The Winning of the West Volume IV Part 10

[Footnote: Robertson MSS., Pickering to Blount, March 23, 1795.] He failed to point out how it was possible, without force, to carry out these instructions.

A more shameful letter was never written, and it was sufficient of itself to show Pickering's conspicuous incapacity for the position he held. The trouble was that he represented not very unfairly the sentiment of a large portion of the Eastern, and especially the Northeastern, people. When Blount visited Philadelphia in the summer of 1793 to urge a vigorous national war as the only thing which could bring the Indians to behave themselves, [Footnote: Blount MSS., Blount to Smith, June 17, 1793.] he reported that Washington had an entirely just idea of the whole Indian business, but that Congress generally knew little of the matter and was not disposed to act. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to gentleman in c.u.mberland, Philadelphia, Aug. 28, 1793.]

His report was correct; and he might have added that the congressmen were no more ignorant, and no more reluctant to do right, than their const.i.tuents.

Misconduct of the Federal Government.

The truth is that the United States Government during the six years from 1791 to 1796 behaved shamefully to the people who were settled along the c.u.mberland and Holston. This was the more inexcusable in view of the fact that, thanks to the example of Blount, Sevier, and Robertson, the Tennesseeans, alone among the frontiersmen, showed an intelligent appreciation of the benefits of the Union and a readiness to render it loyal support. The Kentuckians acted far less rationally; yet the Government tolerated much misconduct on their part, and largely for their benefit carried on a great national war against the Northwestern Indians. In the Southwest almost all that the Administration did was to prohibit the frontiersmen from protecting themselves. Peace was finally brought about largely through the effect of Wayne's victory, and the knowledge of the Creeks that they would have to stand alone in any further warfare; but it would not have been obtained at all if Sevier and the other frontier leaders had not carried on their destructive counter-inroads into the Cherokee and Upper Creek country, and if under Robertson's orders Nickajack and Running Water had not been destroyed; while the support of the Chickasaws and friendly Cherokees in stopping the Creek war parties was essential. The Southwesterners owed thanks to General Wayne and his army and to their own strong right hands; but they had small cause for grat.i.tude to the Federal Government. They owed still less to the Northeasterners, or indeed to any of the men of the eastern seaboard; the benefits arising from Pinckney's treaty form the only exception. This neglect brought its own punishment. Blount and Sevier were naturally inclined to Federalism, and it was probably only the supineness of the Federal Government in failing to support the Southwesterners against the Indians which threw Tennessee, when it became a State, into the arms of the Democratic party.

Peace.

However, peace was finally wrung from the Indians, and by the beginning of 1796 the outrages ceased. The frontiers, north and south alike, enjoyed a respite from Indian warfare for the first time in a generation; nor was the peace interrupted until fifteen years afterwards.

Growth of Tennessee.

Throngs of emigrants had come into Tennessee. A wagon road had been chopped to the c.u.mberland District, and as the Indians gradually ceased their ravages, the settlements about Nashville began to grow as rapidly as the settlements along the Holston. In 1796 the required limit of population had been reached, and Tennessee with over seventy-six thousand inhabitants was formally admitted as a State of the Federal Union; Sevier was elected Governor, Blount was made one of the Senators, and Andrew Jackson was chosen Representative in Congress.

The Tennessee Const.i.tution.

In their State Const.i.tution the hard-working backwoods farmers showed a conservative spirit which would seem strange to the radical democracy of new Western States to-day. An elective Governor and two legislative houses were provided; and the representation was proportioned, not to the population at large, but to the citizen who paid taxes; for persons with some little property were still considered to be the rightful depositaries of political power. The Const.i.tution established freedom of the press, and complete religious liberty--a liberty then denied in the parent State of North Carolina; but it contained some unwise and unjust provisions. The Judges were appointed by the Legislature, and were completely subservient to it; and, through the influence of the land speculators all lands except town lots were taxed alike, so that the men who had obtained possession of the best tracts shifted to other shoulders much of their own proper burden. [Footnote: "Const.i.tutional History of Tennessee," by Joshua W. Caldwell, p. 101, another of Robert Clark's publications; an admirable study of inst.i.tutional development in Tennessee.]

CHAPTER IV.

INTRIGUES AND LAND SPECULATIONS--THE TREATIES OF JAY AND PINCKNEY, 1793-1797.

