As I read of then-General Andrew Jackson's, singular belligerence, when combined with that of Presidents: James Monroe, and James Polk's complicity in American conquests of contiguous southern lands from Spain, in AMERICAN UPRISING by Daniel Rasmussen (2011), I acquire a more complete appreciation of our "Manifest Destiny's" varieties; these were as much Southern as Northern; they were as diplomatic as militaristic, and overwhelmingly effective in the growth of a nation.
Daniel Rasmussen writes:
"The next step in America's imperial project began just after Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans. Fear of German Coast uprising became a major justification for further American imperialism in parts of Florida still controlled by Spain. When the British evacuated Spanish Florida after the War of 1812, they left behind a well-armed garrison of free black soldiers at a British fort at Prospect Bluff. The fort was essentially a safe haven for refugees fleeing slavery in Georgia and Louisiana, including about 300 black men, women, and children. Against the backdrop of the 1811 revolt , General Jackson saw the presence of those armed free blacks just sixty miles away from the American border as a terrible danger, even though these people had given no indication of aggressive intentions. 'I have little doubt of the fact that this fort has been established by some villains for the purpose of rapine and plunder, and that it ought to be blown up, regardless of the ground on which it stands,' he wrote to his commander.
"In July of 1815, Jackson invaded, sending two gunboats and a battery of cannons to Prospect Bluff. These cannons opened fire on the fort , and before long, a heated ball hit the principal magazine and exploded, instantly killing 273 of the occupants within the fort and injuring sixty more. The living blacks were returned to American territory and reenslaved. To Jackson, free black people were necessarily 'stolen negroes' and slavery was the only suitable place for them in America.
"In fact, Jackson used the fear of slave revolts for his continuing encroachments on Spanish territory. The Spanish controlled all of present day Florida and parts of Alabama and Mississippi (other than West Florida, the section Claiborne had conquered several years earlier), and they allowed escaped slaves, as well as Native American tribes to take shelter in exchange for agreeing to side with the Spanish should war with the Americans come. So Andrew Jackson in direct violation of international law, began a series military and paramilitary cross-border expeditions. His illegal gallivants culminated in 1818, when his armies stormed through Florida to wipe out the remaining Native American tribes and capture escaped slaves. When the Spanish governor at Pensacola protested that Jackson's invasion was illegal and threatened to expel him from Spanish territory, Jackson simply invaded Pensacola .
"President Monroe supported Jackson 's efforts, refusing to back down in conversations with Spanish diplomats . In his 1818 State of the Union message , President James Monroe discarded Spain's control over Florida as a relic the past, a figment of maps and treaties but no longer of reality. He declared that the border between the United States and Spanish Florida was nothing more than 'an imaginary line in the woods.' Spain's inability to transform Florida's 'woods' into agricultural settlements protected by military fortifications proved to Monroe that Spanish control over its colonial possessions was exclusively 'imaginary' and should no longer have an effect on the actions of American citizens or government agents. At the time, this was a shocking and bold statement for the young--and still weak--American nation to make about its border with the possession of a European imperial nation. Monroe was dismissing the the colonial authority of a major international power by asserting that America's form of economic development --based on Thomas Jefferson's vision of white agrarian settlements--was the only form of settlement that justified political control over land on the American continent. Slave-based agricultural and political control were, in this view, synonymous.
"In 1819, recognizing the precariousness of their hold on Florida, the Spanish decided to give up in the face of overwhelming military threats. The United States signed the Adams-Onis Treaty with Spain, renouncing American claims to Texas in exchange for Florida. Ten years after Mexico gained independence, it too ratified the Adams-Onis Treaty.
"In 1828, Jackson...was the nation's most celebrated killer of Native Americans , known for subjugation of the Creek Indians, his subsequent crushing of the Seminoles, and finally his elimination of the Spanish presence in Florida and conquest of that territory for the United States--was elected to the nation's highest office. As president, Jackson presided over one of the most notorious episodes in American history: the Indian removal act of 1830. Veiling his true purposes with humanitarian and patriarchal language, Jackson used federal troops to force all Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi. Jackson firmly believed that the Native American east of the Mississippi was unacceptable and intolerable, so he removed them, cloaking murder, fraud and rapine under the name of 'Indian Removal.'
"The United States did not let legalities stop its expansion. Slave-owning immigrants from southern states declared Texas independent in 1836 and requested annexation to the United States. In 1845, after a long debate about the dangers of letting another slave state into the Union, the United States admitted Texas, violating the Adams-Onis Treaty. American delegates simultaneously traveled to Mexico City to offer to purchase California and New Mexico, but negotiations failed. The next year , after troops he had stationed on the Texas-Mexico border were attacked during an illegal excursion into Mexico, President James K. Polk declared war. 'The invasion [of Texas by Mexican forces] was threatened solely because Texas had determined in accordance, with solemn resolutions of the Congress of the United States , to annex herself to our Union, and under these circumstances it was plainly our duty to extend our protections over her citizens and soil,' wrote Polk in his war message , 'Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory, and has shed American blood on American soil.'"
