, Dec. 10, 1789.
19. AI, PC, I. 202, (Miró) to McGillivray, July 22, 1789, draft;
1. 4, Miró to O'Neill, March 24, 1787, muy res.; AHN, E, AJE,
June 14, 1790.
20. A. S. P., I. A., 1, 75; Fitzpatrick, ed., Diaries of George
Washington, IV, 54; Maclay, ed., Journal of William Maclay,
174-75.
21. Fitzpatrick, ed., Diaries of George Washington, IV, 95–96.
Washington, recording a conference with Willett, says they dis-
cussed "such lures as respected McGillivray personally
AI, PC, 1. 203, Panton to Miró, July 12, 1790.
.";
22. New York Journal (newspaper), July 9, 23, 30, Aug. 3, 10 and
17, 1790.
23. Knox Papers (mss., Mass. Hist. Soc.), vol. xxvI, fol. 145, wit-
nessed by Justice John Blair of the United States Supreme Court.
24. At my request, Prof. S. F. Bemis searched for these articles
in the Archives of the Department of State, Washington, and
informed me that they are to be found there together with the
public treaty. See Pickett, History of Alabama, 406, 407.
25. Gov. Zéspedes of St. Augustine sent his secretary, Carlos
Howard, to New York in a vain effort to keep McGillivray loyal:
AI, PC, 1. 1440, Zéspedes to Cabello, June 1, 1790; Fitzpatrick,
ed., Diaries of George Washington, Iv, 132–33.
26. AI, PC, 1. 203, (Miró) to McGillivray, Nov. 20, 1790, draft;
AHN, E, 1. 3898, Carondelet to Aranda, July 7, 1792, No. 4 res.
NOTES
237
CHAPTER X. NOOTKA
1. W. S. Robertson, Francisco de Miranda, in Am. Hist. Assn.,
Report, 1907, 1, 266–87; F. J. Turner, ed., “English Policy toward
America in 1790-1791," in A. H. R., VII, 706–35.
2. W. R. Manning, The Nootka Controversy, in Am. Hist. Assn.,
Report, 1904, 279 et seq., especially ch. x.
3. AI, PC, 1. 2374, Wilkinson to Moutier (sic: Moultrie),
Huger, Snipes and T. Washington, Jan. 4, 1790, copy; l. 2371,
Moultrie to Wilkinson, Sept. 5, 1790; 1. 2374, Wilkinson to Miró,
May 20, 1790, and June 30, 1790.
4. Ib., Wilkinson to Moultrie, Nov. 4 (1790), copy in Wilkin-
son's handwriting; same to Miró, Feb. 14, 1791.
5. Fitzpatrick, ed., Diaries of George Washington, Iv, 127;
Robertson, ed., Louisiana under Spain, etc., 1, 263; W. C. Ford,
The United States and Spain in 1790; AI, PC, 1. 1446, Miró to Las
Casas, Oct. 7, 1790, enclosing Spanish translation of Wilkinson to
Miró, Aug. 27, 1790 (original in l. 2374).
6. Ib., l. 1446, Miró to Las Casas, May 8, 1791, No. 24 res.;
1. 2371, O'Fallon to (Miró), Jan. 15, 1791.
7. Ib., 1. 2374, Wilkinson to Miró, March 17, 1791.
8. Ib., letter cited in preceding note; cf. same to same, May 9,
1791, in ib., in which the coup de grâce is attributed to Washington's
proclamation.
9. C. H. Haskins, op. cit., 409-12; Etting Collection (mss.,
Hist. Soc. Pennsylvania), Old Congress Mss., vol. 11, Henry to Gen.
Charles Scot, July 20, 1790.
10. C. H. Haskins, op. cit., 413; Draper Mss., IX DD 65, Strother
to Campbell, Feb. 18, 1791; A. S. P., I. A., 1, 112–13; "Corres-
pondence of General James Robertson," in Am. Hist. Mag., 1,
192–93; AI, PC, l. 1446, Miró to Las Casas, July 17, 1791, No. 31
res., enclosing translation of McGillivray to Miró, June 8, 1791.
11. AI, 86–6–18, Miró to Valdés, May 22, 1790, No. 50 res., on
Wilkinson; ib., l. 177, same to same, same date, No. 49 res., draft,
on O'Fallon.
12. Ib., l. 2374, Wilkinson to (Miró), Jan. 26, 1790; Green, op.
cit., 326 and note, calls attention to this fact, and says that Wilkin-
son and Peyton Short formed a partnership that was disastrous
financially.
13. Bemis, 170-72.
238
NOTES
14. AHN, E, 1. 3384, copy in French, dated June 1, 1791.
15. A. S. P., F. R., 1, 250-51, 252–57; W. Jay, Life of John Jay,
II, 187.
16. AHN, E, 1. 3889 bis, exp. 4, "Estados Unidos/1791/Dicta-
men que dio D. Diego de Gardoqui. . .," Aug. 22, 1791, signed.
17. Ib., 1. 3898, Floridablanca to the governor of Havana, Sept.
28, 1791.
18. AME, Archivo de la Legación de S. M. C., Washington,
D. C., Caja No. 5, 1. 198, Floridablanca to Jaudenes and Viar,
Sept. 6, 1791.
19. AHN, E, 1. 3894 bis, Jáudenes and Viar to Floridablanca,
Dec. 18, 1791, No. 61.
20. Ib., same to same, March 26, 1792, No. 82.
21. A. S. P., F. R., 1, 251.
22. AHN, E, 1. 3894 bis, Jáudenes and Viar to Aranda, Oct. 29,
1792, No. 124.
23. Jefferson, Writings (ed. Ford), v, 74-75.
CHAPTER XI. HECTOR, BARON DE CARONDELET
1. AI, 86-6–8, Miró to Valdés, Oct. 8, 1788, No. 121; cf. D. K.
Bjork, ed., “Documents relating to the Establishment of Schools
in Louisiana, 1771,” in M. V. H. R., x1, 562.
2. AHN, E, 1. 3899, Carondelet to the Duke de la Alcudia
(Godoy), Aug. 20, 1795, personal.
3. AI, PC, 1. 2354, Carondelet to Las Casas, Sept. 17, 1794,
No. 124 res.; Las Casas' reply, Oct. 17, 1794, draft, is in ib., l. 1447.
4. AHN, E, ACE, May 2, 1794; AI, PC, l. 1447, Carondelet to
Las Casas, Dec. 30, 1793, No. 99 res.; ib. 86–7–25, Miró to
Aug. 7, 1792, copy.
5. AI, PC, 1. 1446, Carondelet to Las Casas, Jan. 13, 1792,
No. 1 res.
6. Heitman, Historical Register, 1, 1037; Washington, Writings,
XII, 158, Washington to Knox, Aug. 13, 1792, commending Wilkin-
son highly. For Wilkinson's financial difficulties at this time, see
Green, op. cit., 326.
7. AI, PC, 1. 2374, (Carondelet) to (Wilkinson), Feb. 1, 1792,
draft, in the handwriting of Gayoso and Armesto; AHN, E, l. 3898,
Carondelet to Floridablanca, Feb. 16, 1792, No. 7 res.
8. Though the Spanish sources are abundant, I have not dis-
cussed Morgan's project in detail, since it was not executed as he
Q M
NOTES
239
conceived it, and led to no important results. Those who are
interested will find further information in L. Houck, Missouri under
the Spanish Régime, and in Roosevelt.
9. J. Pope, A Tour through the Southern and Western Territories,
28, 33.
10. See references in note 10, ch. VIII.
11. AI, PC, 1. 41, (Miró) to (post commanders), Feb. 3, 1790, cir-
cular; AI, PC, 1. 177, Miró to Lerena, Jan. 17, 1791, No. 32, draft.
