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Story Archives: Concordia's ride to statehood with Louisiana -- 1803-1812
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Concordia's ride to statehood with Louisiana -- 1803-1812
 In a letter written in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson asked William Dunbar of Natchez his thoughts on a number of issues regarding the Louisiana Purchase, which would double the size of the country.
The price tag was $15 million for 827,000 square miles, or 529,280,600 acres, about three cents per acre.
Two years earlier, Napoleon had secretly wrangled Louisiana from the Spanish by the signing of a treaty. News of the cessation soon reached U.S. officials in a number of ways. In Tennessee, Congressman W.C.C. Claiborne, recently appointed by Jefferson to succeed Winthrop Sargent as governor of Mississippi Territory, received a letter dated Sept. 3, 1801, reporting that Spain had agreed to give up Louisiana to France.
Later, Napoleon, deep in debt and at war with Great Britain, feared that he might lose both New Orleans and all of Louisiana to the British. For both reasons, he decided to sell Louisiana to the United States. In approving the deal, he informed his ministers in Paris: "Irresolution and deliberations are no longer in season. I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I cede; it is the whole colony without reserve...I renounce it with the greatest regret; to attempt obstinately to retain it would be folly."
In September Jefferson warned: "The government of Spain has protested against the right of France to transfer, and it is possible that she may refuse possession, and that may bring on acts of force, but against such neighbors as France there and the United States here, what she can expect from so gross a compound of folly and false faith is not to be sought in the books of wisdom."
Remembering Spain's tardy withdrawal from the Natchez District following the Treaty of San Lorenzo, Jefferson was determined to show that he meant business and would accept no delays. Suddenly, the entire Natchez frontier became a key point in this international crisis during an exciting time in the country's history.
Americans were already angry at Spain following its decision in 1802 to revoke the right-of-deposit to American traders and farmers at New Orleans. Through the 1795 Treaty of San Lorenzo, Americans were assured the right to offload their goods from flatboats to warehouses in New Orleans, where the goods would later be loaded onto sea-going vessels for shipment anywhere in the world. Without the right-of-deposit, American trade from the western states and territories came to a halt.
Additionally, the revocation of that right -- though short-lived -- threatened commerce on the Mississippi. Americans had also been guaranteed the right to navigate the river through the Treaty of San Lorenzo. The westerners -- from Kentucky, Tennessee, in Ohio Country and in Mississippi Territory -- felt navigation and the right-of-deposit were worth fighting for. Secretary of State James Madison, a future president, noted: "The Mississippi is to them everything. It is the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, and all the navigable rivers of the Atlantic States, formed into one steam."For the full story, subscribe to the The Concordia Sentinel's NEW E-Edition! |
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