The opening of the Mississippi; a struggle for supremacy in the American interior

Front matter

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Preface

This book is intended primarily to be a history of the discovery, exploration, and contested rights of navigation of the Mississippi River prior to the final securing of American supremacy by the closing events of the War of 1812. As such, however, it inevitably appears here and there to have been broadened into an attempted history of the entire Mississippi Valley. The author disclaims any purpose to deal with so large a subject, except in so far as has seemed necessary in order to give his more restricted narrative its true setting.

In writing the earlier history of the Mississippi an effort has been made to place due emphasis on two most important aspects of it — the diplomatic and what may perhaps be called the physiographic. Not until after the second American war for independence did the ownership and control of the Mississippi cease to be the subject of almost perennial diplomatic negotiation. The purchase of Louisiana, whose centenary is about being celebrated, was but an incident — a most important one, to be sure — of that prolonged negotiation. Four nations — Spain, France, England, and the United States — were from time to time involved in it, and no account of the development of the great Middle West is complete without a careful survey of its devious courses.

viil PREFACE

The close relation coming more and more to be recognized as existing between the geography of a country and the history of its inhabitants impels a consideration of the Mississippi as the great trade and travel artery of the American interior. Together with its tributaries, it furnished the most inviting pathway for the early explorer, the missionary, the trader, and the settler. It was, of course, because of its extreme economic importance that the river was so keenly contended for by rival nationalities and influenced so greatly the transforming of the inland wilderness into one of the choicest of dwellingplaces for mankind.

Among the more recent writers whom I have consulted to advantage in the study of my subject, those to whom I am chiefly indebted are carefully indicated in foot-notes throughout the book. It is a pleasant duty, however, to make special mention of Mr. Henry Adams's monumental History of the United States during the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison, which has been invaluable, not merely for the scholarly and original ideas which it contains, but for numerous references opening the way to material otherwise in danger of being overlooked. It is truly said that history can never be written in its final form, but Mr. Adams's volumes surely fall as little short of finality as is possible for a work of their kind. The writer has been stimulated by the spirit of this great work as much as he has been aided by information drawn from it. Other secondary authorities which should not be passed without mention in this connection are Bancroft's History of the United States, McMaster's History of the People of the United States, Miss Grace King's

PREFACE ix

Ifeiv Orleans, Binger Hermann's The Louisiana Purchase, James K. Hosmer's Short History of the Mississippi Valley and The Louisiana Purchase, Theodore Roosevelt's Winning of the West, Charles Gayarre's History of Louisiana, Justin Wiusor's Narrative and Critical History of America, Cartier to Frontenac, The Mississippi Basin, and The Westivard Movement, and John Fiske's N'ew France and New England.

Various sorts of original materials — correspondence, memoirs, contemporary historical writing, and state papers — have been drawn upon at every stage of the preparation of the book. These are all referred to in the foot-notes. Those used most frequently are R. G. Thwaites's edition of the Jesuit Relations, J. G. Shea's collection of narratives in his Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, B. F. French's Historical Collections of Louisiana, E. B. O'Callaghan's New York Colonial Documents, the writings of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Rufus King, John Adams, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe, the Secret Journals of Congress, Martens's Collection of the Principal Treaties concluded by the Powers of Europe, Margry's Decouvertes et Etablissements des Franpais dans V Guest et dans le Sud de V AmSrique Septentrionale, Charlevoix's Histoire GSnSrale de la Nouvelle France, the Correspondance of Napoleon, the MSmoires of Lucien Bonaparte, Richardson's Messages and Papers of the Presidents, the Executive Journal, the Annals of Congress, and, — most important of all, — the American State Papers, Foreign Relations.

Among the many persons to whom I am indebted for valuable assistance in the preparation of this book, I

X PREFACE

cannot refrain from making mention of Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, of Harvard University, Mr. Dudley O. McGovney, also of Harvard, Mr. Thomas J. Kiernan, Superintendent of Circulation in the Harvard University Library, and Mr. James Lyman Whitney, of the Boston Public Library.