12. W. W. Henry, Patrick Henry, 111, 384–85.
13. AI, 86-7-25, Miró to Aug. 7, 1792, copy; ib., PC, I.
177, (Miró) to Lerena, Sept. 24, 1791, No. 76, draft; ib., 1. 204,
petition of the inhabitants of Natchez district to his Catholic
Majesty, copy, unsigned, and undated; AHN, E, 1. 3901, (Florida-
blanca) to Miró, Dec. 25, 1790; ib., AJE, Dec. 20, 1790; Am. Hist.
Assn., Report, 1896, 1, 979.
14. Samuel S. Forman Correspondence (mss., N. Y. Public
Library), 1790-1823, Ezekiel Forman to Samuel Forman, Natchez,
April 18, 1790.
15. AI, PC, I. 177, (Gayoso) to Floridablanca, Sept. 10, 1790,
draft; ib., l. 2374, Wilkinson to Miró, Dec. 17, 1790, two letters.
16. Ib., Wilkinson to Carondelet, Dec. 15, 1792; I. 2371, M.
Lacassagne to Carondelet, Oct. 1, 1794.
17. Ib., l. 2353, Gayoso to Carondelet, Oct. 26, 1792, No. 184; I.
2374, Wilkinson to Miró, Dec. 17, 1790; 1. 42, Gayoso to Caron-
delet, Aug. 6, 1793, No. 338, and Robert Stark to (Carondelet)
Jan. 31, 1795.
18. AI, PC, 1. 4, Miró to Grand-Pré, Oct. 8, 1787, No. 277;
C. M. Brevard, A History of Florida, 267–70, Appendix vi: and
letter of Robert Stark cited in note 17, above.
19. AHN, E, 1. 3890, exp. 34, Luis de Vilemont (sic) to Alcudia
(Godoy), no date or place; ib., ACE, Nov. 13, 1795.
20. AI, PC, 1. 1446, Carondelet to Las Casas, Jan. 13, 1792,
No. 1 res., and May 16, 1792, No. 28 res., and enclosures.
21. Ib., l. 2363, Panton to Carondelet, Aug. 4, 1793.
22. Ib., l. 1441, Carondelet to Las Casas, Jan. 18, 1792, No. 11.
23. Ib., l. 1446, same to same, March 13, 1792, No. 6 res., and
enclosures; and same to same, Sept. 10, 1792, No. 47 res. Grenville
denied that the British government had any connection with
Bowles: Campo to Aranda, July 20, 1792, AHN, E, 1. 3889 bis,
exp. 10.
240
NOTES
24. Ib., 1. 3898, Carondelet to Floridablanca, April 4, 1792,
No. 19 res., enclosing copy of Carondelet to Olivier, March 30, 1792;
Carondelet to Aranda, June 10, 1792, No. 1 res.; AI, PC, I. 1446,
Carondelet to Las Casas, July 31, 1792, No. 37 res., enclosing a copy
of the convention, dated at New Orleans, July 6, 1792; ib., l. 152–1,
Las Casas to Carondelet, July 5 and July 7, 1792.
25. See my article, “Spain and the Cherokee Indians, 1783-
1795," in North Carolina. Hist. Rev., July, 1927.
26. AI, PC, 1. 2353, “Puntos sobre los quales se deve tratar en el
Congreso de los indios," Feb. 26, 1793, signed by Carondelet; dis-
cussed by Jane M. Berry, loc. cit.
27. AI, PC, I. 203, Panton to Carondelet, Nov. 6, 1792.
28. Ib., 1. 2353, (Gayoso) to Carondelet, Dec. 6, 1793, No. 12,
"Oficio ulto. de la Asamblea."
29. Gayoso freely criticized Carondelet for stirring up the
Indians against the Americans: AHN, E, l. 3902, Gayoso to
Alcudia, Sept. 19, 1794, No. 1 res., and Alcudia to the governor of
New Orleans, Jan. 24, 1795. Cf. Roosevelt, iv, 185.
30. Jefferson, Writings, vi, 321-24, 315-16.
31. AHN, E, 1. 3894 bis, Jáudenes and Viar to Aranda, Oct. 29,
1792, No. 125; 1. 3895, same to Alcudia, May 29, 1793, No. 156,
and enclosures; and same to same, July 14, 1793, No. 168, enclosing
copy of their letter to Jefferson of June 18, 1793; Jefferson, Writ-
ings, 99, 118, 269-71, 271-73, 314-15, 330-38, 344; A. S. P., F. R.,
I, 267.
CHAPTER XII. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE SPANISH
EMPIRE
1. AHN, E, 1. 3889 bis, exp. 11, Carmichael and Short to
Alcudia, Aranjuez, Feb. 6, 1793.
2. There is no biography of Godoy in Spanish. Edmund B.
D'Auvergne, Godoy: the Queen's Favorite, is well illustrated. Go-
doy's Memoirs are not reliable. There is a good biographical
sketch in the Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada. In November, 1792,
when he became first secretary of state, his title was Duke de la
Alcudia. In September, 1795, Charles IV conferred on him the title
of Prince of the Peace, as a reward for having secured peace with"
France in the treaty of Bâle.
3. B. P. R. O., F. O., Spain, 72/38, Bute to Grenville, Aug. 5,
1795, No. 14; AHN, E, ACE, Nov. 22, 1795; Department of
NOTES
241
State, Despatches, Hague and Spain, 1, 150, Short to Sec. of State,
Jan. 9, 1794.
4. AHN, E, ACE, Nov. 16, 1792, and Feb. 19, 1793.
5. A. S. P., F. R., 1, 278; AHN, E, ACE, July 7, 1794.
6. AI, 87-3-19, contains an expediente on this subject.
7. AI, PC, 1. 2353, Gardoqui to the Captain-General of Cuba
etc., June 9, 1793, copy.
8. Ib., l. 178, (Carondelet) to Gardoqui, May 16, 1793, No. 74
res., draft; ib., 1. 104, same to Jaudenes and Viar, Aug. 13, 1793,
draft.
9. AI, 86-7-9, Representation to H. C. M., signed by Francisco
Xavier Sánchez and others, St. Augustine, Nov. 27, 1794; Pickett,
History of Alabama, 367; cf. A. S. P., I. A., 1, 458.
10. See my article, "Spain and the Cherokee Indians, 1783-
1795," in North Carolina Hist. Rev., July, 1927.
11. AI, PC, 1. 203, Panton to Carondelet, April 4, 1793, and
July 3, 1794; ib., l. 104, Carondelet to Jáudenes and Viar, Sept. 18,
1793, draft.
12. Ib., l. 2354, Panton, Leslie and Co. to Carondelet, not dated.
13. B. P. R. O., F. O., Spain, 72/38, Bute to Grenville, Sept. 10,
1795, No. 20, "Most Secret."
14. AHN, E, 1. 3889 bis, exp. 11, (Alcudia) to Carmichael and
Short, Jan. 19, 1794, draft; A. S. P., F. R., 1, 445–46.
15. Ib., ACE, March 7, 1794.
.
16. Ib., l. 3895 bis, Jáudenes and Viar to Alcudia, March 13, 1794,
No. 213.
17. AHN, E, 1. 4249, Campo to Alcudia, March 28, 1794, No. 1.
18. Ib., ACE, Dec. 13 and 20, 1793.
19. Ib., May 2, 1794; AME, Archivo de la Legación de S. M. C.,
Washington, D. C., 1. 201, Alcudia to Jaudenes, May 9, 1794, in
cipher, accompanied by a deciphered copy.