The Current of Tendency.

Throughout the history of the winning of the West what is noteworthy is the current of tendency rather than the mere succession of individual events. The general movement, and the general spirit behind the movement, became evident in many different forms, and if attention is paid only to some particular manifestation we lose sight of its true import and of its explanation. Particular obstacles r.e.t.a.r.ded or diverted, particular causes accelerated, the current; but the set was always in one direction. The peculiar circ.u.mstances of each case must always be taken into account, but it is also necessary to understand that it was but one link in the chain of causation.

The Causes of the Various Separatist and Filibustering Movements.

Such events as Burr's conspiracy or the conquest of Texas cannot be properly understood if we fail to remember that they were but the most spectacular or most important manifestations of what occurred many times. The Texans won a striking victory and performed a feat of the utmost importance in our history; and, moreover, it happened that at the moment the accession of Texas was warmly favored by the party of the slave-holders. Burr had been Vice-President of the United States, and was a brilliant and able man, of imposing personality, whose intrigues in the West attracted an attention altogether disproportionate to their real weight. In consequence each event is often treated as if it were isolated and stood apart from the general current of western history; whereas in truth each was but the most striking or important among a host or others. The feats performed by Austin and Houston and the other founders of the Texan Republic were identical in kind with the feats merely attempted, or but partially performed, by the men who, like Morgan, Elijah Clark, and George Rogers Clark, at different times either sought to found colonies in the Spanish-speaking lands under Spanish authority, or else strove to conquer these lands outright by force of arms. Boone settled in Missouri when it was still under the Spanish Government, and himself accepted a Spanish commission. Whether Missouri had or had not been ceded first by Spain to France and then by France to the United States early in the present century, really would not have altered its final destiny, so far at least as concerns the fact that it would ultimately have been independent of both France and Spain, and would have been dominated by an English-speaking people; for when once the backwoodsmen, of whom Boone was the forerunner, became sufficiently numerous in the land they were certain to throw off the yoke of the foreigner; and the fact that they had voluntarily entered the land and put themselves under this yoke would have made no more difference to them than it afterwards made to the Texans. So it was with Aaron Burr.

His conspiracy was merely one, and by no means the most dangerous, of the various conspiracies in which men like Wilkinson, Sebastian, and many of the members of the early Democratic societies in Kentucky, bore a part. It was rendered possible only by the temper of the people and by the peculiar circ.u.mstances which also rendered the earlier conspiracies possible; and it came to naught for the same reasons that they came to naught, and was even more hopeless, because it was undertaken later, when the conditions were less favorable.

Clark's Part in the Proposed French Attack on Spain.

The movement deliberately entered into by many of the Kentuckians in the years 1793 and 1794, to conquer Louisiana on behalf of France, must be treated in this way. The leader in this movement was George Rogers Clark. His chance of success arose from the fact that there were on the frontier many men of restless, adventurous, warlike type, who felt a spirit of unruly defiance toward the home government and who greedily eyed the rich Spanish lands. Whether they got the lands by conquest or by colonization, and whether they warred under one flag or another, was to them a matter of little moment. Clark's career is of itself sufficient to prove the truth of this. He had already been at the head of a movement to make war against the Spaniards, in defiance of the Central Government, on behalf of the Western settlements. On another occasion he had offered his sword to the Spanish Government, and had requested permission to found in Spanish territory a State which should be tributary to Spain and a barrier against the American advance. He had thus already sought to lead the Westerners against Spain in a warfare undertaken purely by themselves and for their own objects, and had also offered to form by the help of some of these Westerners a State which should be a const.i.tuent portion of the Spanish dominion. He now readily undertook the task of raising an army of Westerners to overrun Louisiana in the interests of the French Republic. The conditions which rendered possible these various movements were substantially the same, although the immediate causes, or occasions, were different. In any event the result would ultimately have been the conquest of the Spanish dominions by the armed frontiersmen, and the upbuilding of English-speaking States on Spanish territory.

The American Sympathizers with the French Revolution.

The expedition which at the moment Clark proposed to head took its peculiar shape from outside causes. At this period Genet was in the midst of his preposterous career as Minister from the French Republic to the United States. The various bodies of men who afterwards coalesced into the Democratic-Republican party were frantically in favor of the French Revolution, regarding it with a fatuous admiration quite as foolish as the horror with which it affected most of the Federalists.

