The problem of Creole loyalty and the Burr Conspiracy

Abstract

The intent of Aaron Burr in the western territories of the United States from 1805 to 1807 continues to be in dispute. Suspecting Burr of planning to split territory from the United States to form a separate nation, Thomas Jefferson had Burr tried for treason. Both at the time and later, Burr insisted that he did not plan to dismember the United States, but that he had been pursuing an expedition into Spanish America. Ultimately, a separatist attempt depended on the loyalty of the populace of Louisiana made up of Creoles and an increasing number of American immigrants. Historian Walter McCaleb viewed a separatist attempt based on Creole disloyalty as inconceivable given the ultimate loyalty of the Creole population of Orleans and the American population of the west. Other historians, notably, Thomas Perkins Abernethy, believe that Burr was in fact plotting a separatist movement based on an understandable but serious misjudgment of Creole disloyalty. This paper takes a different approach, arguing significant Creole discontent existed in the territory, but that Burr did not capitalize on that discontent, but instead focused his machinations on more recent American immigrants. The reaction of the population during the conspiracy and the mounting criticism of Governor W.C.C. Claiborne and General James Wilkinson led those individuals and their supporters to justify their actions by depicting the Creoles as disloyal to the United States. Afterward these same individuals propagated a view that held the Creoles as conspicuously loyal to the United States during the affair, a view that is at variance with the facts.