From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (25 page)

Most frustrating was U.S. inability to open the British West Indies. Since the Revolution, Americans had sought access to the lucrative triangular trade with Britain's island colonies. London clung stubbornly to restrictive policies. In the commercial convention of 1815, Britain limited American imports to a small number of specified goods and required that they come in British ships. With large numbers of its own vessels rotting at the docks, the United States retaliated. A Navigation Act of 1817 limited imports from the West Indies to U.S. ships. The following year, Congress closed America's ports to ships from any colony where its ships were excluded. Seeking to get at the West Indies through Canada, the United States in 1820 imposed virtual non-intercourse on Britain's North American colonies. The issue took on growing emotional significance. Americans protested British efforts to gain "ascendancy over every nation in every market of the world."
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Britons feared for their merchant marine and fretted about U.S. penetration of the empire. Even the normally conciliatory prime minister Lord Castlereagh insisted he would let the West Indies starve rather than abandon the colonial system.

Mainly because of U.S. intransigence, the conflict stalemated. Under pressure from West Indian planters and the emerging industrial class,
Britain in 1822 opened a number of West Indian ports with only modest duties. Three years later, it offered to crack the door still wider if the United States would drop duties on British ships entering its ports. As secretary of state and president, Adams stubbornly persisted in trying to end the British imperial preference system, perhaps with the notion, as one of his New England constituents put it, that with full reciprocity the United States could "successfully compete with any nation on earth."
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Even the British free trader William Huskinson denounced the U.S. position as a "pretension unheard of in the commercial relations of independent states."
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When the United States refused to remove its duties, the British closed their West Indian ports. At this point, the issue became entangled in presidential politics. Jackson's supporters in Congress frustrated the administration's efforts to reopen negotiations, leaving Adams no choice but to reimpose restrictions on Britain. The Jacksonians ridiculed "Our diplomatic President," who, they claimed, had destroyed "colonial intercourse with Great Britain."
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By this time the West Indian trade had declined in practical importance, but it remained a major symbol of the clash of empires. Neither would give in.

Although much stronger after the War of 1812, the United States still faced threats around its periphery. The European political situation was potentially explosive. The Latin American revolutions brought dangers as well as possible advantages. The world's greatest power remained in Canada with a long border contested at various points. Americans continued to fear British intrusion in the Pacific Northwest and Central America. The boundaries of the vast Louisiana territory were hotly disputed. For years, Spain had refused to recognize the legality of the purchase. Even after conceding on that issue, it sought to confine the United States east of the Mississippi. The United States claimed at times from the Louisiana acquisition the Floridas, Texas, and even the Oregon territory. Madison had returned East Florida to Spain in 1813. Spain's continued presence there, along with hostile Indian tribes, menaced the southern United States. In 1815, Americans still viewed the outside world with trepidation. While postponing some disputes in hopes that delay would work to their benefit, U.S. leaders continued to pursue security through expansion.
In the case of Spain, Monroe and Adams enjoyed predictable success, negotiating at gunpoint a treaty securing not only the Floridas but also Spanish claims to the Pacific Northwest.

The War of 1812 underscored the importance of the Floridas, reinforced U.S. covetousness, and strengthened the nation's already advantageous position. Britain's wartime invasion of West Florida, its alliances with southwestern Indians, and its rumored plans to incite slave revolts in the southern United States all highlighted how essential it was to gain a land often likened to a pistol pointed at the nation's heart. Spain was further weakened by the Napoleonic wars. Americans believed that the long-sought territory might be detached with relative ease.
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Even when the outcome is obvious, negotiations can be difficult. The terms on which the Floridas would come to the United States were important to both nations. Spain was prepared to abandon a colony it could not defend, but it hoped to protect its territories in Texas and California against the onrushing Americans and naively counted on British support. When negotiations began in early 1818, the able Spanish minister Don Luis de Onis proposed setting the western boundary of the United States at the Mississippi River. He also sought a U.S. pledge not to recognize the new Latin American republics. Monroe and Adams insisted on a line following the Colorado River into what is now northern Texas and from there north along the 104th parallel to the Rocky Mountains. The United States was willing to delay Latin American recognition, perceiving that doing so might complicate acquisition of the Floridas or even encourage European intervention to restore monarchical governments. On the other hand, a public pledge of non-recognition would antagonize new nations with whom the United States hoped to establish a thriving commerce and anger people like Clay who sympathized with the Latin Americans. The negotiations quickly deadlocked.
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At this point, the United States began to apply not so subtle pressure against the hapless Madrid government. Under Spain's lax administration, the Floridas had become a volatile no-man's-land, a center for international intrigue and illicit commercial activities, a refuge for those fleeing oppression—and justice. The area had more than its share of pirates, renegades, and outlaws, as U.S. officials charged, but it also attracted other people, many with legitimate grievances against the United States.

Latin American rebels used Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports to stage military operations against Spanish forces. Fugitive slaves sought escape from bondage. After the 1814 Treaty of Fort Jackson, Creeks expelled from their lands fled into the Floridas, some hoping to exact retribution against the United States. Outraged when the United States purchased from the Creeks lands they claimed and then forcibly removed them, the Seminoles launched a bloody war. Conflict thus raged along the Florida border. Americans drew a picture of outlaws attacking innocent settlers. In reality, all parties contributed to the melee.
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Under intense pressure from nervous settlers in the Southwest and land speculators who feared for their investments, the Monroe administration mounted military expeditions to quell the violence that could also be used as leverage in negotiations with Spain. In December 1817, the president authorized seizure of Amelia Island from Latin American rebels whose presence threatened eventual U.S. control. Shortly after, he authorized Gen. Andrew Jackson to invade Florida and "pacify" the Seminoles.