They were already looking to Jefferson as their leader, and Jefferson, though at the time Secretary of State under Washington, was secretly encouraging them, and was playing a very discreditable part toward his chief. The ultra admirers of the French Revolution not only lost their own heads, but turned Genet's as well, and persuaded him that the people were with him and were ready to oppose Washington and the Central Government in the interests of revolutionary France. Genet wished to embroil America with England, and sought to fit out American privateers on the seacoast towns to prey on the English commerce, and to organize on the Ohio River an armed expedition to conquer Louisiana, as Spain was then an ally of England and at war with France.

The Jeffersonians' Western Policy.

All over the country Genet's admirers formed Democratic societies on the model of the Jacobin Clubs of France. They were of course either useless or noxious in such a country and under such a government as that of the United States, and exercised a very mischievous effect. Kentucky was already under the influence of the same forces that were at work in Virginia and elsewhere, and the cla.s.ses of her people who were politically dominant were saturated with the ideas of those doctrinaire politicians of whom Jefferson was chief. These Jeffersonian doctrinaires were men who at certain crises, in certain countries, might have rendered great service to the cause of liberty and humanity; but their influence in America was on the whole distinctly evil, save that, by a series of accidents, they became the especial champions of the westward extension of the nation, and in consequence were identified with a movement which was all-essential to the national well-being.

Kentucky Ripe for Genet's Intrigues.

Kentucky was ripe for Genet's intrigues, and he found the available leader for the movement in the person of George Rogers Clark. Clark was deeply imbittered, not only with the United States Government but with Virginia, for the Virginia a.s.sembly had refused to pay any of the debts he had contracted on account of the State, and had not even reimbursed him for what he had spent. [Footnote: Draper MSS., J. Clark to G. R.

Clark, Dec. 27, 1792.] He had a right to feel aggrieved at the State's penuriousness and her indifference to her moral obligations; and just at the time when he was most angered came the news that Genet was agitating throughout the United States for a war with England, in open defiance of Washington, and that among his plans he included a Western movement against Louisiana. Clark at once wrote to him expressing intense sympathy with the French objects and offering to undertake an expedition for the conquest of St. Louis and upper Louisiana if he was provided with the means to obtain provisions and stores. Clark further informed Genet that his country had been utterly ungrateful to him, and that as soon as he received Genet's approbation of what he proposed to do he would get himself "expatriated." He asked for commissions for officers, and stated his belief that the Creoles would rise, that the adventurous Westerners would gladly throng to the contest, and that the army would soon be at the gates of New Orleans. [Footnote: _Do_., Letter of George Rogers Clark, Feb. 5, 1793; also Feb. 2d and Feb. 3d.]

Clark Commissioned as a French Major General.

Genet immediately commissioned Clark as a Major General in the service of the French Republic, and sent out various Frenchmen--Michaux, La Chaise, and others--with civil and military t.i.tles, to co-operate with him, to fit out his force as well as possible, and to promise him pay for his expenses. Brown, now one of Kentucky's representatives at Philadelphia, gave these men letters of introduction to merchants in Lexington and elsewhere, from whom they got some supplies; but they found they would have to get most from Philadelphia. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Michaux to George Rogers Clark, undated, but early in 1793.]

Michaux was the agent for the French Minister, though nominally his visit was undertaken on purely scientific grounds. Jefferson's course in the matter was characteristic. Openly, he was endeavoring in a perfunctory manner to carry out Washington's policy of strict neutrality in the contest between France and England, but secretly he was engaged in tortuous intrigues against Washington and was thwarting his wishes, so far as he dared, in regard to Genet.

Jefferson's Double-dealing.

It is impossible that he could have been really misled as to Michaux's character and the object of his visits; nevertheless, he actually gave him a letter of introduction to the Kentucky Governor, Isaac Shelby.

[Footnote: State Department MSS., Jefferson Papers, Series I., Vol. V., p. 163.] Shelby had shown himself a gallant and capable officer in warfare against both the Indians and the Tories, but he possessed no marked political ability, and was entirely lacking in the strength of character which would have fitted him to put a stop to rebellion and lawlessness. He hated England, sympathized with France, and did not possess sufficient political good sense to appreciate either the benefits of the Central Government or the need of preserving order.

