The Louisiana Purchase and Arkansas: Reflections on State and National Development

Abstract

OCTOBER 18, 1802, DOES NOT LIVE in our memory in same way as April 19, 1775, day shot heard 'round world was fired, or December 7, 1941, day that lives in infamy, or September 11, 2001, day the world stopped turning, quote a popular song. But even so, October 18, 1802 is a momentous day in American history. On that day, Juan Morales, Spanish intendant of Louisiana, closed port of New Orleans Americans shipping goods down Mississippi River. Trans-Appalachian Americans had enjoyed this right of deposit at Crescent City since Pinckney Treaty of 1795. Without it, farmers in river's eastern watershed would be forced transport their products overland Atlantic Coast markets-a time-consuming, expensive undertaking which made such shipments impractical, if not impossible. Morales's action triggered an emergency response in Washington, D.C. While Federalist members of U.S. Congress talked of war reopen trade, key members of President Thomas Jefferson's administration anxiously worked diplomatic channels reestablish deposit principle so crucial western farmers. Ultimately, problem was solved when United States bought city-and not just city but Mississippi River's entire western watershed. This region, indeed watersheds on both sides of river, had been claimed and named Louisiana by Robert La Salle some one hundred twenty years before being bought by Americans. There is a crucial distinction, though, between Louisiana Purchase and Louisiana territory claimed by La Salle. La Salle's claim was finite, while territory of purchase had no fixed limits. As La Salle so boldly proclaimed on April 9, 1682: ... do now take . . . possession of this country of Louisiana, seas, harbors, ports, bays, adjacent straits, and all nations, people, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries, streams and rivers, comprised in extent of said Louisiana . . . along River Colbert, or Mississippi, and rivers which discharge themselves thereinto.1 The operative words in this claim were the rivers which discharge themselves thereinto. While western watershed was an unknown entity in 1682, sources for three main rivers in that portion of Louisiana under French control in 1803, Missouri, Arkansas, and Red, could be determined. La Salle clearly intended establish French control over everyone and everything of value in Mississippi River drainage basin, but from a legal standpoint his claim had limits. The purchase was a different matter. What United States purchased in 1803 was not spelled out in treaty. Despite over a hundred years of exploration, neither Europeans nor Anglo Americans yet knew scope of Louisiana Territory. On subject of boundaries, French foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand remarked American negotiators James Monroe and Robert Livingston, I suppose you will make most of it.2 The subsequent history of purchase did indeed involve United States's efforts to make most of it. How did Arkansas fit into those plans? In first two decades of nineteenth century, Spain crimped American claim Louisiana-as it had crimped France's claim through first half of preceding century. Following La Salle's disastrous second voyage, France moved away from Cavalier's dream of a chain of trading posts along interior river systems and turned instead a strategy of fortifying coastal waterways along Gulf of Mexico. From Biloxi Bay in 1699, Mobile Bay in 1702, and finally New Orleans in 1718, French built a string of strategic posts that permitted them control Mississippi River Valley from its perimeter. This strategy allowed them use a minimal number of settlers and avoid risk of erecting isolated interior forts, which would be vulnerable Indian and British attack. …