P. 182-185, "Statehood and Young American Nations," AMERICAN UPRISING: UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICA'S LARGEST SLAVE REVOLT by Daniel Rasmussen (2011)
As I read of then-General Andrew Jackson's, singular belligerence, when combined with that of Presidents: James Monroe, and James Polk's complicity in American conquests of contiguous southern lands from Spain, in AMERICAN UPRISING by Daniel Rasmussen (2011), I acquire a more complete appreciation of our "Manifest Destiny's" varieties; these were as much Southern as Northern; they were as diplomatic as militaristic, and overwhelmingly effective in the growth of a nation.
Daniel Rasmussen writes:
"The next step in America's imperial project began just after Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans. Fear of German Coast uprising became a major justification for further American imperialism in parts of Florida still controlled by Spain. When the British evacuated Spanish Florida after the War of 1812, they left behind a well-armed garrison of free black soldiers at a British fort at Prospect Bluff. The fort was essentially a safe haven for refugees fleeing slavery in Georgia and Louisiana, including about 300 black men, women, and children. Against the backdrop of the 1811 revolt , General Jackson saw the presence of those armed free blacks just sixty miles away from the American border as a terrible danger, even though these people had given no indication of aggressive intentions. 'I have little doubt of the fact that this fort has been established by some villains for the purpose of rapine and plunder, and that it ought to be blown up, regardless of the ground on which it stands,' he wrote to his commander.
"In July of 1815, Jackson invaded, sending two gunboats and a battery of cannons to Prospect Bluff. These cannons opened fire on the fort , and before long, a heated ball hit the principal magazine and exploded, instantly killing 273 of the occupants within the fort and injuring sixty more. The living blacks were returned to American territory and reenslaved. To Jackson, free black people were necessarily 'stolen negroes' and slavery was the only suitable place for them in America.
"In fact, Jackson used the fear of slave revolts for his continuing encroachments on Spanish territory. The Spanish controlled all of present day Florida and parts of Alabama and Mississippi (other than West Florida, the section Claiborne had conquered several years earlier), and they allowed escaped slaves, as well as Native American tribes to take shelter in exchange for agreeing to side with the Spanish should war with the Americans come. So Andrew Jackson in direct violation of international law, began a series military and paramilitary cross-border expeditions. His illegal gallivants culminated in 1818, when his armies stormed through Florida to wipe out the remaining Native American tribes and capture escaped slaves. When the Spanish governor at Pensacola protested that Jackson's invasion was illegal and threatened to expel him from Spanish territory, Jackson simply invaded Pensacola .
"President Monroe supported Jackson 's efforts, refusing to back down in conversations with Spanish diplomats . In his 1818 State of the Union message , President James Monroe discarded Spain's control over Florida as a relic the past, a figment of maps and treaties but no longer of reality. He declared that the border between the United States and Spanish Florida was nothing more than 'an imaginary line in the woods.' Spain's inability to transform Florida's 'woods' into agricultural settlements protected by military fortifications proved to Monroe that Spanish control over its colonial possessions was exclusively 'imaginary' and should no longer have an effect on the actions of American citizens or government agents. At the time, this was a shocking and bold statement for the young--and still weak--American nation to make about its border with the possession of a European imperial nation. Monroe was dismissing the the colonial authority of a major international power by asserting that America's form of economic development --based on Thomas Jefferson's vision of white agrarian settlements--was the only form of settlement that justified political control over land on the American continent. Slave-based agricultural and political control were, in this view, synonymous.
"In 1819, recognizing the precariousness of their hold on Florida, the Spanish decided to give up in the face of overwhelming military threats. The United States signed the Adams-Onis Treaty with Spain, renouncing American claims to Texas in exchange for Florida. Ten years after Mexico gained independence, it too ratified the Adams-Onis Treaty.
"In 1828, Jackson...was the nation's most celebrated killer of Native Americans , known for subjugation of the Creek Indians, his subsequent crushing of the Seminoles, and finally his elimination of the Spanish presence in Florida and conquest of that territory for the United States--was elected to the nation's highest office. As president, Jackson presided over one of the most notorious episodes in American history: the Indian removal act of 1830. Veiling his true purposes with humanitarian and patriarchal language, Jackson used federal troops to force all Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi. Jackson firmly believed that the Native American east of the Mississippi was unacceptable and intolerable, so he removed them, cloaking murder, fraud and rapine under the name of 'Indian Removal.'
"The United States did not let legalities stop its expansion. Slave-owning immigrants from southern states declared Texas independent in 1836 and requested annexation to the United States. In 1845, after a long debate about the dangers of letting another slave state into the Union, the United States admitted Texas, violating the Adams-Onis Treaty. American delegates simultaneously traveled to Mexico City to offer to purchase California and New Mexico, but negotiations failed. The next year , after troops he had stationed on the Texas-Mexico border were attacked during an illegal excursion into Mexico, President James K. Polk declared war. 'The invasion [of Texas by Mexican forces] was threatened solely because Texas had determined in accordance, with solemn resolutions of the Congress of the United States , to annex herself to our Union, and under these circumstances it was plainly our duty to extend our protections over her citizens and soil,' wrote Polk in his war message , 'Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory, and has shed American blood on American soil.'"
P. 182-185, "Statehood and Young American Nations," AMERICAN UPRISING: UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICA'S LARGEST SLAVE REVOLT by Daniel Rasmussen (2011)
