Sign In

The Republic of West Florida: The Original Lone Star State

Lobbying President Madison and Secretary of State Monroe for Statehood in 1811

Including an Early Discussion of U.S. Annexation of Texas

A fascinating and historically significant letter from John Ballinger, the Washington, D.C.-based representative of the newly-annexed Republic of West Florida, to the Republic's (former) President Fulwar Skipwith. The Republic of West Florida declared its independence from Spain in 1810 and was shortly thereafter occupied by the United States Army.

In 1811, Ballinger was in Washington to advance the cause of the inhabitants of West Florida, who were not necessarily opposed to joining the United States, but who wished to do so through mutual agreement. When writing this letter, Ballinger found himself in an unenviable position; West Florida had little or no bargaining power, and the looming potential of war with Britain (later to become the War of 1812) proved far more important than settling an issue, which, from the perspective of the United States, was already settled. Despite his almost superfluous position in Washington, Ballinger had managed audiences with Secretary of State Monroe, President Madison, and Gallatin. His conversations with these top policymakers are concisely related here, and thus this letter provides important insight into the mindset of the American leadership during this pivotal era when the United States was seeking the ouster of European colonial powers from the Western Hemisphere.

Ballinger writes to Skipwith that the United States wished to move proactively against Spain and Britain by taking over all of Florida, Canada, and Texas as potential bargaining chips in eventual treaty negotiations. Thus, the letter includes an intriguing reference to "the Country between the Sabine & Bravo" (i.e. Texas) in the context of ascendant American expansionism (in 1811!).  The present letter would seem to be a significant puzzle piece in understanding the origins of what became to be called Manifest Destiny.  Ballinger's intriguing reference to U.S. plans to "assert their right to the Country between the Sabine & Bravo so as to form an Equilibrium, and prevent the empire from progressing to [sic] far in any Particular direction," is a first hand record of internal discussions concerning U.S. territorial expansion by the Madison administration at a pivotal moment in history.  

A truly amazing letter for the history of the West Florida Revolution of 1810-1811, a history that can only be fully gleaned from such private correspondence. This letter is also a part of the larger story of the Spanish Borderlands and Louisiana, fully worthy of further research for its connection to the larger picture of American territorial expansion and Manifest Destiny.

The Republic of West Florida

Styling themselves the Republic of West Florida, the West Floridians adopted as their standard a single prominent white star against a blue background, thus gaining the moniker "Original Lone Star State." These far-flung Americans sought President Madison's support in their efforts toward annexation and potential future statehood. However, numerous obstacles, including diplomatic complications and imminent war with Britain (the War of 1812), impeded the West Floridian's efforts. 

The letter is dated from Washington, 15 December 1811, and is addressed to Fulwar Skipwith, who had been elected president of West Florida on November 29, 1810 by the Independent State Party at Baton Rouge. President Madison had proclaimed the territory as part of the United States, arguing that it was part of the Louisiana Purchase. He dispatched General Claiborne to take possession. Claiborrne was vehemently resisted by the West Floridians, who initially had no intentions of being incorporated into his jurisdiction of the Territory of Orleans. By December 1810, Claiborne faced not only the West Florida convention that had declared indepedence, but an infant government that had already written a new constitution, established a legislature, and elected a governor or president - Fulwar Skipwith.

At the time of the present letter, Ballinger was still advocating for the West Floridians after U.S. annexation, perhaps becoming resigned to eventual incorporation into an existing Territory such as Mississippi or Orleans, while struggling to keep the conversation going with Madison and Monroe, all against the backdrop of impending war with Great Britain. Ultimately West Florida was incorporated into the Territory of Orleans, eventually comprising the Florida Parishes of southeastern Louisiana. None of the lands of the short-lived Republic of West Florida lay within the modern state of Florida. The larger significance of the forcible annexation of West Florida by the United States lay in the far-reaching implications for the future direction of U.S. foreign policy, specifically as a basis for the Monroe Doctrine within the context of the territorial expansion of the United States throughout the 19th century.

