The Winning of the West

by Theodore Roosevelt

  The treaty was ratified in 1796, but with astonishing bad faith the Spaniards refused to carry out its provisions. At this time Carondelet was in the midst of his negotiations with Wilkinson for the secession of the West, and had high hopes that he could bring it about. He had chosen as his agent an Englishman, named Thomas Power, who was a naturalized Spanish subject, and very zealous in the service of Spain.43 Power went to Kentucky, where he communicated with Wilkinson, Sebastian, Innes, and one or two others, and submitted to them a letter from Carondelet. This letter proposed a treaty, of which the first article was that Wilkinson and his associates should exert themselves to bring about a separation of the Western country and its formation into an independent government wholly unconnected with that of the Atlantic States; and Carondelet in his letter assured the men to whom he was writing that, because of what had occurred in Europe since Spain had ratified the treaty of October 27, the treaty would not be executed by his Catholic Majesty. Promises of favor to the Western people were held out, and Wilkinson was given a more substantial bribe, in the shape of ten thousand dollars, by Power. Sebastian, Innes, and their friends were also promised a hundred thousand dollars for their good offices; and Carondelet, who had no more hesitation in betraying red men than white, also offered to help the Westerners subdue their Indian foes, these Indian foes being at the moment the devoted allies of Spain.

  The time had gone by, however, when it was possible to hope for success in such an intrigue. The treaty with Spain had caused much satisfaction in the West, and the Kentuckians generally were growing more and more loyal to the Central Government. Innes and his friends, in a written communication, rejected the offer of Carondelet. They declared that they were devoted to the Union and would not consent to break it up; but they betrayed curiously little surprise or indignation at the offer, nor did they in rejecting it use the vigorous language which beseemed men who, while holding the commissions of a government, were proffered a hundred thousand dollars to betray that government.44 Power, at the close of 1797, reported to his superiors that nothing could be done.

  Meanwhile Carondelet and De Lemos had persisted in declining to surrender the posts at the Chickasaw Bluffs and Natchez, on pretexts which were utterly frivolous.45 At this time the Spanish Court was completely subservient to France, which was hostile to the United States; and the Spaniards would not carry out the treaty they had made until they had exhausted every device of delay and evasion. Andrew Ellicott was appointed by Washington Surveyor-General to run the boundary; but when, early in 1797, he reached Natchez, the Spanish representative refused point blank to run the boundary or evacuate the territory. Meanwhile the Spanish Minister at Philadelphia, Yrujo, in his correspondence with the Secretary of State, was pursuing precisely the same course of subterfuge and delay. But these tactics could only avail for a time. Neither the Government of the United States, nor the Western people would consent to be balked much longer. The negotiations with Wilkinson and his associates had come to nothing. A detachment of American regular soldiers came down the river to support Ellicott. The settlers around Natchez arose in revolt against the Spaniards and established a Committee of Safety, under protection of the Americans. The population of Mississippi was very mixed, including criminals fleeing from justice, land speculators, old settlers, well-to-do planters, small pioneer farmers, and adventurers of every kind; and, thanks to the large tory element, there was a British, and a smaller Spanish party; but the general feeling was overwhelmingly for the United States. The Spanish Government made a virtue of necessity and withdrew its garrison, after for some time preserving a kind of joint occupancy with the Americans.46 Captain Isaac Guyon, with a body of United States troops, took formal possession of both the Chickasaw Bluffs and Natchez in 1797. In 1798, the Spaniards finally evacuated the country,47 their course being due neither to the wisdom nor the good faith of their rulers, but to the fear and worry caused by the unceasing pressure of the Americans. Spain yielded, because she felt that not to do so would involve the loss of all Louisiana.48 The country was organized as the Mississippi Territory in June, 1798.49

  There was one incident, curious rather than important, but characteristic in its way, which marked the close of the transactions of the Western Americans with Spain at this time. During the very years when Carondelet, under the orders of his Government, was seeking to delay the execution of the boundary treaty, and to seduce the Westerners from their allegiance to the United States, a Senator of the United States, entirely without the knowledge of his Government, was engaged in an intrigue for the conquest of a part of the Spanish dominion. This Senator was no less a person than William Blount. Enterprising and ambitious, he was even more deeply engaged in land speculations than were the other prominent men of his time.50 He felt that he had not been well treated by the United States authorities, and, like all other Westerners, he also felt that the misconduct of the Spaniards had been so great that they were not entitled to the slightest consideration. Moreover, he feared lest the territory should be transferred to France, which would be a much more dangerous neighbor than Spain; and he had a strong liking for Great Britain. If he could not see the territory taken by the Americans under the flag of the United States, then he wished to see them enter into possession of it under the standard of the British King.