FREDERIC AUSTIN" OGG.

Bloominoton, Indiana, September 1, 1903.

Contents

CHAPTER

I. The Importance of the Mississippi Valley

III. The Search of the French for the Mississippi .

Chapter I The Importance Op The Mississippi Valley

THE history of the world is in no small degree the history of its great river valleys and of the civilizations that have flourished in them. In ancient times the chief prerequisite to a people's prosperity was the possession of a fertile and well-watered habitation, such as a great river valley affords, and even to-day there is nothing of a material sort which is more conducive to human progress and happiness, unless perchance it be the possession of good harbors and an abundant entrance to the high seas. For, while we have grown away from the limitations in skill and inventiveness which bound the Egyptians so slavishly to the beneficence of the Nile, or the Babylonians to that of the Euphrates, we too have a vast population to feed, we too want fertile soil, easily tillable ground, and an abundant water-supply.

From the earliest history of our country the river valleys have been chiefly sought for habitation. Not only did the early Spanish, and particularly the early French, explorers and colonizers follow the watercourses, but the English also showed an unmistakable propensity to exploit and utilize first the lands that had been prepared for them by the great rivers of the country. The Cavaliers of Virginia lined the fertile banks of the James and its tributaries with their broad plantations, and made the rivers almost their only highways of trade and social intercourse. The valley of the Potomac received the first settlers of Maryland, and that of the Delaware and Susquehanna those of Pennsylvania. New York's history was begun at the mouth of the Hudson. When the Massachusetts colonies began to overflow, it was to the broad and beautiful valley of the Connecticut that the emigrants turned their steps. And the early settlers of the farther south kept closely to the larger streams — the Cape Fear and Roanoke in North Carolina, the Ashley and Cooper in South Carolina, the Savannah in Georgia, and the St. John's in Florida.

And when the Englishman had possessed himself quite thoroughly of the lands lying between the Atlantic and the headwaters of the Susquehanna, the Potomac, and the James, by natural impulse he took up the line of march again toward the west into new river valleys, and eventually into the greatest of them all. Crossing the Alleghanies, he stood upon the threshold of the most magnificent heritage that has ever been vouchsafed to an enterprising people. Before him stretched to the Gulf, to the Rockies, and to the Great Lakes, an area of more than a million and a quarter square miles, whose economic possibilities no like region in all the world can equal. In respect simply to fertility and luxuriance of vegetation the valley of the Amazon, of course, excels that of the Mississippi. But climatic conditions in the former case almost

I IMPORTANCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 3

completely offset any advantages the region may claim as an abode for mankind. The distinguishing characteristic of the Mississippi Valley is its rare combination of beneficent features in the absence of unfavorable ones. In richness of soil, variety of climate, number and value of products, facilities for communication, and general conditions of wealth and prosperity, the Mississippi Valley surpasses anything known to the Old World as well as the New. Of course, there are most excellent agricultural regions in Europe and Asia and Africa, but on a scale by no means so extensive as the Mississippi Valley, and without many of the collateral advantages which render this region preeminently adapted to the development of the highest type of civilization. In the economy of the world's life for a region merely to yield food for the support of a dense population is certainly much. But for it to do so under conditions that stimulate to energ}', thrift, and culture on part of its inhabitants is infinitely more.

The area of the Mississippi Valley may be stated roughly at a million and a quarter square miles. All the great countries of central Europe — Germany, Austria- Hungary, France, and Italy — could be set down in it, and yet there would be much room to spare. As a recent writer has said, almost every rood of its space " can be made to furnish a home and sustenance, if not to the farmer, at any rate to the ranchman or the miner " ; and it is worthy of note that this region is rapidly becoming the greatest home of English-speaking peoples on the globe. Compared with the population which it is capable of supporting, that which it has at present is sparse. From the statistics of the last census it appears that 40,413,051 people now live in the broad central plain between the Rockies and the AUeghanies — 52.9 per cent of the total population of the country. Justin Winsor, in his Westward Movement, some years ago affirmed that the Mississippi basin can easily maintain 200,000,000 people — a density about seven times that of this same region to-day, or about equal to that of the state of Connecticut. More recently Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, in an article in Harper's Magazine, has placed the figure as high as 350,000,000, which would mean a density practically equal to that of Massachusetts to-day. When the possibilities of intensive farming are taken into account, even the latter estimate seems quite within the bounds of reason. Hitherto there has been, and even yet is, such a superabundance of land in the Middle West that there has generally prevailed a luxurious carelessness in the utilization of it, such as fills the European small farmer with surprise. Except to the few who actually sit down to estimate what our numbers must be four or five hundred years hence, the fear of overcrowding which has long haunted the peoples of the Old World is here all but unknown.

