The Chickasaws were nearly drawn into a war with the Spaniards, who were intensely irritated over their antagonism to the Creeks, for which the Spaniards insisted that the Americans were responsible. [Footnote: American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I., p. 305, etc.] The Americans, however, were able to prove conclusively that the struggle was due, not to their advice, but to the outrages of marauders from the villages of the Muscogee confederacy. They showed by the letter of the Chickasaw chief, James Colbert, that the Creeks had themselves begun hostilities early in 1792 by killing a Chickasaw, and that the Chickasaws, because of this spilling of blood, made war on the Creeks, and sent word to the Americans to join in the war. The letter ran: "I hope you will exert yourselves and join us so that we might give the lads a Drubbeen for they have encroached on us this great while not us alone you likewise for you have suffered a good dale by them I hope you will think of your wounds." [Footnote: Blount MSS., James Colbert to Robertson, Feb. 10, 1792.] The Americans had "thought of their wounds" and had aided the Chickasaws in every way, as was proper; but the original aggressors were the Creeks. The Chickasaws had entered into what was a mere war of retaliation; though when once in they had fought hard, under the lead of Opiamingo, their most noted war chief, who was always friendly to the Americans and hostile to the Spaniards.
The Situation at Natchez.
At the Chickasaw Bluffs, and at Natchez, there was always danger of a clash; for at these places the Spanish soldiers were in direct contact with the foremost of the restless backwoods host, and with the Indians who were most friendly or hostile to them. Open collision was averted, but the Spaniards were kept uneasy and alert. There were plenty of American settlers around Natchez, who were naturally friendly to the American Government; and an agent from the State of Georgia, to the horror of the Spaniards, came out to the country with the especial purpose of looking over the Yazoo lands, at the time when Georgia was about to grant them to the various land companies. What with the land speculators, the frontiersmen, and the Federal troops, the situation grew steadily more harassing for the Spaniards; and Carondolet kept the advisors of the Spanish Crown well informed of the growing stress.
The Separatists Play into the Hands of the Spaniards.
The Spanish Government knew it would be beaten if the issue once came to open war, and, true to the instincts of a weak and corrupt power, it chose as its weapons delay, treachery, and intrigue. To individual Americans the Spaniards often behaved with arrogance and brutality; but they feared to give too serious offence to the American people as a whole. Like all other enemies of the American Republic, from the days of the Revolution to those of the Civil War, they saw clearly that their best allies were the separatists, the disunionists, and they sought to encourage in every way the party which, in a spirit of sectionalism, wished to bring about a secession of one part of the country and the erection of a separate government. The secessionists then, as always, played into the hands of the men who wished the new republic ill. In the last decade of the eighteenth century the acute friction was not between North and South, but between East and West. The men who, from various motives, wished to see a new republic created, hoped that this republic would take in all the people of the western waters. These men never actually succeeded in carrying the West with them. At the pinch the majority of the Westerners remained loyal to the idea of national unity; but there was a very strong separatist party, and there were very many men who, though not separatists, were disposed to grumble loudly about the shortcomings of the Federal government.
Their Influence in Kentucky.
Their Fatuity.
These men were especially numerous and powerful in Kentucky, and they had as their organ the sole newspaper of the State, the Kentucky Gazette. It was filled with fierce attacks, not only upon the General Government, but upon Washington himself. Sometimes these attacks were made on the authority of the Gazette; at other times they appeared in the form of letters from outsiders, or of resolutions by the various Democratic societies and political clubs. They were written with a violence which, in striving after forcefulness, became feeble. They described the people of Kentucky as having been "degraded and insulted," and as having borne these insults with "submissive patience." The writers insisted that Kentucky had nothing to hope from the Federal Government, and that it was nonsense to chatter about the infraction of treaties, for it was necessary, at any cost, to take Louisiana, which was "groaning under tyranny." They threatened the United States with what the Kentuckians would do if their wishes were not granted, announcing that they would make the conquest of Louisiana an ultimatum, and warning the Government that they owed no eternal allegiance to it and might have to separate, and that if they did there would be small reason to deplore the separation. The separatist agitators failed to see that they could obtain the objects they sought, the opening of the Mississippi and the acquisition of Louisiana, only through the Federal Government, and only by giving that Government full powers. Standing alone the Kentuckians would have been laughed to scorn not only by England and France, but even by Spain. Yet with silly fatuity they vigorously opposed every effort to make the Government stronger or to increase national feeling, railing even at the attempt to erect a great Federal city as "unwise, impolitic, unjust," and "a monument to American folly." [Footnote: Kentucky Gazette, Feb. 8, 1794; Sept. 16, 1797, etc., etc.] The men who wrote these articles, and the leaders of the societies and clubs which inspired them, certainly made a pitiable showing; they proved that they themselves were only learning, and had not yet completely mastered, the difficult art of self government.
Negotiations of the Spanish and American Governments.
Wilkinson's Ineffectual Treason.
It was the existence of these Western separatists, nominally the fiercest foes of Spain, that in reality gave Spain the one real hope of staying the western advance. In 1794 the American agents in Spain were carrying on an interminable correspondence with the Spanish Court in the effort to come to some understanding about the boundaries. [Footnote: American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I., p. 443, etc.; letters of Carmichael and Short to Gardoqui, Oct. 1, 1793; to Alcudia, Jan. 7, 1794, etc., etc.] The Spanish authorities were solemnly corresponding with the American envoys, as if they meant peace; yet at the same time they had authorized Carondelet to do his best to treat directly with the American States of the West so as to bring about their separation from the Union. In 1794 Wilkinson, who was quite incapable of understanding that his infamy was heightened by the fact that he wore the uniform of a Brigadier General of the United States, entered into negotiations for a treaty, the base of which should be the separation of the Western States from the Atlantic States. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Alcudia, July 30, 1794.] He had sent two confidential envoys to Carondelet. Carondelet jumped at the chance of once more trying to separate the west from the east; and under Wilkinson's directions he renewed his efforts to try by purchase and pension to attach some of the leading Kentuckians to Spain. As a beginning he decided to grant Wilkinson's request and send him twelve thousand dollars for himself. [Footnote: Do., De Lemos to Alcudia, Sept. 19, 1794.] De Lemos was sent to New Madrid in October to begin the direct negotiations with Wilkinson and his allies. The funds to further the treasonable conspiracy were also forwarded, as the need arose.
Failure of the American Government to Act with Proper Decision.