West Florida Revolt, the No Transfer Policy and the Monroe Doctrine

Historians have pointed to Madison's actions in the annexation of West Florida as an important precedent that served as a basis for the Monroe Doctrine.  Madison's articulation of a so-called "No Transfer Policy," which held that the United States would consider any sale or transfer of former Spanish territories to other powers as a hostile act, effectively extended its zone of occupation past the U.S. - Spanish border, arguably setting the stage for further U.S. territorial expansion:

On October 27 [1810] Madison issued a pivotal presidential proclamation authorizing the U.S. occupation of the territory below the official U.S. border with Spanish Florida - the 31st parallel and extending from the Mississippi River eastward to the Perdido River. Just weeks earlier, in late September of 1810, rebellious citizens, mostly American immigrants to the Baton Rouge area, declared their independence from Spain and dubbed themselves as the West Florida Republic - the original Lone Star Republic.

Few Americans know of this seemingly obscure presidential action [seizing the "boot heels" of the present states of Alabama and Mississippi and the state of Louisiana east of the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to the Pearl River]. But Madison's actions, taken only seven years after the Louisiana Purchase and nine years prior to the U. S. acquisition of all of Spanish Florida, initiated one of the more consequential territorial acquisitions in American history. Indeed, Madison's ostensibly innocuous exploit provided the ideological foundation and the diplomatic justification for future annexation of foreign territory, from Spanish Florida in 1818 to nearly all of Mexico in 1848, and ultimately Alaska, Hawaii and Cuba in the late nineteenth century.

The pivotal policy which Madison ultimately handed the United States - the No Transfer policy - served as an integral ingredient of the famous Monroe Doctrine of 1823, and beginning with the post Civil War era, became a prominent component of U.S. foreign policy extending well into the twentieth century --- William S. Belko, "The Origins of the Monroe Doctrine Revisited: the Madison Administration, the West Florida Revolt, and the No Transfer Policy" [in:] Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 90, No. 2 (Fall 2011), page 158.

Fulwar Skipwith

In 1790 Fulwar Skipwith (1765-1839) was appointed by George Washington as American consul to Martinique, Guadaloupe, Sainte Lucia, and other West India islands. Later Thomas Jefferson, to whom he was related by marriage, appointed him U.S. Consul General in Paris, where he served between 1794 and 1809, at times being the sole commercial and diplomatic representative of the United States in France. In 1809 he came to West Florida, having resigned his position in France, settling in an estate on the Montesano Bluffs.  A physically imposing man who had acquired airs of politeness from his time in France, Skipwith was able to gain favor with the influential Americans in the West Florida province.  According to James Padgett, who authored an article partly based on original letters held in the West Florida papers in the Library of Congress, The West Florida Revolution of 1810, Fulwar Skipwith was "perhaps the ablest leader in the Florida revolution." And J. C. A. Stagg, states that Skipwith was firmly on the side of the conventionists:

Skipwith had recently settled in the province and taken possession of the land, slaves, saw mill, and steam press of the Montesano plantation. Skipwith had played no part in the early stages of the settler movement to establish popular control over the Spanish officials...[and] Skipwith had not yet fulfilled the two-year residence requirement for officeholders. The convention had insisted, nevertheless, on using Skipwith's services, and he was almost certainly selected as governor in the belief that he would be the most eligible American resident to negotiate the terms of West Florida's entry into the Union with the administration. Difficulties arose, therefore, when Skipwith and the West Florida government learned that Claiborne's task was not to negotiate but simply to incorporate the new nation into his own territorial jurisdiction without any reference to the terms West Floridians had sought to exact from Washington - Stagg, Borderlines in Borderlands, page 77.

John Ballinger

John Henry Ballinger (1775-1815), sometimes spelled Ballenger, was one of the revolutionaries involved in the action during the capture of the Spanish fort at Baton Rouge in September 1810. He had emigrated from Kentucky to Spanish West Florida shortly before the revolt. By 1811 Ballinger, who favored annexation to the United States from the start, was in Washington as a lobbyist representing the interests of the West Floridians. 