20. A. S. P., F. R., 1, 469; AHN, E, 1. 3895 bis, Jáudenes to
Alcudia, Nov. 30, 1794, No. 273; W. H. Trescot, The Diplomatic
History of the Administrations of Washington and Adams, 239-40,
240-45; Washington, Writings, XII, 459, note.
21. Yela, II, 342-50; AHN, E, 1. 3894 bis, Jáudenes and Viar
to Floridablanca, Dec. 18, 1791, No. 61; Jefferson, Writings, vi,
206.
22. AHN, E, 1. 3895 bis, Jáudenes and Viar to Alcudia, April 23,
1794, No. 220.
"
242
NOTES
23. AHN, E, ACE, July 7, 1794. The session began with the
reading of the letter cited in note 22, above.
24. Ib., 1. 3895 bis, (Alcudia) to Jáudenes and Viar, “[blank] de
Julio de 1794," in Godoy's handwriting.
CHAPTER XIII. THE INTRIGUE INFALLIBLE
1. E. M. Coulter, "The Efforts of the Democratic Societies of
the West to Open the Navigation of the Mississippi," in M. V. H. R.,
XI, 376; W. Jay, Life of John Jay, 11, 233.
2. F. J. Turner, "The Policy of France toward the Mississippi
Valley," in A. H. R., x, 249, and "Correspondence of the French
Ministers to the United States, 1791-97," in Am. Hist. Assn.,
Report, 1903, II.
3. Washington, Writings, XII, 450-53.
4. F. J. Turner, "The Origin of Genêt's projected Attack on
Louisiana and the Floridas," in A. H. R., III, 650; and "The Cor-
respondence of Clark and Genêt," Am. Hist. Assn., Report, 1896, 1,
930–1107; ib., Report, 1897, p. 569; AI, PC, 1. 1469, Las Casas to the
encargados at Philadelphia, May 6, 1794, draft, relative to Abner
Hammond.
5. B. Faÿ, L'Esprit révolutionnaire en France et aux États-Unis
à la fin du XVIIIe siècle.
6. Jefferson, Writings, v1, 206; cf. A. S. P., F. R., 1, 454-55.
7. AHN, E, 1. 3889 bis, exp. 11, minuta, unsigned and undated,
relating to Short's status; B. W. Bond, The Monroe Mission to
France, 23; S. F. Bemis, Jay's Treaty.
8. Washington, Writings, 451, note; A. S. P., F. R., 1, 454;
E. M. Coulter, loc. cit., 388; Calendar of Virginia State Papers,
VII, 373–75. Wilkinson sent Carondelet a newspaper containing
the correspondence between Col. Innes and Gov. Shelby: AI, PC,
1. 3899, Carondelet to Alcudia, July 1, 1795, No. 54 res.
9. AHN, E, 1. 3899, Carondelet to Las Casas, May 3, 1795,
muy res.
10. This is the most neglected period of Wilkinson's long intrigue
with Spain, and the abundant Spanish sources have hardly been
touched. See Gayarré, 358-65; Wilkinson, Memoirs, II, Appen-
dix, Nos. XXXIX-XLVI; Green, op. cit., 327-35, 342-69; Bodley,
xcv-cxvi; M. Serrano y Sanz, El Brigadier Jaime Wilkinson, etc.
11. AI, PC, l. 126, M. Lacassagne to Carondelet, Jan. 20, 1794.
NOTES
243
12. AHN, E, 1. 3899, Carondelet to Alcudia, No. 31 res., April 7,
1794; AI, PC, 1. 2363, same to same, July 9, 1794, No. 38, res.,
copy; ib., l. 1447, Carondelet to Las Casas, Aug. 18, 1794, No. 123
res.
13. AHN, E, 1. 3899, Carondelet to Alcudia, March 11, 1794,
autograph, personal, endorsed by Godoy: "Ignoro esto
Other documents relating to this subject are in AI, 86–6–10.
14. AI, 87-1-19, Navarro to José de Gálvez, July 20, 1781,
No. 62; 87–3–19, Navarro to Valdés, April 26, 1789, No. 3, copy;
86-6-8, Miró and Navarro to Valdés, April 1, 1788, No. 55.
15. AI, 87–3–21, Carondelet to Gardoqui, May 16, 1793, No. 75
res.; same to same, Dec. 15, 1793, No. 94; 86-7-15, same to same,
Aug. 27, 1792; 87-3-21, note by the mesa on letter of Don Honratio
Fortier.
16. AI, PC, 1. 2371, Harry Innes to Gayoso, Feb. 14, 1794. The
two letters of Innes cited in this and the following note seem to me
to demolish completely the case that Mr. Bodley has built up for
him in op. cit.
17. AI, PC, 1. 2371, Gayoso to Innes, July 27, 1794, and dupli-
cate dated Aug. 23, 1794; Harry Innes to Gayoso, Dec. 11, 1794;
(Gayoso) to Carondelet, March 24, 1795, draft.
18. AHN, E, 1. 3899, Carondelet to Alcudia, Aug. 18, 1794,
No. 43 res.; AI, PC, 1. 2374, Wilkinson to (Gayoso), May 25, 1790.
19. AI, PC, 1. 2374, Wilkinson to (Carondelet), Jan. 12, 1795, in
cipher, and deciphered copy.
20. AI, PC, 1. 211, statement of Wilkinson's account, copy in
English; see Bemis, illustration facing p. 346; cf. Wilkinson,
Memoirs, II, 1–120, especially 117–19 and note.
21. AHN, E, 1. 3895, Jáudenes and Viar to Alcudia, Oct. 16,
1793, No. 198; AI, PC, 1. 2371, M. Mitchell to Gayoso, June 20,
1794; AI, Estado, Audiencia de Sto. Domingo, 1. 5, Las Casas to
Campo de Alange, Jan. 26, 1795, No. 468, enclosing a copy of the
committee's representation; AI, PC, 1. 211, David Bradford to
Gayoso, Natchez, Jan. 22, 1795.
22. AHN, E, ACE, July 25, 1794.
23. AME, Archivo de la Legación de S. M. C., Washington, D. C.,
1. 201, Alcudia to Jaudenes and Viar, July 26, 1794, principal and
duplicate, and two deciphered copies.
1
24. AHN, E, 1. 3899, Carondelet to Alcudia, June 3, 1794,
No. 36 res., with índice in Carondelet's handwriting stating that the
244
NOTES
success of the Kentucky negotiation "le parece infalible," and
minuta with Godoy's autograph note; same to same, Oct. 8, 1794,
No. 47 res., and draft of Godoy's reply, dated Jan. 24, 1795; same
to same, Aug. 18, 1794, No. 43 res., with autograph note by Godoy
on cover; AHN, E, 1. 3895 bis, draft of letter from Alcudia (Godoy)
to Jaudenes, Feb. 24, 1795.
25. AHN, E, 1. 3895 bis, fragment of an informe, undated, on
various letters from Jáudenes and Viar of June 4, 1794.
CHAPTER XIV. SAN LORENZO: A FRONTIER TREATY
1. Bemis, 244; AHN, E, 1. 3895 bis, Jáudenes to Alcudia,
Dec. 8, 1794, No. 275.
2. B. W. Bond, The Monroe Mission to France, 40; Monroe
Papers (mss., N. Y. Public Library), (Monroe) to the Secretary of
State, March 17, 1795, No. 13.
3. AMAE, CP, Espagne, Supplément, vol. 25, fol. 04, Com-
mittee of Public Safety to Barthélémy, May 10, 1795; ib., fols.
06-12, Instructions to Barthélémy, same date.
