[141] First Federal Marshal in Miss. after the formation of the State.
[142] For elaborate memoir, and portrait, see Claiborne, pp. 427-446.
RUNNING MISSISSIPPI'S SOUTH LINE
PETER J. HAMILTON, ESQ.
Within a month after the 1899 meeting of this association at Natchez, the Alabama Historical Society will be celebrating at St. Stephens on the Tombigbee River the centenary of the withdrawal of the Spaniards below the line of 31°, which once separated the United States from the Spanish possessions east of the Mississippi River. In connection with this and our own meeting place a short study of the origin and delimitation of this, Mississippi's original south boundary, will be of interest.
It is an interesting question why the parallel of 31° was ever selected as a boundary. It crosses rivers not far above their mouths and seems singularly unsuitable. It makes one State own the source and another the mouth of all streams. It was put in the treaty of 1782, whereby Great Britian acknowledged American independence, for policy, because it confined the Spaniards to the coast, which they could neither use nor defend. Historically it was so selected because Great Britian had made it by proclamation of October 7, 1763, the north line of West Florida, and West Florida was captured from her by Spain in 1780. But why had it ever been made the boundary of Florida? The only reason apparent is that Great Britain in 1763 wanted to get immediate control only of the harbors and did not care to have her colonial governments clash with the Indians. The territory above was by the same proclamation made crown lands and reserved for the use of the savages. This policy was reflected in the great Choctaw treaty at Mobile March 26, 1765, when a tract was ceded "the boundary be settled by a line extended from Grosse Point, in the Island of Mount Louis, by the course of the western coast of Mobile Bay, to the mouth of the eastern branch of the Tombigbee River, and north by the course of said river, to the confluence of Alibamont and Tombigbee Rivers, and afterwards along the western bank of Alibamont River to the mouth of Chickianoce River, and from the confluence of Chickianoce and Alibamont rivers, a straight line to the confluence of Bance and Tombigbee rivers; from thence, by a line along the western bank of Bance River, till its confluence with the Tallatukpe River; from thence, by a straight line to Tombigbee River, opposite to Atchalikpe (Hatchatigbee Bluff) and from Atchalikpe, by a straight line to the most northerly part of Buckatanne River, and down the course of Buckatanne River to its confluence with the river Pascagoula, and down by the course of the river Pascagoula, within twelve leagues of the seacoast; and thence, by a due west line, as far as the Choctaw nation have right to grant." The twelve leagues from the coast bring us to about this line of 31°, as closely as could be determined without a survey. It is true that on the Tombigbee land was ceded up to Hatchatigbee Bluff; but that was a reaching, in the only way possible, towards the new north boundary of West Florida as already fixed in 1764—an east and west line drawn through the mouth of the Yazoo River.[143]
But while it is true that by the treaty of 1782 Great Britain thus acknowledged the south boundary of her revolted colonies as the line of 31°, it is not less true that she did not then own so far south. Spain, who was in possession, recognized the boundary through the Yazoo mouth, and, in fact, Great Britain in this treaty proposed to do the same thing if she re-acquired West Florida. Walnut Hills and Natchez on the Mississippi, Fort Confederation and Fort St. Stephen on the Tombigbee were strong Spanish posts and all above 31°.
The all-conquering Galvez was governor-general for a year after that treaty and would certainly have maintained the Spanish rights by force of arms if necessary. But his successor, the politic Miro, lived to see a rapid American growth west of the mountains, and the death of the active King Charles III. and the French Revolution wrought a change in Europe. The weak Charles IV. let his wife and her notorious paramour, Godoy, rule Spain.[144] It so happened that French successes led to peace, but Godoy thought that Spain would soon be at war with England and that therefore peace with the United States was important for Spanish-America. At all events he suddenly assented to the demands of Thomas Pinckney, the American envoy, and on October 27, 1795, signed a treaty whose second article declared 31° as the boundary from the Mississippi to the Chattahoochee, and thence east by a line from the junction of the Flint and Chattahoochee to the head of the St. Mary's River.
The colonial authorities could never believe this agreement bona fide and sought by delay to give the court a chance to undo the treaty. In 1797 the Spanish minister declared the United States guilty of bad faith in making friends with England by Jay's treaty. A commissioner to run the line had to be as much of a diplomat as of a surveyor.
Such, at least, was the opinion of Andrew Ellicott, whom President Washington in the last part of 1796 sent by way of the Ohio and Mississippi to act for the United States. Baron de Carondelet, the governor general, was to represent Spain. Ellicott arrived at Natchez on February 24, 1797, and until he left on April 9, 1798,[145] his time was taken up in negotiations with commandant Gayoso de Lemos or encouraging the dissatisfied citizens there to claim the rights of Americans.[146] Among the prominent men there named by Ellicott were those on the revolutionary committees,—Anthony Hutchins, Bernard Lintot, Cato West, Isaac Gaillard, William Ratliff, Joseph Bernard, Gabriel Benoist, Peter B. Bruin, Daniel Clark, Philander Smith and Roger Dixon.