  In 1797 he entered into a scheme which was in part one of land speculation and in part one of armed aggression against Spain. He tried to organize an association with the purpose of seizing the Spanish territory west of the Mississippi, and putting it under the control of Great Britain, in the interests of the seizers. The scheme came to nothing. No definite steps were taken, and the British Government refused to take any share in the movement. Finally the plot was discovered by the President, who brought it to the attention of the Senate, and Blount was properly expelled from the Upper House for entering into a conspiracy to conquer the lands of one neighboring power in the interest of another. The Tennesseeans, however, who cared little for the niceties of international law, and sympathized warmly with any act of territorial aggression against the Spaniards, were not in the least affected by his expulsion. They greeted him with enthusiasm, and elected him to high office, and he lived among them the remainder of his days, honored and respected.51 Nevertheless, his conduct in this instance was indefensible. It was an unfortunate interlude in an otherwise honorable and useful public career.52

  1 Draper MSS., J. Clark to G. R. Clark, Dec. 27, 1792.

  2 Do., Letter of George Rogers Clark, Feb. 5, 1793; also Feb. 2d and Feb. 3d.

  3 Draper MSS., Michaux to George Rogers Clark, undated, but early in 1793.

  4 State Department MSS., Jefferson Papers, Series I, Vol. V, p. 163.

  5 Marshall, II, page 103.

  6 Draper MSS., Benjamin Logan to George Rogers Clark, Dec. 31, 1793.

  7 Draper MSS., John Montgomery to Geo. Rogers Clark, Jan. 12, 1794.

  8 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I, pp. 454, 460; Marshall, II, 93.

  9 Robertson MSS., Blount’s letter, Philadelphia, Aug. 28, 1793.

  10 Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Jan. 18, 1794; let ter from Portello, New Madrid, Jan. 17, 1794.

  11 Blount MSS., Blount to Smith, April 3, 1794.

  12 Draper MSS., Clark’s accounts, Aug. 23, 1794; Fulton to Clark, Nantes, Nov. 16, 1794; Do., Paris, April 9 and 12, 1795.

  13 Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Alcudia, March 20, 1794.

  14 Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Manuel Gayoso de Lemos to the Duke de Alcudia, Natchez, Sept. 19, 1794.

  15 Do., De Lemos to Carondelet, Dec. 6, 1793.

  16 Canadian Archives, Dorchester to Sydney, June 7, 1789; Grenville to Dorchester, May 6, 1790; Dorchester to Beck with, June 17, 1790; Dorchester to Grenville, Sept. 25, 1790. See Brown’s “Political Beginnings,” 187.

  17 The best and most thorough account of these is to be found in Charles H. Haskin’s “The Yazoo Land Companies.”

  18 American State Papers, Indian
Affairs, I, James O’Fallon to the President of the United States, Lexington, Sept. 25, 1790, etc., etc.

  19 Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Alcudia, Jan. 1, 1794, and May 31, 1794.

  20 Draper MSS., Clark and O’Fallon Papers, anonymous letter to James O’Fallon, Lexington, March 30, 1791, etc., etc.

  21 Draper MSS., Wayne to O’Fallon, Sept. 16, 1793.

  22 Draper MSS., De Lemos to Carondelet, Dec. 23, 1793.

  23 American State Papers, Public Lands, I, pp. 99, 101, 111, 165, 172, 188; Haskin’s “Yazoo Land Companies.” In Congress, Randolph, on behalf of the ultra State rights people, led the opposition to the claimants, whose special champions were Madison and the Northern Democrats. Chief-Justice Marshall, in the case of Fletcher vs. Peck, decided that the rescinding act impaired the obligation of contracts, and was therefore in violation of the Constitution of the United States; a decision further amplified in the Dartmouth case, which has determined the national policy in regard to public contracts. This decision was followed by the passage of the Compromise Act by Congress in 1814, which distributed a large sum of money obtained from the land sales in the territory, in specified proportions among the various claimants.