It is quite probable that by the time the population of the Mississippi Valley shall have doubled, as it has done every quarter of the past century, that of the East and West will be found to have increased in like proportion. But one thing is certain — it is the Mississippi Valley that must ever continue to provide food for the growing population, not merely within its own borders, but throughout the entire country. This means that the region must permanently retain its agricultural character. Measured

1 IMPOHTANCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 5

by the value of products, the United States as a whole, since the decade from 1880 to 1890, has passed from the character of an agricultural to that of a manufacturing nation. But in the Mississippi Valley this transition can and must never occur — at least until that far distant day when the limits of agricultural enterprise shall have been reached. For a long time to come the growth of cities must not progress faster than in a certain proportion to the increase of the farming population. It seems hardly necessary to remark that this does not mean any retarding of the substantial progress of culture and better living. As time goes on and inventions multiply, the city will possess fewer and fewer advantages over the country. Even now in many parts of the Mississippi Valley rural mail delivery, good roads, telephones, daily newspapers, and the consolidation of schools have rendered rural life but slightly less desirable in some particulars, and vastly more desirable in a good many others, than life in the cities. Indeed it may well be that not the least of the benefits to be conferred upon the world at large by the' Mississippi Valley and its people will be the practical demonstration of how agricultural life can be freed from most, if not all, of the inconveniences which have been supposed to be inevitable to it, and which have been so largely responsible for the undue crowding of the people into cities in our day.

The Mississippi Valley has long been what clearly it is at present — the most interesting and in some respects the most important theatre of our national life. The movement into it of the pioneers from Virginia and Pennsylvania and New England ; the encounters with the Indians and with the French ; the rivalry with the Spanish neighbors on the southwest ; the purchase of the great western half of the valley from France just a hundred years ago ; the memorable migrations of the first half of the nineteenth century which gave it its population ; the great question of slavery extension in the territories created from it ; the struggle of civil war upon its soil and for the settlement of its problems ; and finally its marvellous development under the fostering of a reunited nation, — all these things, and very many more, have not so much contributed to our history as constituted the main body of it. Here it is that democratic government is being put to the supreme test of efficiency over a widely extended domain, and here again it is that the problems of capital and labor, science and invention, and the diffusion of an educated citizenship, are most pressing for solution. The future of the nation may be taken to lie closely along the course marked out by the men of the Middle West.

The ligaments by which nature has bound this great region together are streams of water — chiefly the Mississippi and its tributaries. This noble river, with its affluents, direct and indirect, said to be more than 100,000 in number, constitutes the third largest drainage system in the world. The length of the main stream is more than 2500 miles, and the volume of water which it discharges into the sea is second only to that of the Amazon and greater than that of all European rivers combined (leaving only the Volga out of account), being estimated at not less than 139 cubic miles annually. It and its tributaries provide somewhat over 16,000 miles of navigable water — t LMTORTANCE of the MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 7

more than any other river system except the Amazon. Truly it merits the name bestowed upon it in early times by the Chippewa Indians — May -see-see-bee, "The Father of Running Waters."

