by H. W. Brands
The Fort Jackson treaty was a gamble: that the Creeks would be more influenced by American threats than by British promises. The gamble paid off with most of the Creeks, who bitterly but nonviolently acquiesced to Jackson’s dictation. Yet a minority did just the opposite, with the encouragement of the British. “The Creeks were depressed in spirit beyond all example,” Jackson learned from an informant on the lower Mobile River. “They were about to give themselves up, when a runner came from the Apalachicola”—in Florida—“to Pensacola to inform them of the arrival of supplies from the British. They then became in a moment as insolent as they had been before submissive. Instead of surrendering, a party of twenty-five started out to collect cattle in the settlements east of Mobile river and bay.”
Jackson took this challenge as an opportunity. He relayed the intelligence to the War Department in Washington, with a request for permission to clear up the problem. “Will the government say to me: Require a few hundred militia (which can be had for the campaign at one day’s notice) and with such of my disposable force of regulars proceed to——— and reduce it. If so, I promise the war in the South has a speedy termination and British influence forever cut off from the Indians in that quarter.”
The government wasn’t ready to give Jackson such carte blanche or to fill in the blank with a specific reference. Washington was used to alarmist tales from the West, and officials of the Madison administration suspected similar embroidery here. Moreover, Jackson was talking about invading Spanish territory, and Madison, having trouble enough with Britain, had no desire to double his enemies. He ordered Jackson to gather additional intelligence and keep his powder dry but to stay clear of Spanish soil.
What constituted Spanish soil in the vicinity of Florida was a debated issue in 1814. The United States government in 1810 had unilaterally enforced its interpretation of the Louisiana Purchase—that Louisiana included the left bank of the Mississippi to the mouth of the river and stretched east almost to Pensacola—by occupying that district, including Mobile. The Spanish government accepted neither the interpretation nor the occupation but, lacking the troops to prevent the latter, was compelled to suffer the former. Spain did, however, garrison Pensacola, about sixty miles east of Mobile.
Jackson had his own interpretation of who ought to govern Florida, and it didn’t include Spain. Without explicitly violating Madison’s orders—yet—he launched a psychological offensive against the Spanish force at Pensacola. He traveled to Mobile and from there addressed a stream of messages to the commandant of the Pensacola garrison, Mateo González Manrique, that were at first direct, then presumptuous, and finally belligerent. “I am informed that the enemies of the United States, who have been murdering our unoffending women and children, have sought and obtained asylum from justice within the territory of Spain,” Jackson said, regarding some Creek warriors still at large. “Information has also been received that permission was given to our open enemy, an officer commanding his Britannic majesty’s frigate the Orpheus, to land within the territory of Spain 25,000 stand of arms with 300 barrels of ammunition, for the avowed purpose of enabling the vanquished Creeks to renew a sanguinary war with the United States.” Jackson said he hoped these reports were unfounded. But he wanted González to know that he was monitoring the situation and would expect Spanish cooperation in tracking down the hostile Indians and preventing the British from violating Spain’s neutrality.
González responded as Jackson doubtless expected and desired. He called the letter “impertinent” and “an insult.” Jackson’s courier, John Gordon, reported that González said “the Spaniards would die before they would comply with such a demand.” Gordon added that rumors were circulating in Pensacola that Spain was about to declare war on the United States. Whether González had inspired the rumors, Gordon couldn’t tell.
Jackson would have been happy for war against Spain, but he doubted things would come to that. “Whatever may be the wishes of the Spanish government,” he remarked to a fellow American officer, “her weak and exhausted situation at present will prevent her from making war upon us. . . . She is too sensible of her own situation not to know that a declaration of war would deprive her of all her territory in North and South America as far as the isthmus of Darien. . . . The rumor of a declaration of war against us is unfounded.”
