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Chapter VI - The Threat of War
The Threat of War 1802
Events in Europe made Jefferson's first term a remarkable domestic success and his second term a foreign policy nightmare. By 1800 thousands of Americans dreaming of a better life had trekked into the territory of Louisiana, settled, and started using the Mississippi River to float farm goods down to New Orleans for export. The territory these ambitious settlers thrived on was the vast area which established the western United States border along the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico to present-day Minnesota. After the French and Indian War this land had been given to Spain. But Pinckney's Treaty guaranteed that Americans had nothing to fear from Spanish intervention since Spain agreed to open the Mississippi for transport of goods which settlers could store in New Orleans.
However, diligently working to rebuild France's New World empire, Napoleon Bonaparte convinced Spanish King Carlos IV to sign a secret treaty which returned the Louisiana Territory to France. Americans rightly feared that potentially hostile French control might result in the closing of the port of New Orleans. Fears intensified in October 1802 when Spanish officials violated Pinckney's Treaty on the eve of ceding control to the French by denying Americans the privilege of storing their products at New Orleans prior to export. While Western farmers and Eastern merchants grumbled and talked of war, Jefferson warned, "the day the French take over New Orleans we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation."
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