The Mississippi is interesting, however, not so much on its physical as on its political and economic side. As the key to the control of the Middle West the river has had a most important part in determining the history of the great American interior. It has been the fortune of few rivers or other physical features of the globe to appear as continuously in the annals of discovery and diplomacy. From the earliest discovery by the Spanish, probably in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, until the superfluous victory of General Jackson at New Orleans in 1815, the control of the great river seemed never quite permanently settled. Three of Europe's most powerful nations contended long and vigorously for the maintenance of their authority over greater or lesser portions of its basin ; and when the American Revolution created a new power, with its frontiers resting on the eastern bank of the river, the problem of possession became, if anything, more complicated than before. It was not until more than a decade after the United States had secured all the remaining contiguous territory by purchase (except the disputed region of West Florida) that the great river and its valley became integral parts of the American nation, no longer to furnish fuel for international rivalries and subjects for perennial diplomatic negotiation.

Chapter II The Spanish Discovery Op The Mississippi

THERE is no way of assuring ourselves just when the people of Europe began to discern that the land which Columbus had discovered was not Asia. It would seem that very few expeditions thither must have convinced at least the voyagers who actually took part that the landfall was neither the desired Cathay nor India. The gold-roofed houses and heaps of sea-shore treasure with which these countries were said to abound were nowhere apparent. In their visits to the islands of the West Indian group Columbus and his companion adventurers found tropical fruits and fertile soil and curious natives, but no gold. The earliest explorations on the mainland yielded results no less unsatisfactory.

Vague rumors were repeatedly encountered to the effect that still farther to the west there were lands fully as rich as the most vivid Spanish imagination had ever conceived. This delusion was not infrequently fostered by the natives in order to induce the Spanish invaders to seek other fields. Of course the search, except in Mexico and Peru, was from the outset illusory. It reminds one of the childish pursuit of the pot of gold at the rainbow's end. But very many decades elapsed after the first discovery by Columbus before the Spaniards ceased to think

0I1.VI-. II THE SPANISH DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI 9

that b}^ going westward from Florida they must sometime, somewhere, come upon the fabled wealth of the Indies. For a great while it was with them a question merely of distance and direction.

It Avas in. search of these western seats of wealth, or at least a passage to them, that the earlj^ Spanish navigators began first to push their way into the Gulf of Mexico, then supposed to be some part of the great Indian Ocean south from Asia. If we are to believe a considerable amount of testimony which has come down to us, the first European to sail in the waters of the Gulf was Americus Vespucius, a Florentine sailor in the Spanish employ, who, as pilot of the expedition of Pinzon and Solis, in 1497-1498, visited the coast of Honduras, rounded Yucatan, spent some time among the hospitable natives of the Tampico region on the Mexican coast, skirted the northern shores of the Gulf eastward to Florida, and finally returned to Cadiz by way of Chesapeake Bay and the Bermudas. On this expedition no discoveries then regarded as important were made, and so little is known about it that there has been perhaps no more disputed subject in all the history of American exploration. 1 If Vespucius really effected his reputed

^ There is no satisfactory book in English on Vespucius and his reputed discoveries, though John Fislse deals with the subject quite well in his Discovery of America, II. 25-175. Sydney Howard Gay's chapter in Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America (Vol. II. Ch. II.) is far below the average of the monographs in that great work. Mr. Winsor's critical notes, however, are excellent. Francisco Adolpho de Varnhagen's collection of French and Portuguese monographs, published at Vienna, is so valuable that, as Mr. Fiske declared, " No one who has not mastered it in all its details is entitled to speak about Vespucius." Other important works on the subject are Johu Boyd Thacher, The Continent of America., circuit of tlie Gulf he must have beheld lands not seen subsequently by Europeans before 1513 and 1519. It may even be that the mouth of the Mississippi was sighted by him, but there is no evidence whatever to lead us to think so. Certainly no practical results followed the expedition.

