Chapter XII: On the Limits of Louisiana

Hernando de Soto discovers the Mississippi, in 1542.--British
Discoveries in 1654 and 1670.--French Expeditions.--De la Salle, in
1682.--Settlement in the Bay of St. Bernard, in 1685.--D'Iberville, in
1698.--Charter of Louis XIV. to Crozat, in 1712.--The Illinois
annexed, in 1717, in the Grant to Law's Mississippi Company.--The
Treaty of Paris, in 1763.--Secret Treaty between France and
Spain.--Louisiana ceded to Spain, in 1769.--Retroceded to France, in
1800, by the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso.--Transferred by Purchase
to the United States, in 1803.--Discussions with Spain as to the
Boundaries of Louisiana.--Grants by Charter only valid against other
Nations upon Principles recognised by the Law of Nations.--Western
Boundaries of Louisiana.--Evidence of Charters against the
Grantors.--Conflict of Titles between France and England on the Ohio,
between France and Spain on the Missouri.--Title of Great Britain by
Treaties.--Extent of New France westwardly.--Escarbot's Histoire de la
Nouvelle France.--Map of 1757.--Jefferys' History of the French
Dominions in America.--Questionable Authority of Maps.

The Spaniards are entitled to claim for their countryman Hernando de Soto and his followers the merit of having first discovered the River Mississippi. About the same time that Vasquez de Coronado was despatched to explore the district which is supposed to correspond to the modern province of Sonora, in search of the great city of Cibola and the rich country of Quivira, the Viceroy Mendoza granted a commission to Soto for the discovery of Florida, which at that time was the general name for the countries on the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico. According to the Spanish accounts, Soto and his followers succeeded, in 1542, in marching across the continent from Apalache, to the great river (Mississippi,) and thence penetrated as far west as the Rio Negro. Soto himself, however, died at Guachoya, and his companions, having committed the body of their leader in a hollow tree to the river, descended the Mississippi in boats, and after a series of conflicts with the natives, succeeded in reaching the Mexican Gulf, under the guidance of Luis de Moscoso and Juan de Anasco. Thence they continued their voyage westward along the coast until they arrived at Panuco, which was the northernmost part of New Spain, being within a few miles of the sea, a little higher up the river than the modern Tampico. (Herrera, Decade iv., ch. vii. and x., British and Foreign State Papers, 1817-18, p. 427.)

The Spaniards, however, do not appear to have availed themselves of this discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi for the purpose of settlement. On the other hand, the northern branches of the river appear to have been first explored by subjects of other powers than Spain, in the latter portion of the seventeenth century. Mr. Greenhow (p. 277) has inserted an extract from Jefferys' History of the French Dominions in America, published in 1754, to the effect that "the Mississippi, the chief of all the rivers of Louisiana, which it divides almost into two equal parts, was discovered by Colonel Wood, who spent almost ten years, or from 1654 to 1664, in searching its source, as also by Captain Bolt, in 1670." No further particulars are given by Jefferys, but it may be observed that both the above persons were British subjects.

In the year 1678, the French Government determined upon an expedition to explore the western parts of New France, and to discover, if possible, a road to penetrate to the Spanish possessions in Mexico. In consequence, Louis XIV. issued letters patent to the Sieur de la Salle, to authorise him to execute this enterprise, which he commenced towards the end of the following year. It was not, however, till February 1682, that he reached the river Colbert or Mississippi, by following the course of the Illinois River. His voyage down the Mississippi was accomplished by the 7th of April following, and on the 9th, La Salle took formal possession, in the name of the French monarch, "of the country of Louisiana, from the mouth of the great river St. Louis, otherwise called Ohio, on the eastern side, and also above the River Colbert or Mississippi, and the rivers which discharge themselves into it, from its source in the country of the Kious or Nadiouessious, as far as its mouth at the sea, or Gulf of Mexico;" and "upon the assurance which they had received from all the natives through whose country they had passed, that they were the first Europeans who had descended or ascended the said river Colbert, they hereby protested against all those who may in future undertake to invade any or all of these countries, people, or lands above described, to the prejudice of the right of his Majesty, acquired by the consent of the nations herein named."