The nature of Jackson's instructions aroused bitter controversy. In a letter to Monroe, the general indicated that if given the go-ahead he
could seize Florida within sixty days. When his behavior later provoked outrage at home and abroad, he insisted that he had received this authority. Monroe adamantly denied giving Jackson such orders, leaving critics to charge that the general had acted impetuously and illegally. Although Monroe seems not to have sent the requested signal, he did give the general "full powers to conduct the war in the manner he may judge best." The president had long favored forcibly dislodging Spain from Florida. He knew Jackson well enough to predict what he might do when unleashed. Thus, although he never sent explicit instructions, he gave the general virtual carte blanche and left himself free to disavow Jackson if he went too far.
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Whatever his instructions, this "
Napoleon de bois,
" as the Spanish called him, moved with a decisiveness that likely shocked Monroe. A lifelong Indian fighter whose code of pacification was "An eye for an eye, a toothe for a toothe, a scalp for a scalp," Jackson hated Spaniards even more than native peoples. He had long believed that U.S. security demanded that the "Wolf be struck in his den." Indeed, he preferred simply to take the Floridas.
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With a force of some three thousand regulars and state militia along with several thousand Creek allies, he plunged across the border. Unable to bring the Seminoles to battle, he destroyed their villages and seized livestock and stores of food, crippling their resistance. Claiming to act on the "immutable principle of self-defense," he occupied Spanish forts at St. Marks and Pensacola. At St. Marks, he captured a kindly Scots trader named Alexander Arbuthnot, whose principal offense was to have befriended the Seminoles, and a British soldier of fortune, Richard Armbrister, who was assisting Seminole resistance to the United States. Jackson had long believed that such troublemakers "must feel the keenness of the scalping knife which they excite." He vowed to deal with them "with the greatest rigor known to civilized Warfare."
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Accusing the two men of "wickedness, corruption, and barbarity at which the heart sickens," he tried and executed them on the spot. Arbuthnot was hanged from the yardarm of his own ship, appropriately named
The
Chance
. The hastily assembled military court at first shied away from a death sentence for Armbrister. Jackson restored it. This trial of two British subjects before an American military court on Spanish territory was an unparalleled example of frontier justice in action. "I have destroyed the babylon of the South," Jackson excitedly wrote his wife. With reinforcements, he informed Washington, he could take St. Augustine and "I will insure you cuba in a few days."
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Jackson's escapade provoked loud outcries. Spain demanded his punishment, indemnity, and the restoration of seized property. Angry British citizens urged reprisals for the execution of Arbuthnot and Armbrister. Clay proposed that Jackson be punished for violating domestic and international law. Panicky cabinet members pressed Monroe to disavow his general.

In fact, Monroe and especially Adams skillfully exploited what Adams called the "Jackson magic" to pry a favorable treaty from Spain. Adams correctly surmised that Spanish protests were mostly bluff. To permit them to retreat with honor, Monroe agreed to return the captured forts. But the United States also demanded that Spain strike a deal quickly or risk losing everything for nothing in return. The United States also threatened to recognize the Latin American nations. In a series of powerful state papers, Adams vigorously defended Jackson's conduct on grounds that Spain's inability to maintain order compelled the United States to do so. He warned the British that if they expected their citizens to escape the fate of Arbuthnot and Armbrister they must prevent them from engaging in acts hostile to the United States. Adams's spirited defense of Jackson played fast and loose with the facts and provided a classic example, repeated often in the nation's history, of justifying an act of aggression in terms of morality, national mission, and destiny. It marked an expedient act on the part of a man known for commitment to principle. It facilitated the expansion of slavery and Indian removal, two evils Adams would spend his later life fighting.
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It also had the desired effect, breaking the back of domestic opposition, forestalling British intervention, and persuading Spain to come to terms.

The two nations reached a settlement in February 1819. Monroe abandoned his demand for Texas, perceiving that its acquisition would exacerbate an already dangerous domestic crisis over slavery in the Missouri territory. Instead, on Adams's suggestion, the United States asked for Spanish
claims to the Pacific Northwest, territory also claimed by Britain and Russia. Onis at first hesitated. But in the face of U.S. adamancy and without British support, he backed down. The so-called Transcontinental Treaty left Texas in the hands of Spain but acquired for the United States unchallenged title to all of the Floridas and Spanish claims to the Pacific Northwest. The United States agreed to pay some $5 million U.S. citizens insisted they were owed by the Spanish government. The heartland of the United States was at last secure against foreign threat. A weak U.S. claim to the Pacific Northwest was greatly strengthened against a stronger British claim by acquiring Spanish interests, the most valid of the three. Even before Americans became accustomed to thinking of a republic west of the Mississippi, Adams had secured Spanish recognition of a nation extending to the Pacific and made a first move toward gaining a share of East Asian commerce.
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Taking justifiable pride in his handiwork, he hailed in his diary a "great epocha in our history" and offered "fervent gratitude to the Giver of all Good."
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He might also have thanked Andrew Jackson.