James Madison wasn’t so sure, which was why the War Department tried to calm Jackson down. James Monroe, who assumed direction of the department upon the retirement of John Armstrong, delivered a direct order to Jackson: “Take no measures which would involve this Government in a contest with Spain.” Monroe didn’t want to offend Jackson, so he assured him that President Madison approved the “manly tone” with which the general had asserted America’s rights in Florida. But assertions were as far as things must go. “Very important interests are committed to you, and great confidence is entertained that you will meet the expectations of the Government in the discharge of your duties.”
Conveniently for Jackson, orders from Washington required a month or more to reach Mobile. In the interim he felt free to conduct policy on his own, in particular to harass Commandant González. Spain, he told the Spanish officer, while professedly neutral in the conflict between the United States and Britain, had opened its arms to a “murderous, barbarous, rebellious banditti” who had massacred innocent American women and children. Spain’s monarch called himself “his Catholic majesty,” prompting Jackson to sneer that “our Christianity would blush” at harboring such criminals as Florida sheltered. If Spain wished to be treated as a neutral, it must act accordingly. “She must assume the neutral character she is bound to the United States for, and restrain the tomahawk and scalping knife, or the head which excites their use shall feel the sharpness of their edge.” Should the United States have to chastise the renegades in Florida, González could expect no mercy. “An eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, scalp for scalp.”
Jackson ensured that a copy of his letter reached Washington. When Madison read it, he doubtless wondered why he ever put this intemperate man in charge of the southern border. Jackson seemed bent on starting a war with Spain, in apparent disregard of the fact that the British threat was greater than ever. Madison must have asked himself who was more dangerous: the British or Jackson.
Yet Jackson knew what he was about. He insisted on provoking the Spanish—and the administration—precisely because he appreciated the British threat. “I received this evening at 5 o’clock from Pensacola the following information . . . ,” he wrote to his adjutant, Robert Butler, “that his British Majesty’s ships Hermes, Carron, and Sophie has arrived at Pensacola on the 5th instant, with 200 land forces and large supplies of arms, ordnance, and ordnance stores. . . . The Orpheus is expected in a few days with 14 sail of the line and many transports with 10,000 troops. It is further added that 14 sail of the line and transports has arrived at Bermuda, with 25,000 of Lord Wellington’s army, etc., etc. Before one month the British and Spanish forces expect to be in possession of Mobile and all the surrounding country.”
Jackson may have known that this report was exaggerated and premature. Butler was in Tennessee (trying mutiny cases from the Creek campaign), and Jackson hoped to scare Governor Blount into sending as many troops as possible south. But the British threat was real and grave.
Jackson showed his characteristic energy in preparing to meet it. “There will be bloody noses before this happens,” he told Butler regarding a British attempt on Mobile. Jackson said he had ordered Indian agents to enlist every warrior willing to take the field on the American side, and put them on the army’s payroll. He had called out every militiaman he was authorized to summon. The danger justified these actions and more. “We have to defend not only our territory but our liberties. . . . The whole combined coalition”—of British, Spanish, and hostile Indians—“are engaged in a league to subjugate America.” Jackson would counter the threat, even if he had to exceed orders from Washington. “I mean to make a desperate struggle
.”
The struggle would start in Florida. Jackson understood that the prize of the Southwest was New Orleans, with its control of the Mississippi. He intended to fall back to that city, but before he did, he needed to secure Florida, lest the British gain a foothold from which they could launch a flanking maneuver against the Louisiana capital. Securing Florida was the aim of his psychological offensive against González. Jackson was fairly certain the Spanish wouldn’t risk a war with the United States over Florida. Spain had far larger problems in the Americas; during the last few years nationalist movements in several colonies had raised the banner of revolt against Spanish authority. If the Spanish were foolish enough to add the United States to their enemies, Jackson was prepared to trounce them in Florida.
So he pressured González to the point where the Spanish commandant wouldn’t resist an American incursion into Florida. He berated González for arming Indians unfriendly to the United States. “I shall arm my Indians,” he said, by way of reply. He added that this new provocation, following Spain’s previous sins, justified America’s taking the Florida matter into its own hands. “You have thrown the gauntlet, and I will take it up.”