The proces-verbal drawn up on this occasion, of which the above is an extract, which is preserved in the archives of the Department of the Marine at Paris, was first published by Mr. Jared Sparks of Boston, the well-known author of the Life of Washington, and may be found most readily in Mr. Falconer's able treatise on the discovery of the Mississippi. La Salle, on his return to France, obtained authority to form a colony near the mouth of the Mississippi, but in his voyage outwards he miscalculated his course, and reached the coast far to the westward of that river. Here indeed, in 1685, he established a settlement in the Bay of St. Bernard, called by him the Bay of St. Louis, which is supposed by some to have been Matagorda Bay, by others to have been the Bay of Espiritu Santo. This colony met with great disasters; but the French Government did not abandon its object, and in 1698 we find that the illustrious Canadian d'Iberville entered the Mississippi, and established a settlement at about one hundred leagues from its mouth. Before 1710, many French settlements had been made on the banks of the great river, but it was not until 1712 that a royal charter was granted by the French King to Antoine Crozat, which is the earliest document relied upon to establish the limits of Louisiana, and which Mr. Greenhow has inserted in his work, (p. 277.)

"Nous avons par ces presentes, signes de notre main, etabli, et etablissons ledit Sieur Crozat, pour faire seul le commerce dans toutes les terres par nous possedees, et bornees par le Nouveau Mexique, et par celles des Anglais de la Caroline, tous les etablissemens, forts, havres, rivieres, et principalement le port et havre de l'isle Dauphine, appellee autrefois de Massacre, le fleuve St. Louis, autrefois appellee Mississippy, depuis le bord de la mer jusqu'aux Illinois, ensemble les rivieres St. Philippe, autrefois appellee des Missourys, et St. Hierosme, autrefois appellee Ouabache, avec tous les pays, contrees, lacs dans les terres, et les rivieres qui tombent directement ou indirectement dans cette partie du fleuve St. Louis. Voulons que les dites terres, contrees, fleuves, rivieres et isles, soient et demeurent compris sous le nom du gouvernement de la Louisiane, qui sera dependant du gouvernement general de la Nouvelle France, auquel il demeurera subordonne; et voulons en outre que _toutes les terres que nous possedons, depuis les Illinois, soient reunis_, en tant que besoin est, _au gouvernement general de la Nouvelle France_, et en fassent partie: nous reservant neanmoins d'augmenter, si nous le jugeons a-propos, l'etendue du gouvernement du _dit pays de Louisiane_."

Louisiana, it will be thus seen, according to this authoritative document of the French crown, was the country watered by the Mississippi, and its tributary streams from the sea-shore to the Illinois: such was the limitation affixed to the province by the French themselves; and, by the same public instrument, all the rest of the French possessions were united under the government of New France. It is true that the Illinois was subsequently annexed to Louisiana by a royal decree in 1717, after Crozat had relinquished his charter, and the whole region was granted to Law's Mississippi Company; but the Illinois were still spoken of as the Illinois, and the district was not merged in Louisiana, though it was annexed to that province, to give the company access to Canada, in which the monopoly of the beaver-trade had been granted to them. It has been already observed, that the limits of the Hudson's Bay territories and French Canada were settled by the peace of Utrecht, in 1713: one great object of that treaty was to provide against the commercial disputes of the subjects of the two crowns, which had led to a series of conflicts on the shores of Hudson's Bay; it was in furtherance of this object that the fur-trade of Canada was now diverted from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi, by this grant of the monopoly of the beaver-trade to the Compagnie d'Occident, and the annexation of the Illinois country to Louisiana.

Upon the surrender of Canada to the British arms, considerable discussion arose as to the respective limits of the provinces of Canada and Louisiana. The British Government insisted, as already stated, p. 150, on a line which would take in the river Ouabache, as far as its junction with the Ohio; and from thence along the Ohio to the Mississippi, the country to the south of the Ohio being at this time either British possessions, as part of Virginia, or occupied by Indian tribes. In the course of these negotiations, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, who signed the surrender, published his own account of what passed between Sir J. Amherst and himself, of which he considered the English account to be incorrect. "On the officer showing me a map which he had in his hand, I told him the limits were not just, and verbally mentioned others, extending Louisiana on one side to the carrying-place of the Miamis, _which is the height of the lands whose rivers run in the Ouabache_; and on the other to _the head of the river of the Illinois_." [Annual Register, 1761, p. 268.] Even thus, then, all to the north of the Illinois was admitted to be Canada. However, the French Government, in its memorial of the 9th September, 1761, "agreed to cede Canada in the most ample manner, and to admit the line on which England rested her demand, as, without doubt, the most extensive bound which can be given to the cession." In accordance with this we find that, by the seventh article of the Treaty of Paris, the French possessions were declared to be thenceforth limited by the mid-channel of the Mississippi, from its source to the River Iberville.

