A Wilderness So Immense (54 page)

In the face of Spain’s protests against Napoleon’s sale of Louisiana, neither French nor American officials could be sure that the Spanish officials in New Orleans would transfer the territory peacefully. Uncertainty heightened tensions in the city, which often flared into violent confrontations at social events, especially at dances, even after the transfer of Louisiana to the United States. To keep the peace, municipal officials enforced a strict sequence at public balls: “two rounds of French quadrilles, one round of English quadrilles … and one round of waltzes.” In his memoirs Laussat recounted an evening of threats and fisticuffs that might have been filmed at Rick’s in Casablanca. This particular fracas began when some Americans wanted to dance another English quadrille, and it ended with

Eventually the Americans arranged a “reconciliation banquet” to assuage hard feelings aroused by this skirmish in what Laussat called a “war of
esteem”—but not before the American consul, Daniel Clark, “let it be rumored around that ‘until two or three Frenchmen have been hanged, we will not rule over this country.’”
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At 11:45 on Wednesday morning, November 30, 1803, Pierre Clement Laussat set out from his house in the faubourg Marigny just outside the downriver wall of the city, accompanied on foot by a party of sixty Frenchmen. From the river, the brig Argo fired a salute as the procession moved toward the large crowd gathered at the Place d’Armes and the Cabildo. Spanish troops stood at attention on one side of the square, the colonial militia on the other, and “the drums rolled in front of the guardroom when [he] passed.”
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Pierre Clement Laussat governed Louisiana for three weeks before he signed the documents transferring the province to the United States on December 20, 1803. His departure from New Orleans was complicated by the resumption of warfare between France and Great Britain. Selling his library and its incriminating bookplates and inscriptions, Laussat slipped out of New Orleans in April 1804 using an American passport with the fictitious name Peter Lanthois. Laussat went on to serve as prefect of Martinique from 1804 to 1809 and prefect of Guiana from 1819 to 1823, when he retired to his native Pau, published his memoirs, and died in 1831.
(Courtesy Library of Virginia)

The Sala Capitular of the Cabildo, now part of the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans, was the site of the major transfer ceremonies of the Louisiana Purchase from Spain to France on November 30 and from France to the United States on December 20, 1803.
(Courtesy Louisiana State Museum)

As Laussat entered the meeting room on the second floor known as the Sala Capitular, “the commissioners of His Catholic Majesty came midway across the room to meet me.” Governor Salcedo, “an impotent old man in his dotage,” took his seat in an armchair with Laussat to his right and the marqués de Casa Calvo, “a violent man who hated the French,” to his left. Laussat presented his credentials and the order from Carlos IV authorizing the transfer of Louisiana to Napoleons representative. After Casa Calvo formally announced that any Spanish subjects who chose to stay in Louisiana were, “from that moment on, rightfully released from their oath of allegiance,” Governor Salcedo presented Laussat with a silver tray bearing the keys to Fort St. Charles and Fort St. Louis.
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Struggling to his feet, the aging governor then yielded the middle
chair to Laussat. The documents of cession were read aloud in Spanish and French. “We signed and affixed the seals,” Laussat recalled,

After escorting Salcedo and Casa Calvo to the head of the stairs—with “poor old Salcedo collapsing from decrepitude” and Casa Calvo sustaining “that calm and serene appearance which even the most second-rate politicians of his nation never lose”—Laussat descended to the Place d’Armes and addressed the militia. “In the name of the French Republic,” he intoned over the thunder of cannon salutes from the forts and the
Argo,