  24 Stevens’ “Georgia,” II, 401.

  25 Blount MSS., Blount to Smith, Aug. 24, 1795.

  26 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I, pp. 479, 484, 489, 502, 519, etc.

  27 American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, p. 573; Foreign Relations, I, passim, etc., etc.

  28 Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Don Louis de Las Casas, June 13, 1795; De Lemos to Carondelet, July 25, 1793.

  29 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I, p. 305, etc.

  30 Blount MSS., James Colbert to Robertson, Feb. 10, 1792.

  31 “Kentucky Gazette,” Feb. 8, 1794; Sept. 16, 1797, etc.

  32 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I, p. 443, etc.; letters of Carmiehael and Short to Gardoqui, Oct. 1, 1793; to Alcudia, Jan. 7, 1794, etc., etc.

  33 Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Al cudia, July 30, 1794.

  34 Do., De Lemos to Alcudia, Sept. 19, 1794.

  35 Do., letters of Carondelet to Alcudia, Oct. 4, 1794, and of De Lemos to Carondelet, Aug. 28, 1791.

  36 Do., letter of De Lemos.

  37 Marshall, II, 155; Green, p. 328. Even recently defenders of Wilkinson and Innes have asserted, in accordance with Wilkinson’s explanations, that the money forwarded him was due him from tobacco contracts entered into some years previously with Miro. Carondelet in his letters above quoted, however, declares outright that the money was advanced to begin negotiations in Kentucky, through Wilkinson and others, for the pensioning of Kentuckians in the interests of Spain and the severance of the Western States from the Union.

  38 Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Al cudia, Nov. 1, 1793.

  39 Do., Carondelet to Alcudia, Sept. 25, 1795.

  40 Do., De Lemos to Carondelet, inclosed in Carondelet’s letter of Sept. 26, 1795.

  41 Pinckney receives justice from Lodge, in his “Washington,” II, 160. For Pinckney’s life, see the biography by Rev. C. C. Pinckney, p. 129, etc.

  42 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I, p. 533, etc.; Pinckney to Secretary of State, Aug. 11, 1795; to Godoy (Alcudia), Oct. 24, 1795; copy of treaty, Oct. 27th, etc.

  43 Gayarré, III, 345. Wilkinson’s Memoirs, II, 225.

  44 American State Papers, Miscellaneous, I, 928; deposition of Harry Innes, etc.

  45 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, II, pp. 20, 70, 78, 79; report of Timothy Pickering, January 22, 1798, etc.

  46 B. A. Hinsdale: “The Establishment of the First South ern Boundary of the United States.” Largely based upon Ellicott’s Journal. Both Ellicott and the leaders among the settlers were warned of Blount’s scheme of conquest and land speculation, and were hostile to it.

  47 Claiborne’s “Mississippi,” p. 176. He is a writer of poor judgment; his verdicts on Ellicott and Wilkinson are astounding.

  48 Gayarré, 413, 418; Pontalba’s Memoir, Sept. 15, 1800.

  49 American State Papers, Public Lands, I, p. 209.

  50 Clay MSS., Blount to Hart, March 13, 1799, etc., etc.

  51 Blount MSS., letter of Hugh Williamson, March 3, 1808, etc., etc.

  52 General Marcus J. Wright, in his “Life and Services of William Blount,” gives the most favorable view possible of Blount’s conduct.