The Treaty of Paris, however, has not furnished the only occasion upon which intricate discussions have arisen respecting the limits of Louisiana. By a secret treaty with Spain, made in 1762, but not signed till 1764, France ceded to her all the country known under the name of Louisiana. This transfer, however, was not promulgated till 1765, two years after the Treaty of Paris had been signed by France, Spain, and Great Britain; nor did the Spaniards obtain possession of the country till 1769. From that time Spain retained it till 1800, when she retroceded it to France by the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso, in exchange for an augmentation of the territories of the Duke of Parma in Italy. France, having thus been reinstated in possession of her ancient province, found she had unexpectedly given alarm and umbrage to the United States of America, and, in order to detach them from their disposition to unite with Great Britain, ceded it in full to the United States, in 1803, for the sum of sixty thousand francs. This led to a protracted negotiation between the United States and Spain, as to the limits of Louisiana, on the side both of Florida and Mexico respectively; which, though commenced in 1805, was not concluded till 1818. The claims of the two states are discussed in full, in a correspondence which may be found in the British and Foreign State Papers for 1817-18, and 1819-20.

The United States, in the course of these discussions, insisted upon the limits marked out in the letters patent which Louis XIV. had granted to Crozat, _on the authority of the discovery made, and of the possession taken_, by Father Hennepin in 1680, and by La Salle in 1682. Thus the validity of the title conveyed by the letters patent was sought to be grounded by the United States upon principles recognised by the law of nations. Charters, by their own intrinsic force, can only bind those who are subject to the authority from which they emanate: against the subjects of other states they can only avail on the supposition that the title of the grantor is valid by the law of nations. Thus the charter given by Charles II. to the Hudson's Bay Company, granted to them, _by virtue of the discoveries_ made in those parts, all the lands, &c., within the entrance of the straits commonly called Hudson's Straits, "which _are not now actually possessed_ by any of our subjects, or _by the subjects of any other Christian Prince or State_;" and thus we find in the negotiations antecedent to the Treaty of Utrecht, it was expressly urged in support of the British title to the territories of Hudson's Bay, "that Mons. Frontenac, then Governor of Canada, did not complain of any pretended injury done to France by the said Company's settling a trade and building of forts at the bottom of Hudson's Bay, nor made pretensions to any right of France to that bay, till long after that time." [Anderson's History of Commerce, A. D. 1670, vol. ii., p. 516.] In other words, the title which this charter created was good against other subjects of the British Crown, by virtue of the charter itself; but its validity against other nations rested on the principle that the country was discovered by British subjects, and, at the time of their settlement, was not occupied by the subjects of any other Christian prince or state; and in respect to any special claim on the part of France, the non-interference of the French governor was successfully urged against that Power as conclusive of her acquiescence.

That the province of Louisiana did not at any time extend _further north_ than the source of the Mississippi, either if we regard the evidence of public instruments in the form of charters and treaties, or of historical facts, is most assuredly beyond the reach of argument. What, however, were the _western_ limits of the province, has not been so authoritatively determined. Mr. Greenhow, (p. 283,) after examining this question, concludes thus:--"In the absence of more direct light on the subject from history, we are forced to regard the boundaries indicated by nature--namely, the highlands separating the waters of the Mississippi from those flowing into the Pacific or Californian gulf--as the _true western boundaries_ of the Louisiana ceded by France to Spain in 1762, and retroceded to France in 1800, and transferred to the United States by France in 1803: but then it must also be admitted, for the same as well as for another and stronger reason, that the British possessions further north were bounded on the coast by the same chain of highlands; for the charter of the Hudson's Bay Company, on which the right to those possessions was founded and maintained, expressly included only the countries traversed by the streams emptying themselves into Hudson's Bay."

Charters may certainly be appealed to as evidence against the parties which have granted them, that on their own admission they do not extend their claim beyond the limits of them, and Mr. Greenhow is perfectly justified in confining the limits of Rupert's Land, for such seems to have been the name recognised in the charter, to the plantation in Hudson's Bay, and the countries traversed by the streams emptying themselves into the Bay; but the right to those possessions, as against France, was not founded upon the charter, but generally upon recognised principles of international law, and especially upon the Treaty of Utrecht. So in respect to the northern limit of Louisiana, Crozat's grant, or the grant to Law's Mississippi Company, might be alleged against France, to show that its limits did not extend further north, on the right bank of the Mississippi, than the Illinois. On the other hand, the Treaty of Paris might be appealed to, in order to show against Great Britain, that it did extend on the right bank of the Mississippi as far north as the sources of that river. Again, in respect to the western boundary of Louisiana, Crozat's grant might be cited against France, to show that the province of Louisiana did not extend further westward than the confines of New Mexico. What, however, was the boundary of New Mexico, does not seem to have been determined by any treaty between France and Spain. France seems, indeed, from the words of Crozat's grant, to have considered herself exclusively entitled to the Missouri river on the right bank, and to the Ohio on the left. The claims, however, of Great Britain, clashed with her on the banks of the Ohio, as remarked by Mr. Calhoun in his letter to Mr. Packenham of Sept. 3, 1844. In an analogous manner the Spanish title conflicted with the French title on the banks of the Missouri; for we find that, in the negotiations antecedent to the Treaty of Washington, in 1819, the Spanish commissioner maintained, that after Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, was built, Spain considered all the territory lying to the east and north of New Mexico, so far as the Mississippi and Missouri, to be her property. [British and Foreign State Papers, 1817-18, p. 438.] The United States, indeed, on succeeding to the French title, declined to admit that the Spanish frontier ever extended so far to the north-east as was alleged; on the other hand, the letter of President Jefferson, of August 1803, shows that they considered their own claims to be limited by "the high lands on the western side of the Mississippi, enclosing all its waters, [the Missouri of course."]