4. Department of State, Bureau of Indexes and Archives,
Despatches, England, T. Pinckney, Pinckney to the Secretary of
State, April 3 and 23, 1795.
5. AI, Indiferente General, 146–3–10, Thomas Pinckney to Wm.
Short, Sept. 26, 1795. I am preparing for early publication a note
on Godoy's knowledge of the terms of Jay's treaty.
6. AHN, E, 1. 3370, carpeta 13, the original treaty, dated at
Bâle, July 22, 1795, together with three secret articles, same date.
7. W. H. Trescot, op. cit., 253-54, quoting from Godoy's
Memoirs; Roosevelt, iv, 207; H. Adams, History of the United
States, etc., 1, 348-49; E. Channing, History of the United States,
IV, 146; Bemis, 326–31. Other explanations are advanced by
B. W. Bond, op. cit., 40; F. J. Turner, "The Policy of France," in
A. H. R., x, 266-67; and F. W. Paxson, History of the American
Frontier, 85.
8. AHN, E, 1. 4247, Campo to Alcudia, July 10, Aug. 7, Aug. 18,
Sept. 25, 1795; Godoy, Mémoires du Prince de la Paix, 1, 349–50.
9. B. P. R. O., F. O., Spain, 72/41, Bute to Grenville, May 18,
1796, No. 12.
10. Ib., 72/38, Bute to Grenville, July 19, 1795, “Most secret
& private."
NOTES
245
11. AHN, E, ACE, Nov. 22 and 27, 1795; B. P. R. O., F. O.,
Spain, 72/39, Bute to Grenville, Oct. 31, 1795, No. 30, "Most
Secret."
12. Bradford to Gayoso, Jan. 22, 1795, cited in note 21, ch. XIII.
13. AI, PC, I. 1447, Carondelet to Las Casas, Aug. 18, 1794,
No. 123 res.; ib., 1. 2354, Address of the Democratic Society of
Kentucky, Dec. 13, 1793, Spanish translation.
14. AI, PC, 1. 2374, copy in English, with interlinear cipher.
The letter given in Bodley, lxxx, was fabricated in 1796: AI, PC,
1. 2371, Sebastian to (Carondelet), New Orleans, Feb. 22, 1796.
15. AI, PC, 1. 1447, Carondelet to Las Casas, Jan. 30, 1796,
No. 154 res.
16. Ib., l. 178, (Carondelet) to the Prince of the Peace, Feb. 10,
1796, No. 73 res., draft.
17. AME, Archivo de la Legación de S. M. C., Washington, D. C.,
1. 69, Antonio Argote Villalobos to Viar, Frankfort (Kentucky),
Dec. 15, 1795, March 22, 1796 (two letters): AHN, E, 1. 3896,
Jaudenes to Alcudia, July 29, 1795, No. 297 and enclosures.
18. C. H. Haskins, The Yazoo Land Companies, loc. cit.
19. AI, PC, 1. 203, Panton to Carondelet, April 18, 1795; ib., 1.
2354, Carondelet to Las Casas, March 4, 1795, No. 131 res.; same
to same, May 1, 1795, No. 134 res.
20. Ib., "Galeota la Vigilante, Diario desde la Salida de Nat-
chez," entry for May 30 (1795).
21. Ib., Carondelet to Gayoso, March 5, 1797.
22. AHN, E, 1. 3899, Carondelet to Alcudia, June 10, 1795,
No. 53 res., and July 1, 1795, No. 54 res.
23. Ib., l. 3384, Montarco to Alcudia, Aug. 17, 1795.
24. Ib., ACE, Aug. 14, 1795; ib., May 27, 1796; AI, PC, 1.
2371, Lord Dorchester to Carondelet, Aug. 21, 1794, copy; draft
of Carondelet's reply, June 19, 1795.
25. AI, PC, 1. 2371, Gayoso to Lt. Pope, May 1, 1797, copy.
Panton was suspected of complicity in Blount's conspiracy: ib., 1.
1502, Gayoso to Santa Clara, Sept. 24, 1797, No. 22 res. See also
reference in note 21, above.
Adams, Henry, 15.
Adams, John, 188.
Adams, Samuel, 92.
INDEX
Alabama River, 94, 110, 160.
Alcudia, Duke de la, see Godoy, Man-
uel de.
America, 65, 66.
Anderson, Richard, 97.
Appalachicola River, 154.
Aranda, Conde de, negotiation at
Paris, 9-11; advice, 12; succeeds
Floridablanca, 18, 174; introduces
d'Argès, 78-80, 90; imprisonment,
174.
Argès, Pierre Wouves d', goes to
Spain, 78-80; Spanish agent, 81;
relation to diplomacy, 82-84; hos-
tility of Gardoqui, 85–88; of Miró,
88; return to Paris, 89; mentioned,
90, 98, 99, 108, 157.
Argote Villalobos, Antonio, 213.
Arkansas, Spanish post, 21; com-
mandant of, 69.
Armesto, see López de Armesto,
Andrés.
Arnold, Benedict, 96.
Asturias, Prince of, 215.
Augusta (Georgia), 37, 56.
Badajoz, 201.
Bahama Channel, 3.
Bahamas, 164.
Bâle, treaty of, 205, 207.
Barrancas de Margot, see Chickasaw
Bluffs.
Belmont (Kentucky), 155.
Bilbao (Spain), 180.
Blount, William, governor of South-
west Territory, 20, 120; land specu-
lator, 55, 109; conspiracy, 215, 221;
mentioned, 47, 48, 121, 133, 144,
166, 170, 179, 188, 215.
Boone, Daniel, 48.
Bordeaux (France), 22.
Boundary, southern, of United
States, 10; Spanish claim, 34, 35,
68, 69, 71, 84, 148, 183, 206; not
publicly stated, 54; Count Gálvez
on, 64.
Bourbon County (Georgia), at-
tempted establishment, 55-58;
mentioned, 60, 81, 106, 127, 129.
Bowles, William Augustus, 112, 135,
140, 163, 164, 166, 167.
Bradford, David, 196, 211.
British intrigue in West, rumored,
119, 143.
Brown, John, 117, 121, 129.
Bruin, Peter Bryan, 131.
Bute, Earl, 207.
Butler, Senator, 150.
Cabildo (New Orleans), 176.
Campbell, Arthur, 126.
Campeche, 2, 7.
Campo, Bernardo del, on growth of
Kentucky, 51; on American West,
64; on British hostility, 207; men-
tioned, 182.
Campomanés, 2.
Canada, 142, 191.
Carmichael, William, 149, 150, 170,
171, 180-183, 189.
Carondelet, Hector. Baron de, ap-
pointment and character, 153–156;
Indian policy, 163-170; influence
on diplomacy, 169, 170, 181, 182;
commercial policy, 176, 193, 194;
"cochon de lait," 189; relations
with Wilkinson, 190-197, 210-213;
urges Kentucky secession and free
trade for Louisiana, 191-194, 198;
court's reply, 198, 200; removed
from intendancy, 192, 193; opposes
Americans, 209; extends military
frontier, 213-216; despatches, 216,
217.
Casas, las, family, 154.
Casas, las, Luis de, 154, 162, 167.
Caswell, Richard, 55.
Cédula of 1782, 35, 36, 66.
Charles III, 2, 172.
Charles IV, 172, 205.
Charles V, 174.
Charleston (South Carolina), 37, 130,
195.
Chattahoochee River, 11.
Cherokee Indians, population, 24;
248
INDEX
1
encroachments on, 50, 51; treaty
with United States, 121; Chicka-
mauga towns, 168; mentioned, 35,
55, 59, 60, 69, 178, 214.
Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis,
see Argès, Pierre Wouves d'.
