A Wilderness So Immense (72 page)

63.
Plumer’s Memorandum,
1–14, quoted at 13; Jon Kukla, ed.,
A Guide to
the Papers of Pierre Clement Laussat, Napoleon’s Prefect for the Colony of Louisiana, and of General Claude Perrin Victor
(New Orleans, 1993), 58.

64.
John Rutledge, Jr., to Harrison Grey Otis, October 1, 1803, quoted in DeConde,
This Affair of Louisiana,
186.

65.
These arguments are recorded in the
Debates and Proceedings in the [Eighth] Congress of the United States
(Washington, D.C., 1852) and sharply depicted in the chapters on the Louisiana debate and legislation in Henry Adams,
History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 1889), Library of America edition (New York, 1986), 366–92. These and other early congressional debates are available online through the American Memory project of the Library of Congress at
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lawhome.html
.

66.
Caesar A. Rodney quoted in Adams,
History,
371–72; Jefferson to Wilson Cary Nicholas, September 7, 1803; Ford, ed.,
Works of Thomas Jefferson,
10: 10–11; Jefferson to John Breckinridge, August 12, 1803, ibid., 10: 7.

67.
Louisiana Purchase Treaty, see Appendix B; Senator Samuel White of Delaware, November 3, 1803,
Debates and Proceedings in the [Eighth] Congress,
33.

68.
Senator Uriah Tracy of Massachusetts, November 3, 1803,
Debates and Proceedings in the [Eighth] Congress,
58; Adams,
History,
370–75; Gouverneur Morris to Henry W Livingston, December 4, 1803, quoted in DeConde,
This Affair of Louisiana,
210.

69.
Merchant,
Gazette of the United States,
November 8, 1803, quoted in Weiss, “Domestic Opposition to the Louisiana Purchase,” 147; George F. Kennan,
American Diplomacy, 1900–1950
(New York, 1951), 21–22, quoted in Robert L. Beisner,
Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898–1900
(New York, 1968), 234.

70.
Jefferson to General George Rogers Clark, December 25, 1780; H. R. McIlwaine, ed.,
Official Letters of the Governors of the State of Virginia,
vol. 2:
The Letters of Thomas Jefferson
(Richmond, 1928), 253; Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, January 25, 1786,
Jefferson Papers,
9: 217–19.

1.
Jefferson to Randolph, December 1, 1803, Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., quoted in Jon Kukla, “Order and Chaos in Early America: Political and Social Stability in Pre-Restoration Virginia,”
AHR
90 (1985): 298.

2.
Pierre Clement Laussat,
Memoirs of My Life to My Son During the Years 1803 and After, Which I Spent in Public Service in Louisiana as Commissioner of the French Government for the Retrocession to France of That Colony and for Its Transfer to the United States,
trans. Sister Agnés-Josephine Pastwa (Baton Rouge, 1978), 36.

3.
Jefferson to De Witt Clinton, December 2, 1803; Ford, ed.,
Works of Thomas Jefferson,
10: 55.

4.
Jefferson’s comparison of slaves and Louisianans with “children” announces profound similarities between this debate and subsequent American arguments about emancipation and Reconstruction policies: “Men probably of any color, but of this color we know, brought from their infancy without necessity for thought or forecast,” he wrote to Edward Coles on August 25, 1814, “are by their habits rendered as incapable as children of taking care of themselves, and… their amalgamation with the other color produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character can innocently consent”; Merrill D. Peterson, ed.,
Thomas Jefferson: Writings
(New York, 1984), 1345. Jefferson’s attitude toward free people of color is discussed in my epilogue.

5.
Jefferson to De Witt Clinton, December 2, 1803; Ford, ed.,
Works of Thomas Jefferson,
10: 55; Jefferson to Randolph, December 1, 1803, Library of Congress.

6.
Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, November 9, 1803,
Territorial Papers,
100–1. The administration relied upon the principle established by Sir James Mansfield’s decision in
Campbell v. Hall
(1774) regarding the conquered province of Grenada that “the laws of a conquered country continue in force until they are altered by the conqueror”; see Clarence E. Carter’s explanation in ibid., 90n10. Mark F. Fernandez’s “Louisiana Legal History: Past, Present, and Future,” in Warren M. Billings and Mark F. Fernandez, eds.,
A Law unto Itself? Essays in the New Louisiana Legal History
(Baton Rouge, 2001), 1–22, ably describes recent scholarship challenging the legal historiography that culminated in George Dargo’s
Jefferson’s Louisiana: Politics and the Clash of Legal Traditions
(Cambridge, Mass., 1975).