“The remainder of the day was one continuous holiday,” Laussat recalled, with a succession of dinners and parties, toasts and champagne, dancing and card playing that lasted through the night until seven o’clock the next morning.
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Laussat’s three weeks as prefect of Louisiana were filled with activity. His reenactment of the French Code Noir began a movement (which accelerated in the American period) toward stricter regulation of slaves and free blacks. Laussat also abolished the Spanish Cabildo, or governing council, and replaced it with a mayor and council system of municipal government—a step less significant for its impact on the machinery of municipal government than for changes in personnel, as Laussat replaced the entrenched Spanish officeholders with many Frenchmen and “some merchants, some Americans, and some experienced businessmen.” The abolition of the Cabildo delighted incoming interim governor Claiborne. The old “body was created on principles altogether incongruous with those of our Government,” Claiborne wrote, but “in their place I found a Municipality established … of approved characters, and well disposed toward the expected change of Government, and I therefore did not long hesitate to sanction the new arrangement.”
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The organization of the militia presented Laussat (as it would Claiborne) with “the thorniest article” of his short administration. Laussat supplanted the Spanish Regiment of Louisiana with independent companies of Frenchmen and Americans.
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He also provided for the preservation of public records and established a new volunteer fire company. Americans were quick to realize that Laussat’s most significant contributions to the Louisiana Purchase were his role in the peaceful transfer of the province from Spain to France and his assurance of a prompt transfer of authority to the president’s commissioners. Together these two achievements meant, as William C. C. Claiborne informed President Jefferson before leaving Fort Adams for New Orleans on December 8, “that no serious resistance would be made to the surrender of Louisiana to the U.S.”
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Back in July, Jefferson and his cabinet had decided to “get the Spanish troops off as soon as possible,” and had put William C. C. Claiborne and two companies of troops at Fort Adams on alert. Meeting again on October 4, the cabinet had unanimously determined that “forcible poss[essio]n of N[ew] Orleans [would] be taken” if the Spanish refused to surrender the territory peacefully. On Sunday, December 4, Claiborne and Wilkinson rendezvoused at Fort Adams—on the Mississippi River thirty-eight miles south of Natchez—for their descent to New Orleans. Marching with them were two hundred militia volunteers from the Mississippi Territory and the fort’s garrison of regular troops, a total “force of between 450 and 500 Men.” Claiborne was confident that a “speedy consummation of the Negociation for Louisiana [was] likely to be accomplished without the effusion of Blood, or the further expenditure of public Treasure.”
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As Claiborne and Wilkinson approached the city, Daniel Clark, the American consul, reported that everything was quiet in New Orleans. With Britain and France at war again, however, he passed along worries about a possible disruption from another quarter. On Monday, December 12, a British officer from Kingston, Jamaica, informed Clark that twelve hundred French troops fleeing St. Domingue—remnants of Leclerc’s ill-starred expedition—had been captured by the British and taken to Jamaica. Eager “to get rid of the Expence and trouble of Keeping them,” the governor of Jamaica was taking advantage of the fact that New Orleans was now a French port and had loaded the troops in three Danish vessels that “were to sail in a very few days … for the Mississippi.” Clark was happy to report that when he informed Laussat of this development, the prefect “immediately gave orders that they should not
be admitted” and began gathering provisions so that if they did arrive they could be sent somewhere else—anywhere but New Orleans. Half of Spain’s Louisiana garrison had already sailed, Clark reported, and the rest had already boarded “a sloop of War which sails to morrow.” The delicate political situation in New Orleans was thus compounded by temporary military vulnerability. “Every delay is a day of fear and suspense for the whole Country,” Clark wrote, “and you Cannot possibly make use of too much expedition to arrive and put an end to it.”
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As Brigadier General Wilkinson and his five hundred troops made camp outside New Orleans on Friday, December 16, Laussat was scurrying to publish “yet one more decree relative to the regulation of the Negroes,” his declaration that the Code Noir of 1724 was once again in effect except for any provisions that contradicted the Constitution of the United States. Claiborne arrived the next day, delayed by an accident on the river when his sloop ran aground at Pointe Coupée, midway between Fort Adams and Baton Rouge. “Everything is quiet,” he assured Secretary of State James Madison, “and I persuade myself that in three Days the American Flag will be raised, amidst the shouts of a grateful People.”
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December 20, 1803, “was to be the first of a truly new era for the Mississippi shores,” Laussat wrote.

Claiborne, Wilkinson, and the American troops entered at the city’s Tchoupitoulas Gate and marched along the riverfront to the Place d’Armes. Laussat’s chief engineer, Major Joseph Antoine Vinache, and other dignitaries greeted the American commissioners at the foot of the stairs and accompanied them to the Sala Capitular above.

As Salcedo had done just three weeks earlier, Laussat now greeted Jefferson’s emissaries “halfway across the room,” offered Claiborne an armchair on his right and Wilkinson another on his left, and announced the purpose of the ceremony. A secretary read aloud the Americans’ commissions, the treaty of transfer, Laussat’s authorization from the first consul, and the certificates of ratification. Proclaiming that he was “transferring the country to the United States,” Laussat then presented General Wilkinson with “the keys to the city, tied together with tricolor
ribbons.”
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As Casa Calvo had done in November for the Spanish, Laussat “absolved from their oath of allegiance to France [any] inhabitants who chose to remain under the dominion of the United States.”
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Laussat, Wilkinson, and Claiborne then affixed their signatures to the formal documents transferring possession of the city of New Orleans and the entire western watershed of the Mississippi to the American republic, doubling its size with the strokes of three quills.