Chickasaw Bluffs, Indian trade, 60;
Spanish post, 58, 214-216; men-
tioned, 54, 127, 220.
Chickasaw Indians, population, 24;
treaty with Spain, 42, 54, 215;
mentioned, 35, 40, 42, 54, 56, 131,
133, 165, 167, 177, 178, 216.
Choctaw Indians, population, 24;
treaty with Spain, 42; mentioned,
35, 40, 42, 56, 59, 60, 131, 133, 160,
165, 167, 177, 178, 216.
Clark, George Rogers, and Bourbon
County, 56; intrigue with Spain,
59; at Vincennes, 81, 97; land spec-
ulation, 128, 129; relations with
O'Fallon, 143; with Genêt, 182, Bluffs.
<<
216.
Congress, see United States.
Connecticut, 67.
Connolly, John, 143.
Constantinople, 16.
134, 139; treaty with United States,
121, 133-139, 164; mentioned, 29,
35, 60, 125, 144, 155, 160, 163, 165,
166, 177, 178.
Cumberland River, 25, 51, 80, 107,
111.
187, 190, 192, 211; mentioned, 156. | England, see Great Britain.
Clarke, Elijah, 154, 182, 187.
'Cochon de lait," see Carondelet.
Collins, Henry, 194, 195.
Commerce, British, with Spanish
colonies, 2, 43-46; Spain liberalizes
regulations, 2; Spanish war on con-
traband, 7, 8; French, with Louisi-
ana, 22, 23; cédula of 1782, 35, 36,
75, 199; concessions offered United
States, 71, 76; depression in United
States, 74; on Mississippi, 83, 84;
volume of, 95, 96; basis of Spanish
intrigue, 94; royal order on, 101,
193; of Louisiana and the Floridas,
175-180; reglamento (1793), 175,
176, 199; Americans enjoy, 221.
Confederation, Fort, 169, 178, 214,
Coosa River, 38.
Corcubión (Spain), 175.
Coruña (Spain), 85.
Council of State (Spain), 181, 182,
183, 197, 198, 199, 201, 205, 206,
207, 209, 217, 218-220.
Cox, Zachariah, 126, 144.
Creek Indians, population, 24; treaty
with Spain, 41, 42; with Georgia,
50; war with Georgia, 59-62, 111,
Cumberland settlements, population,
26; interests, 30; attacked by
Creeks, 61; particularism, 94;
Spanish intrigue, 108, 111–115,
117, 190; mentioned, 9, 31, 59, 87,
91, 122, 132, 158, 164, 169, 211,
215.
Democratic Societies, 186.
Depeau, 187.
Detroit, 191.
Dorchester, Lord, 191.
Dunmore, Lord, 166.
Ecores à Margot, see Chickasaw
Euphassee River, see Hiwassee River.
Fagot, André, 112, 113.
Family Compact, 147, 173.
Farrar, Benjamin, 131.
Ferdinand VII, 215.
Flint River, 34, 69.
Florida, East, Spain obtains, 3, 10;
population, 21; boundary, 69;
mentioned, 39, 40, 112.
Florida, West, Spain acquires, 3, 10;
boundary controversy, 10, 11;
population, 21; mentioned, 36, 40,
41, 50, 69, 71, 83, 103, 104, 153,
155, 156, 158, 159, 163, 218.
Floridablanca, Conde de, policy
(1782-83), 9-13, 63; supervises
colonial affairs and diplomacy, 18;
fears Anglo-Americans, 33, 34;
policy towards United States, 34,
35, 68-73, 81-85, 145-151; rela-
tions with d'Argès, 78-85, 98, 99;
with Wilkinson, 100-107; suggests
alliance with England, 174; men-
tioned, 34, 50, 64, 66, 67, 77, 90,
94, 108, 171, 172, 183, 205, 206,
220, 221.
Floridas (East and West), place in
Spanish policy, 17; government, 17,
18; commerce, 175, 176; mentioned,
43, 47, 64, 69, 154, 187, 191, 209.
Forbes, John, 180, 215.
INDEX
249
1
Forman, Ezekiel, 159.
Fort Pitt, see Pittsburgh.
France, trade with Louisiana, 22, 23,
35, 36; with Indians, 37; in Nootka
crisis, 140, 143, 147; defeats Spain,
182; alliance with United States,
185; diplomacy (1795), 203, 204;
peace with Spain, 205; recovers
Louisiana (1800), 221; mentioned,
87.
Franklin, State of, established, 51;
interest in Muscle Shoals, 55, 109-
111; Spanish intrigue, 108–111,
113, 117, 190; mentioned, 50, 93,
94, 122, 132.
French Broad River, 51.
Frontier, Southwestern, and Ameri-
can Revolution, 4-7; possible con-
quest of Louisiana by, 27, 28, 78;
economic situation, 28, 29; relation
to United States and Spain, 30-32;
a Spanish problem, 36, 89, 148;
Spain checks advance, 49, 50; dis-
appointment, 53; influence on Span-
ish policy, 63, 64, 72, 80, 81, 83, 142,
201, 206, 209, 217-220; hostility to
Atlantic States, 74, 75; intrigue
with Spain, 90-119, 190-197; par-
ticularism, 91, 92, 93, 186, 187, 189;
rapid growth, 104; Washington
conciliates, 120-121; treaty-mak-
ing power, 124-126; in Nootka
crisis, 142; unfriendly to Spain,
161, 211; alarms Carondelet, 163;
and French Revolution, 185; sym-
pathy for France, 188; ferment, 202.
Frontier, Spanish (Louisiana and
Floridas), described, 21-23; influ-
ence of French Revolution, 174-
180. See Immigration.
Gaillard, 67.
Gálvez, Bernardo de (Count Gál-
vez), conqueror of British West
Florida, 2, 8; opposes Bourbon
County, 57; on Spanish policy, 64,
65, 67; "Instruction" to, 69; men-
tioned, 40, 41, 45, 56, 71, 100.
Gálvez family, 37.
Gálvez, José de (Marqués de So-
nora), 2, 17, 35, 64, 66, 67, 68, 70,
79, 81, 100.
Jay, 74-77, 83; opposes d'Argès,
85-88; intrigue with frontiersmen,
108-110, 112, 127; on Short's me-
morial, 148, 183; plenipotentiary
(1793), 180, 181; minister of finance,
200; mentioned, 18, 34, 56, 64, 68,
80, 82, 83, 99, 104, 130, 131, 141,
145, 156, 197, 199. See also White,
James.
Gardoqui, Diego de, opposes Bourbon
County, 57; instructions to, 70-73;
antecedents, 73; negotiation with
Gayoso de Lemos, Manuel, governor
of Natchez, 82, 83; meets White,
110, 111, 115; presides at Indian
congress, 168, 181; Kentucky in-
trigue, 194, 195, 196, 211, 212;
builds Fort San Fernando, 214,
215; mentioned, 148, 153, 156, 157,
158, 160, 163, 169.
Genêt, Edmund, plans for invasion of
Louisiana and Floridas, 182, 187,
188, 189, 192, 196, 211.
George III, 92.
Georgia, westward extension of, 6;
fur trade, 25; population, 26; fron-
tier conditions, 29, 30; interest in
Muscle Shoals, 50, 55, 109; Bour-
bon County, 55; war with Creeks,
59-62, 109, 111, 134; mentioned,
122, 154, 155, 164, 179, 187, 210,
214.
Georgia land companies (1789), 126-
128, 132, 137, 138, 139, 144, 146;
(1795), 214.
Gibraltar, 7, 34.