In September 1814 the British made a prophet of Jackson by landing a squadron of marines and allied Indians below Mobile. They attacked Fort Bowyer, which controlled the entrance to Mobile Bay, and were soon poised to overrun the post. But luckily for the small American garrison, the wind turned, preventing the British ships in the pass from bringing their guns to bear on the fort. The Americans counterattacked and eventually compelled the British to withdraw.
Jackson recognized a close call when he saw it. Though he lauded, in a letter to James Monroe, “the gallant efforts of our brave soldiers in resisting and repulsing a combined British naval and land force,” he understood that absent the most strenuous preventive measures, the outcome of a future British attack might not be so favorable.
The very next day Jackson received additional cause for alarm. A letter from New Orleans, from that city’s “committee of safety,” bewailed the parlous condition of security along the lower Mississippi. “This country is strong by nature but extremely weak from the nature of its population,” the committee explained. The weakness resulted primarily from the large proportion of blacks, the committee said, noting that blacks outnumbered whites in Louisiana’s plantation districts by as many as twenty-five to one. “The maintenance of domestic tranquility in this part of the state obviously forbids a call on any of the white inhabitants to the defense of the frontier.” Indeed, additional white forces were required simply to keep the blacks in line, as the enemy had been trying to foment a slave insurrection. The local militia was poorly trained and badly armed, and the heterogeneous population of the city—which included many French and Spanish nationals, besides the blacks—rendered the militia unreliable. Only Jackson could save New Orleans and Louisiana. “We look to the forces under your command altogether for external defence and in a great measure for domestic tranquility.” If the general would honor the city with a visit, this alone would go far toward improving the situation. “The good people of this state would be encouraged by your presence, the emissaries of the enemy and the partisans of foreign powers would dread the scrutiny of your intelligence, and the reputation which your talents have so justly acquired would inspire all with that confidence which we individually feel.”
Jackson didn’t like the tone of this letter one bit. He would defend New Orleans, but he needed the help of the inhabitants. The committee members were telling him to do it all himself. He told them a few things in reply, starting with some stern advice to start thinking of their black neighbors as allies rather than enemies. He summoned the “free coloured inhabitants of Louisiana” to rally to the cause of American liberty. “Through a mistaken policy, my brave fellow citizens, you have hitherto been deprived of a participation in the glorious struggle for national rights in which our country is engaged. This shall no longer exist; as sons of freedom you are now called upon to defend our most estimable blessing.” He asked for black volunteers and offered inducements. “There will be paid the same bounty in money and lands now received by the white soldiers of the United States, viz. $124.00 in cash and 160 acres of land. The non-commissioned officers and privates will also be entitled to the same monthly pay.” The black troops would select their own noncommissioned officers. “Due regard will be paid to the feelings of freemen and soldiers. You will not, by being associated with other men in the same corps, be exposed to improper comparisons or unjust sarcasm. As a distinct, independent battalion or regiment, pursuing the path of glory, you will undivided receive the applause, reward, and gratitude of your countrymen.”
From the white response to Jackson’s call for black troops, a naive observer might have thought he had advocated revolution. The planters who dominated Louisiana politics were aghast at the very thought of giving weapons to blacks. “They think that in putting arms into the hands of men of colour, we only add to the force of the enemy,” Governor Claiborne told Jackson, explaining why he had declined to publish Jackson’s call for black volunteers. Claiborne stressed to Jackson that he himself didn’t share these retrograde ideas. He agreed that free blacks might be necessary to the defense of the state. But the suspicions and fears among the whites were real and had to be taken into account. Claiborne said he had spoken just the day before with two members of the committee of safety and had pointed out that the black troops would be under federal control and might at some point be transferred out of state. “They, however, seemed to think that the measure was only advisable provided there could be a guaranty against the return of the regiment. But if, at the close of the war, the individuals were to settle in Louisiana, with a knowledge of the use of arms and that pride of distinction which a soldier’s pursuits so naturally inspires, they would prove dangerous.”