  CHAPTER III

  THE MEN OF THE WESTERN WATERS, I798–1802

  THE GROWTH of the West was very rapid in the years immediately succeeding the peace with the Indians and the treaties with England and Spain. As the settlers poured into what had been the Indian-haunted wilderness it speedily became necessary to cut it into political divisions. Kentucky had already been admitted as a State in 1792; Tennessee likewise became a State in 1796. The Territory of Mississippi was organized in 1798, to include the country west of Georgia and south of Tennessee, which had been ceded by the Spaniards under Pinckney’s treaty.1 In 1800 the Connecticut Reserve, in what is now northeastern Ohio, was taken by the United States. The Northwestern Territory was divided into two parts; the eastern was composed mainly of what is now the State of Ohio, while the western portion was called Indian Territory, and was organized with W. H. Harrison as Governor, his capital being at Vincennes.2 Harrison had been Wayne’s aid-de-camp at the fight of the Fallen Timbers, and had been singled out by Wayne for mention because of his coolness and gallantry. Afterward he had succeeded Sargent as Secretary of the Northwestern Territory when Sargent had been made Governor of Mississippi, and he had gone as a Territorial delegate to Congress.3

  In 1802 Ohio was admitted as a State. St. Clair and St. Clair’s supporters struggled to keep the Territory from Statehood, and proposed to cut it down in size, nominally because they deemed the extent of territory too great for governmental purposes, but really, doubtless, because they distrusted the people, and did not wish to see them take the government into their own hands. The effort failed, however. and the State was admitted by Congress, beginning its existence in 1803.4 Congress made the proviso that the State Constitution should accord with the Constitution of the United States, and should embody the doctrines contained in the Ordinance of 1787.5 The rapid settlement of southeastern Ohio was hindered by the fact that the speculative land companies, the Ohio and Scioto associations, held great tracts of territory which the pioneers passed by in their desire to get to lands which they could acquire in their own right. This was one of the many bad effects which resulted from the Government’s policy of disposing of its land in large blocks to the highest bidder, instead of allotting it, as has since been done, in quarter sections to actual settlers.6

  Harrison was thoroughly in sympathy with the Westerners. He had thrown in his lot with theirs; he deemed himself one of them, and was accepted by them as a fit representative. Accordingly he was very popular as Governor of Indiana. St. Clair in Ohio and Sargent in Mississippi were both extremely unpopular. They were appointed by Federalist administrations, and were entirely out of sympathy with the Western people among whom they lived. One was a Scotchman, and one a New Englander. They were both high-minded men, with sound ideas on governmental policy, though Sargent was the abler of the two; but they were out of touch with the Westerners. They distrusted the frontier folk, and were bitterly disliked in return. Each committed the fundamental fault of trying to govern the Territory over which he had been put in accordance with his own ideas, and heedless of the wishes and prejudices of those under him. Doubtless each was conscientious in what he did, and each of course considered the difficulties under which he labored to be due solely to the lawlessness and the many shortcomings of the settlers. But this was an error. The experience of Blount when he occupied the exceedingly difficult position of Territorial Governor of Tennessee showed that it was quite possible for a man of firm belief in the Union to get into touch with the frontiersmen and to be accepted by them as a worthy representati
ve; but the virtues of St. Clair and Sargent were so different from the backwoods virtues, and their habits of thought were so alien, that they could not possibly get on with the people among whom their lot had been cast. Neither of them in the end took up his abode in the Territory of which he had been Governor, both returning to the East. The codes of laws which they enacted prior to the Territories possessing a sufficient number of inhabitants to become entitled to Territorial legislatures were deemed by the settlers to be arbitrary and unsuited to their needs. There was much popular feeling against them. On one occasion St. Clair was mobbed in Chillicothe, the then capital of Ohio, with no other effect than to procure a change of capital to Cincinnati. Finally both Sargent and St. Clair were removed by Jefferson, early in his administration.

  The Jeffersonian Republican party did very much that was evil, and it advocated governmental principles of such utter folly that the party itself was obliged immediately to abandon them when it undertook to carry on the government of the United States, and only clung to them long enough to cause serious and lasting damage to the country; but on the vital question of the West, and its territorial expansion, the Jeffersonian party was, on the whole, emphatically right, and its opponents, the Federalists, emphatically wrong. The Jeffersonians believed in the acquisition of territory in the West, and the Federalists did not. The Jeffersonians believed that the Westerners should be allowed to govern themselves precisely as other citizens of the United States did, and should be given their full share in the management of national affairs. Too many Federalists failed to see that these positions were the only proper ones to take. In consequence, notwithstanding all their manifold shortcomings, the Jeffersonians, and not the Federalists, were those to whom the West owed most.