Godoy, Manuel de (Duke of Alcudia
and Prince of the Peace), on sur-
render to United States, 13, 206;
supervises colonial and diplomatic
policy, 18; negotiation with United
States, 171; character, 172, 173;
chief minister, 174; concession to
United States, 181-183; proposals,
184; on Kentucky intrigue, 191,
197-200; and Jay's treaty, 204;
peace policy, 205, 208, 209; Mem-
oirs, 206, 218; plot against, 208;
advises surrender, 217; on Ameri-
can frontier, 218-220.
Goya, 13.
Granada, 174.
Grayson, William, 6, 75.
Great Britain, conflict with Spain, 1,
2; conflicting treaties, 10, 11; pre-
liminary treaty with United States,
11, 69; trade with Floridas, 43-46;
war with Spain threatens, 80;
250
INDEX
Nootka Crisis, 140; alliance with
Spain, 174, 181; trade with Louisi-
ana, 175; resents treaty of Bâle,
207; mentioned, 28, 54, 63.
Green, Thomas, 58, 59.
Grenville, Lord, 204, 205.
Hague, The, 150.
Hamilton, Alexander, 120, 143, 172, Innes, James, 189, 203.
188, 189.
Hammond brothers, 187.
Hampton, Wade, 55, 109, 129.
Havana, 71, 87, 100, 148, 154, 167, Jackson, Andrew, 112, 188.
182, 213.
Jáudenes, Josef de, 72, 87, 145, 149,
Henderson, Richard, 48, 91, 132.
Henry, Patrick, correspondence with
150, 169, 181, 182, 183, 184, 196,
197, 198, 199, 201, 202, 206, 213.
Bernardo de Gálvez, 7; land specu-Jay, John, negotiation in Spain, 9; at
lation, 49, 126, 144; on treaty-
making power, 124, 125; men-
tioned, 55, 92, 93, 159.
Hillsborough (North Carolina), 91.
Hiwassee River, 34, 69.
Paris, 9, 10; policy towards Spain,
16; negotiation with Gardoqui, 76,
77, 83; mission to England, 189,
203, 204; mentioned, 71, 94, 119,
120, 124, 146, 183, 184, 188.
Jay's treaty, 125, 204, 222; Godoy
informed of terms, 206.
Jefferson, Thomas, policy towards
Spain, 16, 151; on Spanish immi-
gration policy, 103; secretary of
state, 120; resigns, 188; on contro-
versy with Spain, 146, 188; de-
clines appointment to Spain, 183,
203; on Genêt, 188; mentioned,
143, 149, 170, 181, 183.
Johnston, Governor, 112.
Jovellanos, 2.
Junta de Estado, 101, 102.
Holland, 72.
Holston River, 25, 50, 107.
Holston settlements, population, 26;
interests, 30; mentioned, 9, 31, 50,
51, 55, 60, 91, 111, 126, 158, 169.
Honduras, 7.
Hopewell, treaties of, 60, 93, 121, 125,
133, 137.
Houston County (Georgia), estab-
lished at Muscle Shoals, 55, 109,
127, 129.
Huger, Isaac, 129.
Humphreys, David, 135.
169; relation to diplomacy, 181,
182, 209, 219; mentioned, 29, 32,
110, 121, 125, 143, 163.
Innes, Harry, Spanish conspirator,
117, 118, 195, 197, 210, 212; federal
judge, 121; on Indian policy of
Congress, 126; land speculation,
129; writes Gayoso, 194, 198.
Instruction of 1784 on Spanish bound-
ary, 69, 71.
Illinois River, 197.
Illinois settlements, 66, 112.
Immigration to Louisiana and the
Floridas, Spain encourages, 36, 218;
proposals of d'Argès, 79, 81, 83; of
Wilkinson, 98, 101, 102; discussed,
102-107; American frontiersmen
invited, 113, 114; failure of Spanish
policy, 157-162, 171, 200, 209.
Indians, Northern, 163, 164.
Indians, Southern, defeated in Revo-
lution, 5; buffer state, 10; popula-
tion, 24; described, 24, 25; trade,
25, 26, 42-46, 56, 59, 113, 114, 131,
133, 134, 138, 165, 177–180; Spain
cultivates, 35, 36–46, 106, 110, 200,
210; policy of Congress, 93, 126;
attack Spanish subjects, 160; Ca-
|
rondelet forms confederation, 168, Lacassagne, Michel, 191, 194, 212.
Kentucky, district of Virginia, 6; set-
tlement, 9; population, 26; inter-
ests, 30; separatist movement in,
51, 94, 108, 115–118, 156, 157, 160,
187, 190, 194, 195-197, 198; ad-
mitted to Union, 122; mentioned,
31, 32, 51, 60, 67, 70, 75, 78, 79, 81,
83, 87, 91, 92, 96, 97, 98, 101, 104,
114, 124, 132, 141, 143, 144, 146,
158, 160, 169, 176, 186, 187, 189,
192, 193, 203, 210, 211, 212, 216,
220, 221.
Kentucky River, 107.
King, Rufus, 30, 75.
Knox, Henry, 136.
Knoxville (Tennessee), 51, 52, 96,
179, 180.
INDEX
251
Lachaise, 187.
Marbois, 68.
Lafayette, Marquis de, 147.
Martin, Joseph, 55, 129, 159.
Land speculation, influence in Span- | Mather and Strother, 41, 42.
ish-American controversy, 47-50, Maxent, Gilberto Antonio de, 41, 45.
62, 95, 214-215; projects, 53-57, Memphis (Tennessee), 214.
214; relation to Spanish intrigue, Mexico, 67, 70, 80, 104, 142, 192, 207,
109-111; to new Constitution, 125,
126; particularistic tendencies, 127,
128; opposition of Spain to, 161.
Lands, public, sale stimulated by
Revolution, 6.
221.
Leslie, Robert, 39.
Lexington (Kentucky), 87.
Livingston, Robert, 220.
London, 44, 51, 64, 182, 203.
López de Armesto, Andrés, 97, 153,
155.
Louisiana, place in Spanish policy,
17; government, 17, 18; popula-
tion, 21, 22; trade and revenues, 22,
23, 30, 66, 175, 199; problem of
conquest by Americans, 27, 28;
inadequate defences, 156; France
seeks retrocession (1795), 203;
mentioned, 47, 58, 64, 68, 69, 78,
79, 81, 88, 97, 98, 103-105, 113,
141, 142, 145, 153, 154, 158, 159,
163, 176, 182, 185, 187, 189, 191,
197, 198, 209, 213, 217, 218, 221.
Louisville (Kentucky), 27.
Loyalists, British, and Southern fur-
trade, 25, 36-39; at Natchez, 57.
Lyon (France), 22.
McDonald, John, 168.
McGillivray, Alexander, warns Spain
against Americans, 34; origin, 37,
38; at Pensacola, 41, 42; opposes
Americans, 60, 61, 111; correspond-
ence with James Robertson, 112;
treaty with United States, 121, 133,
139; relations with Yazoo Com-
pany, 131, 134; oath of allegiance
to United States, 137; pension from
United States, 138; from Spain,
138; signs convention with Caron-
delet, 167; mentioned, 129, 144,
163, 164, 166.
McLatchy, Charles, 39.
Maclay, Senator, 136.
Madison, James, 124, 125.
Madrid (Spain), 99, 147, 149, 155, 181.
Malaspina plot, 208.
Mangourit, 187.
Manning, Captain, 144.
Mexico, Gulf of, 7, 176, 189, 207.
Miami Indians, 121, 142.
Michaud, 187.
Milfort, Louis, 166.
Miller, John, 166.
Minorca, 7.
Miralles, Juan de, 72.