7.
William Eustis and George Washington Campbell, February 28, 1804,
Debates and Proceedings in the [Eighth] Congress,
1058, 1064; Everett Somerville Brown, ed.,
William Plumer’s Memorandum of Proceedings in the United States Senate, 1803–1807
(New York, 1923), 145; Henry Adams,
History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 1889), Library of America edition (New York, 1986), 380–89; Alexander DeConde,
This Affair of Louisiana
(New York, 1976), 210–13; David A. Carson, “Blank Paper of the Constitution: The Louisiana Purchase Debates,”
The Historian
54 (1992): 477–90. The act enabling the president to take possession of Louisiana vested “all the military, civil, and judicial powers … in such person and persons … as the President of the United States shall direct for maintaining and protecting the inhabitants of Louisiana in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and religion”;
Territorial Papers,
89–90.

8.
Jefferson to Madison, July 31, 1803,
Madison Papers: State,
5: 255.

9.
Thomas Jefferson to William C. C. Claiborne, July 17 and July 18, 1803; James Madison to Claiborne, October 31, 1803; Commission to Claiborne and James Wilkinson, October 31, 1803; Jefferson to Claiborne, August 30, 1804;
Commission to Claiborne, January 17, 1806;
Territorial Tapers,
3–5, 91–95, 281–84, 571; Jared William Bradley, ed.,
Interim Appointment: W. C. C. Claiborne Letter Book, 1804—1805
(Baton Rouge, 2002), passim.

10.
Laussat,
Memoirs of My Life,
11, 17–18, 117n21, 117n21.

11.
Ibid., 56–57.

12.
Réponses sur La Louisiane, Laussat Papers, Historic New Orleans Collection, quoted in Laussat,
Memoirs of My Life,
1191131; Kukla,
Laussat Tapers,
110. New Orleans today has many fine bookstores and libraries, but in other respects
plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

13.
Laussat,
Memoirs of My Life,
36, 57; Kukla,
Laussat Tapers,
56–63, 70–77. Lacking directives from France, Laussat declined several urgent requests from General Rochambeau for money for St. Domingue, ibid., 74.

14.
Laussat,
Memoirs of My Life,
94–96.

15.
Ibid., 78.

16.
Ibid., 78–79; Laussat to Denis Decrès, July 18, 1803, Robertson,
Louisiana,
2: 41–43.

17.
Laussat,
Memoirs of My Life,
79–81.

18.
Ibid., 75; William C. C. Claiborne to James Madison, December 27, 1803, Dunbar Rowland, ed.,
Official Letter Books of W. C. C. Claiborne, 1801–1816
(Jackson, Miss., 1917), 1: 313; Christina Vella,
Intimate Enemies: The Two Worlds of the Baroness de Pontalba
(Baton Rouge, 1997), 23–27; Gilbert C. Din and John E. Harkins,
The New Orleans Cabildo: Colonial Louisiana’s First City Government, 1769–1803
(Baton Rouge, 1996), 297–301. Claiborne revised his opinion of Laussat’s reforms in a letter to Jefferson on November 25, 1804,
Territorial Tapers,
338–40.

19.
Laussat,
Memoirs of My Life,
77–78.

20.
Claiborne to Jefferson, December 8, 1803,
Territorial Tapers,
135; Judith Kelleher Schafer,
Slavery, the Civil Law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana
(Baton Rouge, 1994), 1–3, 80.

21.
Notes of cabinet meetings, May 7, 1803-November 19, 1805, Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress; Claiborne to Jefferson, December 8, 1803,
Territorial Tapers,
135–36.

22.
Daniel Clark to William C. C. Claiborne and James Wilkinson, December 12, 1803,
Territorial Tapers,
137. By early January similar rumors had reached Louis André Pichón, who recommended that Laussat send the prisoners to Europe. A ship carrying some French surgeons and officers from St. Domingue did land at New Orleans in January, but Laussat’s papers offer no further information about the troops aboard the three Danish ships; Kukla,
Laussat Tapers,
116–17.

23.
Claiborne to Madison, “Camp near New-Orleans,” December 17, 1803,
Territorial Tapers,
138; Kukla,
Laussat Tapers,
103–4.