If he hadn’t realized it already, this exchange alerted Jackson that defending New Orleans would be a complicated business. And it spurred him to solve his Florida problem at once. After the British withdrew from Mobile Bay, they retired to Pensacola to repair their damaged ships and plan their next action. This made a mockery of Florida’s neutrality. “It is in every sense an enemy’s port,” Jackson told Claiborne. He intended to treat it as such. He awaited only the arrival of reinforcements under John Coffee. “I trust shortly that I will be able to drive the lion from his den, and give thereby permanent security to this section of the lower country,” he wrote Rachel. Slow-traveling news had just reached Mobile of the British destruction of Washington. The very thought made Jackson livid. It was a “disgrace to the nation,” he said. But the anger he was sure his countrymen shared could be put to use. “It will give impulse and energy to our cause.”
When Coffee reached Mobile, Jackson set out for Pensacola. He did so on his own responsibility and in direct violation of the administration’s policy of not antagonizing the Spanish. He realized that the least he could do was explain himself. “As I act without the orders of government, I deem it proper to state my reasons for it,” he wrote Monroe.
I trust, sir, that the necessity of this act to the safety of this section of the Union; the hostility of the governor of Pensacola, resigning his forts to the British commander, thus assuming the character of a British territory; his permitting them to remain there to fit out one expedition against the United States, return there and refit, now to be preparing another; added to his having acknowledged that he has armed the Indians, sent them into our territory, capturing our citizens and destroying their property, and this too under a British officer; will be a sufficient justification in the eyes of my government for having undertaken this expedition. Should it not, I shall have one consolation: a consciousness of having done the only thing which can, under present circumstances, give security to this section and put down an Indian war. And the salvation of my country will be a sufficient reward for the loss of my commission.
It was entirely like Jackson to assume he k
new better than the president and secretary of war what the defense of the nation, or at least his district, required, and to risk his career on that assumption. In any event, he appreciated the opportunity distance afforded an audacious commander. His assault on Pensacola would be a fait accompli long before Madison and Monroe even heard of it. By then he would be a hero or an insubordinate fool.
The march to Pensacola took five days. Jackson’s invasion force included army regulars, Tennessee and Mississippi militia, and a large band of Choctaws. Approaching the town on the evening of November 6, Jackson dispatched a messenger with an ultimatum for Commandant González. He listed Spain’s violations of neutrality at Pensacola and declared that these violations had prompted his incursion into Florida. “I come not as the enemy of Spain, but I come with a force sufficient to prevent the repetition of those acts so injurious to the United States and so inconsistent with the neutral character of Spain. To effect this object is my determination.” Jackson demanded possession of the fortifications of the town, with their arms. If these were handed over peaceably, he would sign a receipt his government would honor. “But if they are not delivered peaceably, let the blood of your subjects be upon your own head.” Adding an element of emotional extortion, Jackson continued: “I will not hold myself responsible for the conduct of my enraged soldiers and Indian warriors.” Jackson’s letter gave González an hour to think the matter over and reply.
By accident or design, Spanish guns fired on Jackson’s messenger, forcing him to retreat. “I am at a loss, sir, to know whether this conduct has been with an intention to insult the flag of my government, contrary to the usages of war in like cases,” Jackson wrote González in a second letter, sent with a Spanish prisoner captured on Jackson’s march to Pensacola. This time the message got through, only to be rebuffed by González himself. The Spanish commander professed puzzlement at Jackson’s reference to “usages of war.” The United States and Spain, he pointed out, were not at war. He denied Jackson’s allegations of unneutrality. He conceded that the British had operated out of the Pensacola district, but he said they did so without his permission. And he rejected Jackson’s demand to surrender the town and fortifications. “My duty does not permit me.”