Columbus, on his fourth voyage, in 1502, planned to reach the Cochin-Chinese coast far to the south, in the vicinity of the Malay Peninsula, and so took a southwesterly course, which landed him on the shores of Honduras.^ The Indians told him of a great sea to the southward — the Pacific Ocean, of course — and declared that, being once embarked on it, the Ganges might be reached in ten daj^s. They told him, too, of a narrow passage to the southeast, which unfortunately he understood to be a passage of water, i.e. the Strait of Malacca, instead of what it really was — a passage of land, i.e. the Isthmus of Darien. The remainder of the expedition was consumed in a vain search for this passage, and for gold. M. Henry Harrisse, the greatest of our authorities on the beginnings of the exploration period of American history, thinks that before Columbus died he understood that the continent which he had discovered was not any part of Asia, and that the Spanish government was

Part IIL, and Henry Harrisse, Americus Vespucius, the latter, however, being merely a book review. The letters of Vespucius have been translated several times, notably by Clements R. Markham [published by the Hakluyt Society]. The narrative of the voyage of 1497-1498 is reprinted in the Old South Leaflets, No. XXXIV.

1 The best accounts of this voyage are those by Winsor in his Christopher Columbus, Chs. XII.-XIV., and by John Boyd Thacher in his Christopher Columbus, II. Chs. C.-CXI.

convinced of this as early as 1501. But the generally prevailing view is rather that Columbus thought only that he had failed to reach those parts of the Asiatic continent where treasure abounded, and that further search would certainly open up a way into the waters on the Indian coast.

Our knowledge of Spanish exploring enterprise and achievement prior to 1511 is extremely unsatisfactory. We have only intimations of numerous voyages concerning which we know next to nothing. For instance, in April, 1495, Ferdinand and Isabella published a decree authorizing any person to equip an expedition for the purpose of discovering " new isles and continents in the Indian Ocean." We are told by a contemporary chronicler, Peter the Martyr,^ that a number of sea-captains availed themselves of the opportunity thus offered. It is just possible that some of these penetrated the waters of the Gulf far enough to behold the mouth of the Mississippi, but there is absolutely no evidence that such was the case. Beginning, however, with Ponce de Leon's expedition from Porto Rico to Florida in 1513, we have a considerable number of chronicles and so-called histories from which to draw information. Many of these are of uncertain reliability, and many are known to be utterly untrustworthy ; but judicious and painstaking use of them has doubtless brought us fairly near the truth — as near, at any rate, as we are likely ever to be.

It is agreed by practically all students of the subject that the Spaniards had no knowledge of the Mississippi prior, in any event, to the year 1519. If Vespucius or any

1 Peter the Martyr, De.cadea, published in 1511. There is an elaborate account of Peter the Martyr iu Thaoher, Christopher Columbus, I. 3-95.

other of the earlier voyagers saw the river, the fact either was not reported or was entirely overlooked by the chroniclers of the time. In 1517 Francisco Hernandez de Cordova was put in command of an expedition sent out by Diego Velasquez, governor of Cuba, toward the southern coasts of the Gulf for the purpose of slave-catching in the region of Honduras.^ Cordova is declared by the contemporary Spanish historian and philanthropist. Las Casas, to have been " very prudent and courageous, and strongly disposed to kill and kidnap Indians."'^ Doubtless it was chiefly the latter quality that recommended him to the service of Velasquez. The chief pilot of the expedition was Antonio de Alaminos, who had been with Columbus on his fourth voyage, and more than a hundred soldiers were sent to assure the success of the undertaking. Cordova sailed from Santiago in February, nominally for the purposes of discovery, since slave-hunting expeditions were illegal. After cruising a considerable distance along the Yucatan coast, inhabited by the bitterly hostile Mayas, Cordova's vessels met with injury from storms so that the sailors were compelled to land.^ A treacherous attack from the Indians so weakened and disheartened the men that the few who remained were glad enough to give up all hope

1 Dr. J. G. Shea affirms that Cordova's original destination was the Bahama Islands, but that he was carried by storms upon the coast of Yucatan, which country then received the name it has since borne. Winsor, Narrative and. Critical History, II. 236.

2 Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, tom. IV. p. 369.

