United States or Kiribati ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It will be remembered that by the treaties which closed the Revolutionary War the provinces of East and West Florida were ceded by England to Spain. West Florida was the region lying between the Appalachicola and the Mississippi rivers, including the southernmost portions of the present states of Alabama and Mississippi.
I will therefore give it as my opinion that your army and Canby's should be reinforced to the maximum; that, after you get Wilmington, you should strike for Savannah and its river; that General Canby should hold the Mississippi River, and send a force to take Columbus, Georgia, either by way of the Alabama or Appalachicola River; that I should keep Hood employed and put my army in fine order for a march on Augusta, Columbia, and Charleston; and start as soon as Wilmington is sealed to commerce, and the city of Savannah is in our possession.
If you will secure Wilmington and the city of Savannah from your centre, and let General Canby leave command over the Mississippi River and country west of it, I will send a force to the Alabama and Appalachicola, provided you give me one hundred thousand of the drafted men to fill up my old regiments; and if you will fix a day to be in Savannah, I will insure our possession of Macon and a point on the river below Augusta.
A fort then built by the English on the Appalachicola and left intact at the peace with some arms and ammunition, had been occupied by the negroes, who, from this retreat, menaced the peace beyond the line. Spain could not preserve law and order here. This was perhaps a sufficient excuse for the act of General Gaines in crossing into Florida and bombarding the negro fort, July 27, 1816.
Marys River, and including the same, with a view to ascertain the most eligible route for a canal admitting the transit of boats to connect the Atlantic with the Gulf of Mexico, and also with a view to ascertain the practicability of a ship channel; that he cause particularly to be examined the route to the Appalachicola River or Bay, with a view to both the above objects; that he cause the necessary surveys, both by land and along the coast, with estimates of the expense of each, accompanied with proper plans, notes, observations, explanations, and opinions of the Board of Engineers, and that he cause a full report of these proceedings to be made to Congress.
The interior boundaries of the English colonies were now defined by proclamations and instructions from Great Britain. A colony of Canada was established which included all the French settlements near the St. Lawrence. Cape Breton was joined to Nova Scotia. On the south Georgia was extended to the St. Mary's River. Florida was divided into two provinces by the Appalachicola.
Our map showed that these two united and flowed together into Appalachicola Bay, where, some of us remembered, a newspaper item had said that we had gunboats stationed. The creek that ran through the stockade flowed to the east, and we reasoned that if we followed its course we would be led to the Flint, down which we could float on a log or raft to the Appalachicola.
On board of her were at least ten men, as the quartermaster counted them, and there might have been more in her cuddy under the hail-deck forward. "Boat, ahoy!" shouted a man on the forecastle of the sloop. "On board the sloop!" replied Mr. Pennant, standing up in the stern sheets. "What sloop is that?" "The Magnolia, bound to Appalachicola," replied the spokesman of the craft.
Madison wrote at once that in view of these developments no proposal to exchange Louisiana for the Floridas should be entertained; the President declared himself satisfied that "our right to the Perdido is substantial and can be opposed by a quibble on form only"; and John Randolph, duly coached by the Administration, flatly declared in the House of Representatives that "We have not only obtained the command of the mouth of the Mississippi, but of the Mobile, with its widely extended branches; and there is not now a single stream of note rising within the United States and falling into the Gulf of Mexico which is not entirely our own, the Appalachicola excepted."
A similar case was that of John Walker, an Appalachicola chief, who wrote to Thompson under date July 28, 1835: "I am induced to write you in consequence of the depredations making and attempted to be made upon my property, by a company of Negro stealers, some of whom are from Columbus, Ga., and have connected themselves with Brown and Douglass.... I should like your advice how I am to act.