Miranda, Francisco de, 41, 140.
Miro district (North Carolina), 119.
Miró, Esteban, Indian policy, 40–46;
Bourbon County, 57; pacific Indian
policy, 61, 62; opposes d'Argès, 88;
relations with Wilkinson, 97-102,
146; with Cumberland and Frank-
lin, 110-115; with Kentucky, 115–
118; with O'Fallon, 132, 141, 143;
mentioned, 65, 81, 87, 127, 135,
136, 137, 138, 148, 153, 155, 157,
164, 165, 166, 190, 192, 209, 214.
Mississippi River, Spain controls, 3,
8; American commerce on, 7, 95;
free navigation by British subjects
and American citizens, 7, 10; rela-
tion of sea power to, 15; value to
West, 29, 96; Spain closes, 34, 65,
68-70, 71, 101; opens to United
States, 65; claims east bank, 69;
sectional conflict in United States
over, 75-77; reopened by Spain, 81,
82, 101-102, 110, 114, 176, 177;
Wilkinson on, 98, 158; resolution of
Congress, 120; in Nootka crisis,
143; Short's memorial, 146; men-
tioned, 27, 56, 66, 79, 80, 92, 124,
125, 127, 142, 150, 180, 183, 185,
187, 189, 192, 196, 197, 198, 203,
204, 206, 207, 214-222.
Mississippi Valley, Spanish policy
towards, 17, 209, 217-222; men-
tioned, 49, 78, 91, 94, 100, 104, 131,
188, 192, 202.
Missouri Valley, 220.
Mitchell, Thomas or Medad, 196.
Mobile, 25, 26, 37, 40, 42, 54, 60, 110,
159, 177.
Mobile Bay, 65.
Monroe, James, mission to France,
189, 203; mentioned, 146, 170, 220.
252
INDEX
Montesquieu, 91.
Montmorin, 147.
Morgan, George, land speculator, 88, Northwest posts, 75.
128, 158, 162.
Morris, Gouverneur, 75.
Morris, Robert, 29, 74.
Moultrie, Alexander, Yazoo specula-
tor, 129, 130, 131, 134, 141, 142.
Murray, James, 197.
Muscle Shoals, projected colony, 54,
55, 59, 109-111, 112, 126, 144, 214,
220; mentioned, 50, 51, 53.
Napoleon, 52, 220.
Nashville (Tennessee), 27, 60, 114.
Natchez, claimed by Spain and
United States, 11; Bourbon
County, 55-57; raised from post to
government, 82, 158; commerce
with American settlements, 95;
immigration to, 105; experiment,
106; tobacco planting, 159, 160;
mentioned, 8, 21, 27, 29, 50, 53, 64,
67, 79, 84, 87, 110, 153, 161, 211,
214, 221.
“Natural right,” 185, 187.
Navarro, Martin, on menace
of
American frontier to Spain, 34; at
Indian congresses, 41-43; on Amer-
ican frontier, 65, 66, 69; on Wilkin-
son, 97-101; commercial mission to
France and England, 175; men-
tioned, 192, 193.
mentioned, 32, 80, 91, 93, 112, 113,
115, 119.
211, 212.
New Orleans, problem of conquest,
Oconee River, 50.
O'Fallon, James, agent of Yazoo
Company, 129-132, 140-144; men-
tioned, 47, 59, 128, 146.
Ogeechee River, 29.
Ohio River, 69, 70, 87, 89, 163, 165,
185, 196, 203, 213.
Ohio Valley, 97, 104.
Olivier, Pedro, 167.
O'Neill, Arturo, governor of Pensa-
cola, 41, 86, 153.
Outlaw, Alexander, 93.
Owens, Henry, 194, 195.
Panton, Leslie and Company,
growth, 177, 178; losses, 179;
United States competition, 179;
memorial, 179, 180; at San Fer-
nando, 215; mentioned, 40, 135,
187. See also Panton, William.
Panton, William, concession from
Spain in Southern Indian trade,
38-46; opposes Americans, 60, 61,
111; on origin Creek-Georgia war,
61; prepares war, 168; mentioned,
47, 123, 134, 136, 138, 163, 164,
166, 167, 216.
Paris, peace of (1783), unsatisfactory
nature, 1; negotiations, 9-13, 188;
resultant controversy, 10.
New Jersey, 159.
New Madrid, 88, 158, 161, 162, 196, Paris, 78, 85, 89, 220.
Pennsylvania, 94.
15, 142; possible cession, 16; com-
merce, 36, 176, 193, 194, 199, 200;
port records, 95; sedition, 186;
mentioned, 21, 27, 28, 29, 30, 65, | Philadelphia, 11, 67, 96, 97, 182, 196.
86-88, 110, 113, 114, 118, 142, Philippines, 167; company, 2.
Pensacola, commerce, 36; Indian
trade, 37, 40; Creek congress and
treaty, 41-43, 166; mentioned, 7,
21, 25, 26, 60, 153, 165, 177.
153, 154, 185, 191, 195, 196, 213, | Pickering, Timothy, 75.
221.
New York, 81, 83, 85, 100, 108, 121,
136.
New York, treaty of, 121, 125, 133–
139, 140, 164, 165, 166, 167, 178.
Nogales, Los, 148, 158, 161, 162, 168,
169, 181, 182. See Walnut Hills.
Nolan, Philip, 195.
Nootka Sound controversy, 123, 137, Power, Thomas, 195.
138, 140-149, 166.
North Carolina, land office, 6; fron-
tier, 51; land cessions, 51, 119;
Pinckney, Thomas, appointment to
Spain, 201-203; delay, 203–205;
arrival, 205; negotiation, 206, 217,
220, 221; mentioned, 183.
Pitt, William, 140, 166.
Pittsburgh, 87, 195.
Poland, 186.
Pope, John, 158.
Prince of the Peace, see Godoy, Man-
uel de.
Providence (Rhode Island), 65.
INDEX
253
1
Providence, Island of, 166, 178.
Randolph, Edmund, 204.
Rayneval, 10.
Rendón, Francisco, on menace of
American frontier, 34, 67, 70; men-
tioned, 68, 72, 74.
Revillagigedo, Marqués de, 2, 162.
Revolution, American, releases fron-
tier, 4-7, 49; controversy with
Spain, 13; relation to particu-
larism, 91, 92; mentioned, 172,
222.
Revolution, French, influence on
Spain, 171-174; on Louisiana and
Florida, 174–180; on Spanish-
American relations, 180-199; men-
tioned, 122, 140, 151, 162.
Richmond (Virginia), 136.
Robertson, Elisha, 112.
Robertson, James, land speculation,
54; Spanish intrigue, 112-115;
mentioned, 38, 48, 111, 119, 120.
Ross, David, 127.
Rutherford, Griffith, 55.
St. Clair, Arthur, 164.
St. Etienne (France), 22.
St. Louis, 97, 113, 155, 195, 196.
St. Mark's (San Marcos de Apalache),
added to West Florida, 40; men-
tioned, 26, 39, 41, 154, 177.
St. Tammany, Order of, 137.
San Fernando de las Barrancas, 26,
178, 214-216.
San Ildefonso, treaty of, 221; men-
tioned, 81, 85.
San Lorenzo, 125, 201, 218.
San Lorenzo, treaty of, 177, 200, 206,
209, 213, 215; Godoy explains, 207;
signed, 217; significance, 217–222;
execution delayed, 221.
San Marcos de Apalache, see St.
Mark's.
San Salvador, 153.
Santa Fé, 155.
Santo Domingo, 88, 181, 207.
Savannah (Georgia), 37, 179.
Savannah River, 29.