Clark at once proceeded to raise what troops he could, and issued a proclamation signed by himself as Major General of the Armies of France, Commander in Chief of the French Revolutionary Legions on the Mississippi. He announced that he proposed to raise volunteers for the reduction of the Spanish posts on the Mississippi and to open the trade of that river, and promised all who would join him from one to three thousand acres of any unappropriated land in the conquered regions, the officers to receive proportionately more. All lawful plunder was to be equally divided according to the customs of war. [Footnote: Marshall, II., page 103.] The proclamation thus frankly put the revolutionary legions on the footing of a gang of freebooters. Each man was to receive a commission proportioned in grade to the number of soldiers he brought to Clark's band. In short, it was a piece of sheer filibustering, not differing materially from one of Walker's filibustering attempts in Central America sixty years later, save that at this time Clark had utterly lost his splendid vigor of body and mind and was unfit for the task he had set himself. At first, however, he met with promises of support from various Kentuckians of prominence, including Benjamin Logan. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Benjamin Logan to George Rogers Clark, Dec. 31, 1793.] His agents gathered flat-boats and pirogues for the troops and laid in stores of powder, lead, and beef. The nature of some of the provisions shows what a characteristic backwoods expedition it was; for Clark's agent notified him that he had ready "upwards of eleven hundred weight of Bear Meat and about seventy or seventy-four pair of Veneson Hams." [Footnote: Draper MSS., John Montgomery to Geo. Rogers Clark, Jan. 12, 1794.]

The Democratic Societies Support Clark.

The Democratic Societies in Kentucky entered into Clark's plans with the utmost enthusiasm, and issued manifestoes against the Central Government which were, in style, of hysterical violence, and, in matter, treasonable. The preparations were made openly, and speedily attracted the attention of the Spanish agents, besides giving alarm to the representatives of the Federal Government and to all sober citizens who had sense enough to see that the proposed expedition was merely another step toward anarchy. St. Clair, the Governor of the Northwestern Territory, wrote to Shelby to warn him of what was being done, and Wayne, who was a much more formidable person than Shelby or Clark or any of their backers, took prompt steps to prevent the expedition from starting, by building a fort near the mouth of the Ohio, and ordering his lieutenants to hold themselves in readiness for any action he might direct. At the same time the Administration wrote to Shelby telling him what was on foot, and requesting him to see that no expedition of the kind was allowed to march against the domains of a friendly power.

Shelby's Vacillation.

Shelby, in response, entered into a long argument to show that he could not interfere with the expedition, and that he doubted his const.i.tutional power to do anything in the matter; his reasons being of the familiar kind usually advanced in such cases, where a government officer, from timidity or any other cause, refuses to do his duty. If his contention as to his own powers and the powers of the General Government had been sound, it would logically have followed that there was no power anywhere to back up the law. Innes, the Federal Judge, showed himself equally lukewarm in obeying the Federal authorities.

[Footnote: American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I., pp. 454, 460; Marshall, II., 93.]

Blount's Decision and Patriotism.

Blount, the Governor of the Southwestern Territory, acted as vigorously and patriotically as St. Clair and Wayne, and his conduct showed in marked contrast to Shelby's. He possessed far too much political good sense not to be disgusted with the conduct of Genet, which he denounced in unmeasured terms. He expressed great pleasure when Washington summarily rebuked the blatant French envoy. He explained to the Tennesseeans that Genet had as his chief backers the disappointed office-hunters and other unsavory characters in New York and in the seacoast cities, but that the people at large were beginning to realize what the truth was, and to show a proper feeling for the President and his government. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount's letter, Philadelphia, Aug. 28, 1793.] Some of the c.u.mberland people, becoming excited by the news of Clark's preparation, prepared to join him, or to undertake a separate filibustering attack on their own account. Blount immediately wrote to Robertson directing him to explain to these "inconsiderate persons" that all they could possibly do was to attempt the conquest of West Florida, and that they would "lay themselves liable to heavy Pains and Penalties, both pecuniary and corporal in case they ever returned to their injured country." He warned Robertson that it was his duty to prevent the attempt, and that the legal officers of the district must proceed against any of the men having French commissions, and must do their best to stop the movement; which, he said, proceeded "from the Machenations no doubt of that Jacobin Incendiary, Genet, which is reason sufficient to make every honest mind revolt at the Idea."