The people of the Baton Rouge district were anxious for prompt incorporation into the American Union ... Skipwith desired American intervention; but he was firmly persuaded that he and his associates could give the United States a better title to the region than did the president's proclamation, which foreign nations were not likely to recognize... Skipwith opposed the American contention that West Florida was part of the Louisiana Purchase - a contention that he had previously assisted his friend Monroe to maintain... He commented bitterly upon Claiborne's hostile approach... After Monroe became secretary of state, Skipwith felt that he had a friend at court who would give him credit for integrity of motive....When it seemed evident to himself and his companions that the United States did not intend to occupy the county under the Louisiana cession, they determined to proclaim their independence for the sole purpose of giving themselves to the United States.... Yet if the administration was unwilling to abandon the claim that West Florida formed part of the Louisiana Purchase, it did not necessarily follow that all of it must belong to the new State of Louisiana. Months before, Toulmin had proposed that the area should be divided between Orleans and Mississippi by the Pearl River. Now Claiborne suggested the same. As an active participant in the race for statehood between the two territories, he wrote Poindexter that he did not sympathize with his efforts to take the whole of West Florida from Louisiana. The best interests of the latter required an extension of its eastern boundary. Personally he preferred all the territory to the Perdido, but was willing to compromise on the area west of the Pearl.... John Ballinger, who was then in Washington as agent for the former Conventionalists, took essentially the same view. He contended for the treaty limits; but if the government wished to cut the Louisiana Purchase up into convenient 'administrative particles,'.... The petitioners, whom Ballinger personally represented, were interested in statehood and land titles, as were the others, and in addition wished the American government to assume the debts and other claims against the convention. Ballinger represented their cause until the War of 1812, which necessarily postponed all prospect of payment... Obviously the government could not pay these claims without recognizing the validity of the convention's acts, and this, as Monroe had already explained to Skipwith, was impossible -- Isaac Joslin Cox, West Florida Controversy, 1798-1813: a Study in American Diplomacy, passim.

Transcription

Here follows the complete text of the letter:

Sir,

The Heads of departments are so much engaged with Congress & the Committees thereof, as almost to preclude any claim of doing business with them. Congress are also so much engaged on the grand question of Peace or War. Or what in substance is the same, that all minor objects are suspended for the present.

But on Tuesday next I shall have a conference with Mr. Monroe after which I shall bring the business of Florida forward in some shape. On a former occasion, Mr. Monroe requested I would wait till that time, when he would be able to inform me fully of the Policy of the Government & I shall feel disposed to pursue the course pointed out by Mr. Monroe him if congenial to the feelings of our people, he declares unequivocally that the people of Florida nor no individual thereof has suffered anything in the estimation of government on account of any part that they have taken in the affairs of that country. I have had a great deal of friendly & familiar conversation with Mr. Monroe, Madison & Gallatin, and I believe they are determined to hold West Florida as a part of the purchase of Louisiana and attach it to the Mississippi, & form a state. I believe I can prevent that object for the present & from all I have heard before I left home & from the communications I have received since at this place I feel it my duty to do so, altho I believe we shall be eventually disposed of in that way, as the whole western delegation wishes it to take that course. They will take east Florida & hold it as an indemnity for Spanish spoilations. But not immediately unless forced to it by a rupture with England.

They wish to penetrate Canada as far as the Mouth of the three Rivers and hold it as an indemnity for British spoilations. In the event of invading Canada they will at a proper time assert their right to the Country between the Sabine & Bravo so as to form an Equilibrium, and prevent the empire from progressing to far in any Particular direction.

After my next interview with Mr. Monroe I shall advise you of what transpires, Mr. Poindexter is receiving petitions from all the old Tories East of the Amite praying to be annexed to the Mississippi, & complaining more of anarchy than monarchy.

I calculate on War. I cannot doubt it. But a few days will determine.

I am Sir,

very Re[spectf]ully

y[our Obedient] Servt.

J. Ballinger

Provenance:

Jay Kislak;
Sothebys, his sale, April 26, 2022