24.
Laussat,
Memoirs of My Life,
88–89.

25.
Laussat’s word
domination
may be translated as “power,” “dominion,” or “domination.” Sister Agnes-Josephine Pastwa chose the third (ibid., 89); I have substituted the second.

26.
Ibid., 88–89; Wilkinson to Madison, December 20, 1803;
Territorial Tapers,
138–39; James Ripley Jacobs,
Tarnished Warrior: Major-General James Wilkinson
(New York, 1938), 205–6.

27.
Postscript, “1 oClock of the Morning,” December 21, 1803; Wilkinson to Secretary of War Henry Dearborn, January 11, 1804,
Territorial Papers,
139, 159–60; see also Claiborne to Madison, April 14, 1804, ibid., 221.

28.
Claiborne to Madison, December 27, 1803, Rowland, ed.,
Official Letters,
1: 314; Kimberly S. Hanger,
Bounded Lives, Bounded Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans, 1769–1803
(Durham, N.C., 1997), 109–35, 171–75.

29.
Claiborne to Madison, December 27, 1803, Rowland, ed.,
Official Letters,
1: 314.

30.
Wilkinson to Dearborn, January 11, 1804,
Territorial Papers,
160.

31.
Address from the Free People of Color, January [16,] 1804; ibid., 174–75; Claiborne to Madison, January 17, 1804, Rowland, ed.,
Official Letters,
1: 339–41.

32.
Kimberly S. Hanger, “Conflicting Loyalties: The French Revolution and Free People of Color in Spanish New Orleans,”
LH
34 (1993): 25–33.

33.
Benjamin Morgan to Chandler Price, August 7, 1803,
Territorial Papers,
7 (dashes inserted for clarity); Claiborne to Madison, December 27, 1803, Rowland, ed.,
Official Letters,
1: 314.

34.
Ellen Holmes Pearson, “Imperfect Equality: The Legal Status of Free People of Color in New Orleans, 1803–1860,” in Warren M. Billings and Mark F Fernandez, eds.,
A Law unto Itself? Essays in the New Louisiana Legal History
(Baton Rouge, 2001), 191–210; Caryn Cossé Bell,
Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition in Louisiana, 1718–1868
(Baton Rouge, 1997), 29–40.

35.
Hanger,
Bounded Lives, Bounded Places,
163–67; Bell,
Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition,
35–48.

36.
Senator Samuel White of Delaware, November 3, 1803,
Debates and Proceedings in the [Eighth] Congress of the United States
(Washington, D.C., 1852), 33; Calculator VII,
The Balance and Columbian Repository,
September 20, 1803; Fabricius III,
Columbian Centinel and Massachusetts Federalist,
July 16, 1803; Theramanes V, ibid., November 23, 1803; Victor Adolfo Arriaga Weiss, “Domestic Opposition to the Louisiana Purchase: Anti-Expansionism and Republican Thought” (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1993), 125, 142, 152; Fisher Ames to Christopher Gore, October 3, 1803; Ames to Thomas Dwight, October 31, 1803; William B. Allen, ed.,
Works of Fisher Ames
(rev. ed., Indianapolis, 1983), 1463, 1468–69.

37.
The Vieux Carré Survey at the Historic New Orleans Collection lists no establishment called
The House of the
Rising Sun—but it does list a Rising Sun tavern on Conti Street, just around the corner from the Williams Research Center.

38.
Arnold R. Hirsch and Joseph Logsdon, eds.,
Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization
(Baton Rouge, 1992); Hanger,
Bounded Lives, Bounded
Places,
22; Bell,
Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition,
11, 78.

39.
Benjamin H. B. Latrobe,
Impressions Respecting New Orleans by Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe: Diary and Sketches, 1818–1820,
ed. Samuel Wilson, Jr. (New York, 1951), 18.

40.
Michaux and Genet are treated in Chapter 9. The antecedents of the Lewis and Clark expedition are documented in the expanded second edition of Donald Jackson, ed.,
Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with Related Documents, 1783–1854
(2d ed., Urbana, 111., 1978), 654–75; Stephen A. Ambrose,
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
(New York, 1996), 138–39.

41.
Fisher Ames to Christopher Gore, October 3, 1803,
Works of Fisher Ames,
1463; Fabricius III,
Columbian Centinel and Massachusetts Federalist,
July 16, 1803; Weiss, “Domestic Opposition to the Louisiana Purchase,” 142; Denis Decrès to General Claude Perrin Victor, November 26, 1802, quoted in Adams,
History,
306.