By the Treaty of Utrecht, the British possessions to the north-west of Canada were acknowledged to extend to the head-waters of the rivers emptying themselves into the bay of Hudson: by the Treaty of Paris, they were united to the British possessions on the Atlantic by the cession of Canada and all her dependencies; and France contracted her dominions within the right bank of the Mississippi. That France did not retain any territory after this treaty to the north-west of the sources of the Mississippi, will be obvious, when it is kept in mind that the sources of the Mississippi are in 47 deg. 35', whilst the sources of the Red River, which flows through Lake Winnipeg, and ultimately finds its way by the Nelson River into the bay of Hudson, are in Lake Travers, in about 45 deg. 40'.

Some writers are disposed to consider that the limits of New France extended westwardly across the entire continent to the Pacific Ocean, but no authoritative document has been cited to show that the French Crown ever claimed such an extent of unknown territory, or that its claim was ever admitted. Escarbot's description, in 1617, of New France, which, however, is of no authority, embraces within its limits almost the entire continent of North America, as may be seen from the extract from his "Histoire de la Nouvelle France," which M. Duflot de Mofras gives: "Ainsi nostre Nouvelle France a pour limites du cote d'ouest les terres jusqu'a la mer dite Pacifique en deca du tropique du Cancer; au midi, les cotes de la mer Atlantique du cote de Cube et de l'Isle Hespagnole; au levant, la mer du Nord qui baigne la Nouvelle France; et au septentrion, cette terre qui est dite inconnue, vers la mer glacee jusqu'au pole arctique."

The same author cites a map of the year 1757, as confirmatory of this view, in which a great river is exhibited in 45 deg., on the north-west coast of America, the direction of which is exactly that of the Columbia; but Mr. Greenhow, in the new edition of his work, p. 159, states, that this map was drawn and presented by the French commissaries appointed under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, to expose the extravagant pretensions of the British in North America, and that it does not contain the word _Canada_, or _Nouvelle France_, or any other sign of French dominion, the whole division of the continent, between 48 deg. and 31 deg. north latitude, being represented by strong lines and express notes, as included in the limits of the British provinces; nor does it show any large river falling into the Pacific north of the peninsula of California, nor any river entering that ocean north of 36 deg. A map perhaps better authenticated than this may be referred to in the History of the French Dominions in America, by Jefferys, the geographer to the King of England, in 1760, which does not, indeed, extend New France to the Pacific: on the contrary, whilst it exhibits the River of the West flowing in a course not unlike that of the Columbia, it does not include the Pacific Ocean at all in its limits, but leaves the west coast of the continent in its real obscurity.

Maps, however, are but pictorial representations of supposed territorial limits, the evidence of which must be sought for elsewhere. There may be cases, it is true, where maps may be evidence; when, for instance, it has been specially provided that a particular map, such as Melish's Map of North America, shall be the basis of a convention: but it is to be regretted that maps of unsurveyed districts should ever have been introduced into diplomatic discussions, where limits conformable to convenient physical outlines, such as headlands or water-courses, are really sought for, and are understood to be the subject of negotiation. The pictorial features of a country, which, in such cases, have been frequently assumed as the basis of the negotiation, have not unusually caused greater embarrassment to both the parties in the subsequent attempt to reconcile them with the natural features, than the original question in dispute, to which they were supposed to have furnished a solution. That the name of Nouvelle France should have been applied by French authors and in French maps to the country as far as the shores of the Pacific Ocean, was as much to be expected as that the name of California should have been extended by the Spaniards to the entire north-west coast of America, which we know to have been the fact, from the negotiations in the Nootka Sound controversy.