Read A Wilderness So Immense Online
Authors: Jon Kukla
42.
Robert Livingston to James Madison, May 20,
1803; Madison Papers: State,
5: 19.
43.
Lyon,
Louisiana in French Diplomacy,
104–10; Philip Coolidge Brooks,
Diplomacy and the Borderlands: The Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819
(Berkeley, 1939), 5.
44.
James Madison to Charles Pinckney, October 13, 1803,
Madison Papers: State,
5: 511–13 and passim.
45.
Douglas Hilt,
The Troubled Trinity: Godoy and the Spanish Monarchs
(Tuscaloosa, 1987), 168; Alan Schom,
Napoleon Bonaparte
(New York, 1997), 453–72.
46.
Hilt,
Troubled Trinity,
166.
47.
Schom,
Napoleon Bonaparte,
466; David Gates,
The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War
(London, 1985). The future Ferdinand VII and his younger brothers spent four years of exile at Talleyrand’s Valençay estate before he returned to the Spanish throne in 1814; J. F. Bernard,
Talleyrand: A Biography
(New York, 1973), 285–89.
48.
Bernard,
Talleyrand,
278–96; Gates,
Spanish Ulcer.
49.
Brooks,
Adams-Onís Treaty,
13–14.
50.
Jefferson to Madison, November 26, 1809, quoted in ibid., 16. Brooks noted that Jefferson’s letter confused the 1808 dispute between Carlos and Ferdinand with the 1809 contest between Joseph Bonaparte and the Junta; ibid., 27n26.
51.
Hubert B. Fuller,
The Purchase of Florida: Its History and Diplomacy
(Cleveland, 1906), 217, 225, and Luis de Onís to Carlos Martínez de Yrujo, February 22, 1819, quoted in Brooks,
Adams-Onís Treaty,
57, 164, 184–91.
52.
Both the Adams-Onís Treaty and the John Melish map of 1818 are printed in ibid., 205–14, 216–19.
53.
National Register,
February 27, 1819, quoted ibid., 171. Jed Handelsman
Shugerman, “The Louisiana Purchase and South Carolina’s Reopening of the Slave Trade in 1803,”
Jounral of the Early Republic
22 (2000): 263–90.
1.
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), 18–19.
2.
Aurora General Advertiser,
May 12, 1804, quoted in Isaac Newton Phelps,
The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909
(5 vols., New York, 1915–1928), 5: 1422.
3.
Ibid.
4.
David Ramsay,
An Oration on the Cession of Louisiana to the United States delivered on the 12th May, 1804, in St. Michael’s Church, Charleston, South-Carolina
(Charleston, 1804); Abraham Bishop,
Oration, in honor of the Election of President Jefferson, and the Peaceable acquisition of Louisiana, delivered at the National Festival, in Hartford, on the nth of May, 1804
(New Haven, 1804); Samuel Brazer, Jr.,
Address pronounced at Worcester, on May 12th, 1804, in Commemoration of the Cession of Louisiana to the United States
(Worcester, Mass., 1804); Chapman Johnson,
An Oration, on the late Treaty with France by which Louisiana was acquired, delivered in Staunton on the third of March, 1804
(Staunton, Va., 1804); David Augustus Leonard,
An Oration delivered at Raynham, Massachusetts, Friday, May nth, 1804, on the late Acquisition of Louisiana at the unanimous request of the Republican citizens of the County of Bristol
(Newport, R. I., 1804); W M. P.,
A Poem on the Acquisition of Louisiana respectfully dedicated to the committee appointed for the celebration of that great event in this city
(Charleston, 1804).
5.
Ramsay,
Oration on the Cession of Louisiana,
4.
6.
Bernard DeVoto, “Celebrating 150 Years of the Louisiana Purchase,”
Collier’s
(March 21, 1953): 44–47. The official estimate of the original area of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 is 909,130 square miles; E. M. Douglas, comp.,
Area of the United States in 1783; Area of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803; Area of the Territories and States Formed Since 1783
(Washington, D.C., 1930), 1–2. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the final boundaries drawn in 1818–1819 enclosed an area of 827,192 square miles;
Historical Statistics of the United States
(Washington, D.C., 1975), 428 table J1–2.
7.
“From the Trenton
True American,”
August 6, 1803, reprinted in the
Maryland Gazette,
September 15, 1803.
8.
Suzanne R. Van Meter, “A Noble Bargain: The Louisiana Purchase” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1977), 253.
9.
[Julien Poydras], “Private and Commercial Correspondence” (typescript, Historical Center, Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans), 5, 52, 53–54, 65–74, 83, 101.
10.
Thomas Jefferson to Edward Coles, August 25, 1814, in Merrill D. Peterson, ed.,
Thomas Jefferson: Writings
(New York, 1984), 1345.
11.
Paul F. LaChance, “The 1809 Immigration of Saint-Domingue Refugees to New Orleans: Reception, Integration and Impact,”
Louisiana History
29 (1988): 109–41; Joseph G. Tregle, Jr.,
Louisiana in the Age of Jackson: A Clash of Cultures and Personalities
(Baton Rouge, 1999).
12.
Latrobe,
Impressions Respecting New Orleans,
18–19.
From Hunter Miller,
Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America,
vol. 2 (Washington, D.C., 1931), 318–48.
1.
For the work of these boundary commissioners see John C. Van Home, “Andrew Ellicott’s Mission to Natchez (1796–1798),”
Journal of Mississippi History
45 (1983): 160–85.
From Miller,
Treaties,
2: 498–511.
From Miller,
Treaties,
2: 512–15, 516–28.