5 Another account is that exhaustion of the water supply caused the landing. Piske, Discovery of America, II. 242. This, however, seems to have been the occasion of another and equally disastrous landing, on the Florida coast on the return to Cuba. See Shea, in Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, II. 236.

n THE SPANISH DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI 13

of securing slaves and sail again for Cuba at the earliest opportunity. Cordova soon died of his wounds. ^

In the course of a few months Alaminos, the pilot of this disastrous expedition, made his way to the island of Jamaica and to the home of the wealthy governor, Francisco de Garay. The pilot's heart was still set upon steering a way through a " western passage " into the waters of the Indian, and he talked so eloquently of the advantages to arise from such an achievement that Garay was at last persuaded to undertake its accomplishment. Garay had been a companion of Columbus on the latter's second voyage, in 1493, and was deeply interested in everything pertaining to navigation and discovery. In the account which Alaminos gave of the gorgeous dress of the Mayans and their "strange-looking pyramids or towers, ascended by stone steps," the governor discerned striking indications that at least the threshold of the much-desired Orient had been reached.

Permission to engage in the exploration of the mainland and the search for the western passage was obtained from the priors of the Order of St. Jerome, then the governors of the Indies,^ and an experienced navigator by the name of Alonso Alvarez de Pineda was put in command of the expedition. The real cedula granted by the Regents in the absence of the Spanish king, Charles V., by which Garay was subsequently authorized

1 The following year the governor's nephew, Juan de Grijalva, was sent to the Yucatan coast with a force of 260 picked soldiers to avenge the outrages of the Mayas. A battle was fought in which the natives were roundly beaten. Grijalva continued exploration along the coast westward, possibly as far as the Panuco River.

2 Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, II. 237.

to colonize the northern coast of the Gulf,^ states that the expedition of Pineda consisted of four vessels fitted out entirely at Garay's expense.^ It is said to have numbered 270 men, with a good supply of horses and provisions. The route followed is uncertain, but the farthest point reached by the voyagers is known to have been the mouth of the Panuco River, about fifty miles from the present site of Vera Cruz.^ Landing at this place near the end of August, 1519, Pineda's men fell in with the followers of Cortes, whose explorations had already been in progress several months. Cortes challenged the right of Garay to advance into the territories thus preempted, but his opposition was silenced by the information that the Spanish government had specifically sanctioned the enterprise.

One of the most controverted subjects in early American history is the precise course and achievements of this Pineda voyage. Until about twelve years ago it was generally assumed by writers that the enterprise took its greatest claim to distinction from the fact that it culminated in the discovery of the Mississippi River. More recent critical study of- the evidence in hand, however, especially on the part of Dr. "Walter B. Scaife and Mr. Peter J. Hamilton, has gone far toward discrediting the old assumption and transferring the honor of the Mississippi discovery from Pineda to his later fellow-countryman, Hernando de Soto. It may be well to set forth the

I'ln 1521. 2 Henry Harrisse, The Discovery of North America, 164.

' Barnard Shipp, Hernando de Soto and Florida, Ch. III. Many of the conclusions arrived at by this author have been superseded, but the chapter referred to contains transcripts of much original material on the expedition of Francisco de Garay to Panuco.

basis of the old view, and then state the grounds of objection to it. According to such eminent authorities as Henry Harrisse, Justin Winsor,^ John G. Shea, and John Fiske, it was sometime during the course of Pineda's voj-age that the original discovery of the Mississippi occurred.^ The account in the real cedula before mentioned says that while navigating the Gulf the adventurers entered a river, " very large and very full," where they tarried forty days while repairs were being made on their ^■essels. There is much doubt as to whether this discovery was made on the westward voyage or on the return. In Garay's letters patent it is stated that after entering the Gulf, Pineda's vessels found it impossible to emerge by way of the northeast on account of "• the country of Florida found by Ponce de Leon." Turning about, they struck a due westerly course along the northern shore of the Gulf. As the voyage progressed the sailors examined carefully "the country, rivers, harbors, inhabitants, and all that wMch deserved to be noted on the said coast." When tlie followers of Cortes were encountered in the Tampico region, Pineda's men set up a monument to mark the limits of their explorations, and then turned to retrace their course. They had sailed westward a distance of more than three hundred leagues, taking pbssession in the name of Castile of all the lands which they sighted.