Robertson warmly supported him, and notified the Spanish commander at New Madrid of the steps which he was taking; at which the Spaniards expressed great gratification. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Jan. 18, 1794; letter from Portello, New Madrid, Jan. 17, 1794.]

Collapse of the Movement.

However, the whole movement collapsed when Genet was recalled early in 1794, Clark being forced at once to abandon his expedition. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Blount to Smith, April 3, 1794.] Clark found himself out of pocket as the result of what he had done; and as there was no hope of reimbursing himself by Spanish plunder, he sought to obtain from the French Government reimburs.e.m.e.nt for the expenses, forwarding to the French a.s.sembly, through an agent in France, his bill for the "Expenses of Expedition ordered by Citizen Genet." The agent answered that he would try to secure the payment; and after he got to Paris he first announced himself as hopeful; but later he wrote that he had discovered that the French agents were really engaged in a dangerous conspiracy against the Western country, and he finally had to admit that the claim was disallowed. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Clark's accounts, Aug. 23, 1794; Fulton to Clark, Nantes, Nov. 16, 1794; _Do.,_ Paris, April 9 and 12, 1795.] With this squabble between the French and Americans the history of the abortive expedition ends.

Tortuous Diplomacy of the Spaniards.

The attempt, of course, excited and alarmed the Spaniards, and gave a new turn to their tortuous diplomacy. In reading the correspondence of the Spanish Governor, Baron Carondelet, both with his subordinates and with his superiors, it is almost amusing to note the frankness with which he avows his treachery. It evidently did not occur to him that there was such a thing as national good faith, or that there was the slightest impropriety in any form of mendacity when exercised in dealing with the ministers or inhabitants of a foreign State. In this he was a faithful reflex of his superiors at the Spanish Court. At the same time that they were solemnly covenanting for a definite treaty of peace with the United States they were secretly intriguing to bring about a rebellion in the western States; and while they were a.s.suring the Americans that they were trying their best to keep the Indians peaceful, they were urging the savages to war.

Their Alarm at Clark's Movements.

As for any grat.i.tude to the National Government for stopping the piratical expeditions of the Westerners, the Spaniards did not feel a trace. They had early received news of Clark's projected expedition through a Frenchman who came to the Spanish agents at Philadelphia; [Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Doc.u.ments, Carondelet to Alcudia, March 20, 1794.] and when the army began to gather they received from time to time from their agents in Kentucky reports which, though exaggerated, gave them a fairly accurate view of what was happening. No overt act of hostility was committed by Clark's people, except by some of those who started to join him from the c.u.mberland district, under the lead of a man named Montgomery. These men built a wooden fort at the mouth of the c.u.mberland River, and held the boats that pa.s.sed to trade with Spain; one of the boats that they took being a scow loaded with flour and biscuit sent up stream by the Spanish Government itself.

Good Conduct of the United States Government.

When Wayne heard of the founding of this fort he acted with his usual promptness, and sent an expedition which broke it up and released the various boats. Then, to stop any repet.i.tion of the offence, and more effectually to curb the overbearing truculence of the frontiersmen, he himself built, as already mentioned, a fort at Ma.s.sac, not far from the Mississippi. All this of course was done in the interests of the Spaniards themselves and in accordance with the earnest desire of the United States authorities to prevent any unlawful attack on Louisiana; yet Carondelet actually sent word to Gayoso de Lemos, the Governor of Natchez and the upper part of the river, to persuade the Chickasaws secretly to attack this fort and destroy it.

Ingrat.i.tude of the Spaniards.

Carondelet always had an exaggerated idea of the warlike capacity of the Indian nations, and never understood the power of the Americans, nor appreciated the desire of their Government to act in good faith. Gayoso was in this respect a much more intelligent man, and he positively refused to carry out the orders of his superior, remonstrating directly to the Court of Spain, by which he was sustained. He pointed out that the destruction of the fort would merely encourage the worst enemies of the Spaniards, even if accomplished; and he further pointed out that it was quite impossible to destroy it; for he understood fully the difference between a fort garrisoned by Wayne's regulars and one held by a mob of buccaneering militia. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Doc.u.ments, Manuel Gayoso de Lemos to the Duke de Alcudia, Natchez, Sept.