1.
Paul Leicester Ford, ed.,
Works of Thomas Jefferson,
vol. 10 (New York, 1905), 3–12.
2.
Madison Papers: State,
5: 156.
3.
Ford, ed.,
Works of Thomas Jefferson,
10: 4–5n.
4.
Ibid., 3–8.
5.
Madison Papers: State,
5: 340–41.
On January in, 1997, I was sitting next to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., on the stage of Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré at a conference honoring the late Bernard DeVoto. As we talked while waiting for the panel to begin, I mentioned that I had been looking for a book about the Louisiana Purchase, had not yet found what I wanted, and was toying with the idea of writing it. “That,” Professor Schlesinger said, “would be a good reason for you to write that book.” A year later, getting ready for a black-tie New Year’s Eve party on the Gulf Coast, I mentioned my conversation with Professor Schlesinger after regaling my friend Robin Mover with tales of Carlos IV, Maria Luisa, and Manuel Godoy. Robin pulled a twenty from his wallet and said, “I want the first copy of your book.” As I accepted his offer I also yielded to Professor Schlesinger’s advice.
A Wilderness So Immense
became the book I had been looking for.
That spring, John M. Barry, whose
Rising Tide
had captivated me, graciously commended me to his literary agent—the Sagalyn Agency—where Dan Kois welcomed my phone call. He, Ethan Kline, and Raphael Sagalyn helped me fashion my ideas into a decent proposal. Jane Garrett at Knopf offered a contract, and I began work in earnest—always grateful for her enthusiastic support. Early in 1999 Susan Larson, Patricia Brady, and Sandra Gioia Treadway read my earliest draft chapters and offered their encouragement. To these fine people I am deeply indebted, both for their initial confidence and their subsequent counsel and support.
I am grateful to the Virginia Historical Society for a Mellon Fellowship and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation for a research fellowship at the International Center for Thomas Jefferson Studies as the book took shape. On a meandering research trip through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky and Tennessee and then along the Natchez Trace back to the Mississippi River, I benefited from the advice of many librarians, archivists, and curators—especially at the Kentucky Historical Society, the Filson Club, and the Special Collections Department of the University of Kentucky (where Claire McCann led me to the Hunt-Morgan Family Papers). Back in New Orleans, I relied heavily on the collections
of the Howard Tilton Library at Tulane and the library holdings (and access to JSTOR) at Loyola University—as well as the Williams Research Center of the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Earl K. Long Library at the University of New Orleans, and the Historical Center of the Louisiana State Museum. After returning to Virginia early in 2000, I became dependent again (both in person and online) upon the Library of Congress, the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia, and especially the Library of Virginia.
Invitations to speak about the Louisiana Purchase at Carthage College, Virginia Tech, the Louisiana State Museum, James Madison University, the Louisiana Association of Museums, the Jefferson Memorial at St. Louis, the University of New Orleans, McNeese State University, and Metairie Park Country Day School—and a paper presented at the Organization of American Historians meeting in St. Louis—afforded me valuable opportunities to test and polish some of the reflections in the epilogue. To all those audiences I am grateful, but especially to those listeners who asked challenging questions.
In the Manuscripts Department of the Library of Congress, Staley Hitchcock and Paul H. Smith, now retired, rummaged their editorial files to help me comprehend the Jay-Gardoqui negotiations, and I am also indebted to Edward James Redmond in the Map Division. Christina Vella offered keen advice on Spanish Louisiana and its historiography, and Gary J. Mannina lent his sharp eye to French details. Lucia C. Stanton and Susan R. Stein graciously responded to questions about Jefferson in Paris and at Monticello, and Diane Swann-Wright’s yuletide hospitality was memorable. John P. Kaminski was generous with his unrivaled insights about the Founders and their world, and Barbara J. Oberg helped locate an elusive document in Jefferson’s papers at the Library of Congress. Patricia Brady confirmed the translations of some critical documents from the Archivo Historic Nacional. A. Lee Levert tracked down a map that had eluded my grasp, and Warren M. Billings and Mark F. Fernandez guided me past the shoals of Louisiana legal history. Long before reading chapters of my book, Jason Berry in New Orleans, W. W. Abbot in Charlottesville, and James F. Sefcik at the Louisiana State Museum sustained me with their friendship and support. Death claimed both Nelson Peter Ross, my undergraduate mentor, and Donald Haynes, former state librarian of Virginia and director of the Virginia Historical Society, years before I began work on the Louisiana Purchase, but I hope my pages reflect the standards of clarity and precision I learned from them. Close readings by Amy Kukla and Sandra Gioia Treadway—and the skills of Jane Garrett, Sophie Fels, and Rita Madrigal—helped me in that quest.
Amy, Jennifer, and Elizabeth have learned to appreciate their dad and his writing, and to recognize the love that is sometimes hidden beneath his words. For my parents and family, however, mere words are truly inadequate.
Copyright
©
2003 by Jon Kukla
Maps by David Lindroth, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Portions from “Selling a Ship” and “A Various Gabble of Tongues” previously appeared in
Louisiana Life
magazine.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Paul Halsall for permission to reprint an excerpt from
Ça Ira
translated by Paul Halsall. Translation copyright © 1998 by Paul Halsall. Reprinted by permission of the author.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Kukla, Jon, [date]
A wilderness so immense : the Louisiana Purchase and the destiny of America /
Jon Kukla—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Louisiana Purchase. I. Title.
E333 .K85 2003
973.4′6—dc21 2002027395
eISBN: 978-0-307-49323-1
Author photograph © Amy Kukla
v3.0