Smith, Daniel, and Spanish intrigue,
113, 115; mentioned, 119, 120.
Snipes, William Clay, 129.
Sonora, Marqués de, see Gálvez, José
de.
South Carolina, 29, 129, 144, 150,
187.
St. Augustine, 21, 25, 26, 34, 37, 39, South Carolina Yazoo Company,
71, 100, 130, 182.
127-133, 134, 162, 165, 214; in
Nootka crisis, 140-144; collapse,
144; Spain opposes, 148.
Southwest Territory, organized, 122;
mentioned, 120, 133.
Sebastian, Benjamin, 118, 121, 129,
194, 197, 212, 213.
Secret Committee of Correspondence
of the West, 196, 197, 199.
Sevier, John, typical frontiersman,
52-53; Muscle Shoals project, 55;
intrigue with Spain, 58, 109, 110;
Indian trade, 59; reinstated by
North Carolina, 119, 120; specula-
tor, 129; mentioned, 38, 48, 127,
128.
Sea power, relation to controversy
between Spain and the United
States, 15, 16, 28.
Seagrove, James, 166, 179.
Seville (Spain), 159.
Shelby, Governor, 213.
Short, William, memorial on Missis-
sippi, 146-148; Spanish mission,
150-152, 170, 171, 180–183, 189,
202.
Slaves, Spain permits importation,
158.
Spain, conflict with England in North
America, 1-4; revival under
Charles III, 2, 3; American Revo-
lution, 3, 4; opposition to United
States, 7-14; treaty with England,
10; naval strength, 15, 28; colonial
government, 17-19, 31, 32; popula-
tion, 20, 21; commercial policy, 35,
36; Indian policy, 36-46, 62; op-
poses Bourbon County, 56-58;
suggests union with United States
against England, 76; orders on
d'Argès, 81, 82, 88; treaty plan, 84,
85; modifies colonial policy, 102-
103, 110; pacific Indian policy, 135,
136, 139; in Nootka crisis, 140,
143-146; negotiation with United
States, 144-152; alliance with Eng-
land, 151, 152, 173, 174, 185, 186;
weakness, 173; war with France,
173, 175, 179; poverty, 180, 200;
concessions to United States, 181-
184, 201, 202; Kentucky intrigue,
254
INDEX
198; deserts England, 205; policy
reviewed, 206; surrender to United
States, 217.
Spanish intrigue, first phase, 90-119;
reports of, on Atlantic Coast, 119;
first failure, 146, 156, 157; revived,
190-197, 210-213, 216; Spain sub-
ordinates to treaty, 198, 199; ob-
jections of court to, 200, 220; men-
tioned, 72, 73, 77, 83, 84, 86, 121,
169, 202, 209.
Stark, Robert, 160, 161.
Steuben, Baron von, 128.
Strachan and McKenzie, 178.
Stuart, John, 25.
Sullivan, John, 59.
Tardiveau, Benjamin, 194.
Tate, 187.
"Tenasee," district of, 55.
Tennessee, 32, 35, 52.
Tennessee Company, 126, 144.
Tennessee River, 25, 50, 69, 110, 121,
Tipton, John, 109.
Tobacco, purchases by Spain, 159,
160.
Toleration of Protestants by Spain,
36, 103, 158; royal order on, 102;
limitation, 161.
Tombecbé, Fort, 169.
Tombigbee River, 159, 214.
Toulon, 181.
Trafalgar, battle of, 15.
Transylvania, 91, 132.
Virginia, 32, 51, 67, 75, 76, 91, 93,
119, 124, 189.
148, 185, 197, 214.
Virginia Company, 126, 127, 144.
Territory south of the Ohio River, Virginia, Southwestern, 51.
see Southwest Territory.
Texas, 104.
on Indian affairs, 170; Anglo-Span-
ish treaty, 174; commerce with
Louisiana, 176, 177; Indian trade,
179; international situation, 186,
187; problem of West, 187, 189;
maladroit diplomacy, 203-205;
seeks commercial treaty with
Spain, 209, 220; significance of
treaty of San Lorenzo, 222.
Utrecht, treaty of, 2, 71.
United States, negotiations with
Spain, 9-13; with England, 10, 11;
preliminary treaty, 11, 12; Medi-
terranean trade, 15; lack of navy,
15, 28; alliance with France, 15;
policy of delay, 16; relation to
frontier, 19; population, 21; land
speculators, 47; treaties with
Southern Indians, 60; instructions
to Jay, 76; weakness of govern-
ment, 86, 89; alienates West, 92,
93; conciliates West, 119-122;
Constitution of 1787, 124; opposes
Georgia land companies, 133–139;
resumes negotiation with Spain,
144-152; dilatory policy, 149-152;
Valdés, Antonio, 81, 82, 208.
Vergennes, Comte de, advises Spain,
9, 10; mentioned, 94, 147.
Vermont, 155.
Viar, Josef de, 72, 87, 145, 149, 169,
181, 182, 196, 197, 213.
Villebeuvre, Juan de la, 167.
Villemont, Louis de, colonization
plan, 162.
Vincennes, 81, 97, 128.
Wabash Indians, 121, 142.
Walnut Hills, 50, 53, 127, 129, 131,
148, 165, 214. See Nogales, Los.
Walton, George, 6.
Washington, George, policy towards
Spain, 16; interest in West, 119-
122, 189, 203; O'Fallon writes, 132;
Indian policy, 133, 134; opposition
to Georgia land companies, 133-
139; in Nootka crisis, 142; Ken-
tuckians exasperate, 187; opposes
Genêt, 188; sends Pinckney to
Spain, 203; mentioned, 30, 47, 94,
156, 170, 172, 199, 202, 204.
Washington, Thomas, 129, 131; exe-
cution, 144.
Wayne, Anthony, 212, 215.
West, American, see Frontier, South-
western.
Whipple, Christopher, 65, 66.
Whiskey Rebellion, 211.
White, James, relations with Gardo-
qui, 80, 86, 109; visits Havana and
New Orleans, 110, 111.
Wilkes County (Georgia), 6.
Wilkinson, James, character, 96; be-
gins intrigue with Spain, 97-99;
court's decision on memorial, 100-
107; Memoirs, 104; intrigue in
INDEX
255
Kentucky, 116-119, 146, 157; pen- | Williamsburg (Virginia), 91.
sioned by Spain, 117, 157, 195; Williamson, Hugh, 6.
second visit to New Orleans, 118;
commissioned by Washington, 121,
157; land speculation, 129; rela-
tions with O'Fallon, 132, 141, 143;
royal order on, 148; renews in-
trigue, 190-197, 210-213; Spain
suspects, 200, 220; mentioned, 27,
29, 86, 87, 90, 94, 95, 108, 114, 128,
130, 155, 158, 160, 221.
Willet, Marinus, 136.
Yazoo district, Spanish post in, see
Nogales.
Yazoo land speculation, grants by
Georgia, 126-128, 144, 214; men-
tioned, 47.
Yazoo River, 11, 25, 56, 123, 127.
Zéspedes, Governor, 39, 40, 45, 128,
130, 131.

W
L


•
I


UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
BENASSIC BATTLE AS TRAU
ND
JUNE 1935
UNIV MICH.
LIBRARY
3 9015 00267 8913
So
» Dşı** ** aện
ལསཀ
DO NOT REMOVE
OR
MUTILATE CARDS

турі
@<% }} = {\
الد
104. ta
BLAK
S-ROYCE
= 103) Fe
ANA P
» CO
Ho
One
AN ANTI
111/
SANDRA!
***
2014
@? **
ALT
The fight
145/1
rk
SELA
!
1.
ятров
in in.
#
·
63