Spanish Conspiracy

SPANISH CONSPIRACY

SPANISH CONSPIRACY, a series of more or less closely related intrigues beginning in 1786 between Spain and certain Americans living in what was then the western United States. Spain wished to defend Louisiana and Florida by promoting the secession of the West from the United States. To achieve that purpose, Spain manipulated commerce on the Mississippi River and attempted to exploit sectional antagonism between the American East and West. After the United States obtained the right of free navigation of the Mississippi by Pinckney's Treaty in 1795, the conspirators continued to seek commercial privileges, support for colonization schemes, and other advantages from Spain.

In 1786 Congress aroused great indignation in the West by not pressing the U.S. claim to the free navigation of the Mississippi. In 1787 James Wilkinson, a prominent figure in Kentucky politics, went to New Orleans to try his hand at direct negotiation with the Spanish officials of Louisiana. He won some commercial privileges for the West, took an oath of allegiance to Spain, and became an agent in secessionist intrigue. Later, Wilkinson joined forces with a disaffected Aaron Burr, who had treasonous plans for a vast empire in the West and South based on the conquest of Mexico and the separation of the trans-Appalachia states from the Union. By 1806 the conspirators procured boats, men, and supplies and moved on Natchez, Mississippi. When the plans were discovered in 1807, Wilkinson turned against Burr, who was arrested but fled to Spanish Florida. He was intercepted, indicted for treason, yet acquitted due to lack of witnesses. Wilkinson, the government's chief witness, was also acquitted, although deeply implicated in the proceedings.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Green, Thomas Marshall. The Spanish Conspiracy: A Review of Early Spanish Movements in the South-west. Containing Proofs of the Intrigues of James Wilkinson and John Brown; of the Complicity Therewith of Judges Sebastian, Wallace, and Innes; the Early Struggles of Kentucky for Autonomy; the Intrigues of Sebastian in 1795–7, and the Legislative Investigation of his Corruption. Cincinnati, Ohio: Clarke, 1891.

Hay, Thomas Robson. The Admirable Trumpeter: A Biography of General James Wilkinson. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1941.

McCaleb, Walter Flavius. The Aaron Burr Conspiracy; and, A New Light on Aaron Burr. New York: Argosy-Antiquarian, 1966.

Montgomery, M. R. Jefferson and the Gun-men: How the West was Almost Lost. New York: Crown, 2000.

Weems, John Edward. Men Without Counries: Three Adventures of the Early Southwest. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969.

Arthur P. Whitaker / h. s.

See also Burr-Hamiton Duel ; Spain, Relations with .