The year 1819 marked the culmination of nearly a decade-long effort by the Jeffersonian presidents and filibusterers to acquire the Floridas – ending with the cession of that territory in what amounted to a second unofficial settlement of the War of 1812 (known as the ‘Late War’) after the Treaty of Ghent. That process began in 1810 with the filibuster and annexation of West Florida, the No Transfer Resolution passed by Congress in early 1811, Secretary of State James Monroe’s public support for Georgian filibusterers later that year, and the secret session by Congress in 1813 annexing Mobile. In that regard, cross-border violence with the Seminoles offered President Monroe (1817–1825) an opportunity to wrest control over the territory, while the Spanish – bogged down in their fortifications and enclaves throughout Mexico and beyond – could no longer control nor defend a region of the Gulf that brought scant economic value to an empire under siege. For some Americans, however, the acquisition of Florida at the expense of Texas, which they believed was bargained away, was an affront to previous struggles and a disgrace to the patriots who died in Texas at the 1813 Battle of Medina and in the southern theater of the Late War.[1] 

While the treaty awaited Spain’s ratification, conspiracy and discontent emanating from the Gulf resulted in two situations that had the potential to fatally hinder its resolution. Although Mexico was on the verge of independence, the Adams-Onís Treaty – known at the time as the ‘Transcontinental Treaty,’ which delineated the vast border between New Spain and the U.S. – required Mexico to accede to that agreement lest it open up the possibility of renewed conflict in a contested region of North America. In that regard, the treaty effected by U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and Spanish ambassador Luis de Onís only remained in effect for half a year (183 days) due to Spain’s delay in ratifying it – a delay caused by their apprehension that U.S. officials were adhering to established precedent of permitting or even supporting filibusterers while publicly disavowing them. In other words, Spanish lack of trust, informed by years of clandestine operations and insincere declarations of neutrality, hindered ratification until October 24, 1820, when it was sent from Madrid back to the U.S. Senate for final approval.

The first situation arose from circumstances beyond American control, but carried the potential to undermine Spanish-American relations at the last minute. After Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815, a general from the elite Imperial Guard by the name of Charles Lallemand fled to the U.S. and organized an immigrant association using proceeds from land grants in Alabama to fund a Bonapartist colony in Texas called Champ d’Asile (“Field of Asylum”). Around the same time in 1817 that the Spanish guerrilla leader Javier Mina was in Mexico with U.S. assistance, Lallemand’s brother Henri sent a representative into central Mexico to make contact and coordinate with rebel leaders. Established upstream on the Trinity River in early 1818, the colony consisting of around 150 people initially received logistical support from the pirate and smuggler Jean Laffite from New Orleans and Galveston, and quickly caught the attention of Governor Antonio María Martínez, as well as the Monroe Administration. Threats from U.S. officials in the spring of 1818, and military preparations by Martínez, forced Lallemand to hastily abandon the settlement that summer, but rumors surrounding Joseph and Napoleon Bonaparte were enough to create a level of intrigue that alarmed observers. Had the colony sustained itself, it may have caused problems, since there was obviously a lingering Bonapartist element that sought to reconstitute itself internationally. As the second-most-hated man in Spain for many years behind his younger brother, Joseph’s presence in the U.S. as an exile contributed to Spanish paranoia.[2]

For both legitimate and overcautious reasons, that paranoia surrounded Spain up until the moment King Ferdinand VII acceded to the agreement. One article in Madrid’s long-running Mercurio de España, a Royal Printing Press publication read by Spanish leadership, noted ongoing Anglo-American fascination with possessing Cuba, and, since early 1819, a growing “seditious” discontent and rumors of assassination plots among a defeated and demoralized French population. “A certain ferocious joy has been seen,” the Mercurio read, “guilty imprecations and atrocious vows have been heard: all this has been presented everywhere” in France. Spain had reason to be concerned, they argued, because revolutionary inclinations were ripe among the lower classes, which the foes of Spain might manipulate to their advantage. In essence, even after Napoleon’s fall, enemies remained everywhere:

Among the men of the less ignorant class, rumors spread of intrigues to attack the rights of the dynasty, supported by Austria, Prussia, and even Russia. On the other hand, the attention of other less enlightened classes is encouraged with the landing of Napoleon in Spain, or with his presence in America: they are already told that war is going to break out on the banks of the Rhine; since troops are going to be sent to Spain, and it is finally revealed that such a department has been established. In several places, mysterious announcements and prophecies have been seen, which have made a vivid impression on the volgo [commoners], about the death and destruction of the Royal family in 1820... An attempt has been made to corrupt the soldiers...[3]

On June 12, 1819, in Washington DC, Secretary Adams spent the evening at a small party held by the French ambassador Jean-Guillaume Hyde, also known as baron Hyde de Neuville. Unpopular with administration officials, Hyde de Neuville broached a topic involving a former Mexican insurgent-turned-Onís informant who contacted the ambassador with the idea “that France should reassert her right to Louisiana”, and informed Madrid “that the late treaty should on no consideration be ratified, as the object of the Americans is to overrun the province of Texas and Mexico.” In his diary, Adams quickly dismissed Hyde de Neuville as “a mischievous intriguer,” but also “hoped his memoir would arrive after the ratification of the treaty, or that it would have no influence.” Five days later, a growing force of more than one hundred well-armed men from Natchez, led by a Late War veteran named James Long, entered Spanish territory and seized the border town of Nacogdoches.[4]

Moreso than the Lallemand situation, the Long Expedition in Texas delayed ratification due to the fact that it involved a host of participants considered as having acted in concert with the Madison Administration during the Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition in Texas several years earlier. Some of those names included Gutiérrez himself, Peter Samuel Davenport, and Dr. John Sibley. By June 23, when the “Supreme Council of the Republic of Texas” issued a formal declaration with Long as its president, the force had tripled in size. The declaration claimed that Texans hoped to “be included within the limits” of the Adams-Onís agreement, and that the expedition thus represented the will of the people. “The recent treaty between Spain and the United States of America has dissipated the illusion too long and fondly cherished,” the declaration proclaimed, “and has roused the citizens of Texas from the torpor into which a fancied security had lulled them.” Other words such as “abandoned” and “despotism” graced the statement, as well as an order to the “Army of Texas” from its new commander-in-chief to rally “round the standard of independence”. Unsurprisingly, included within the dispatch was a July 12 report from Natchitoches of a letter from Dr. John H. Robinson in Philadelphia promising “500 from that city” would soon to depart from Baltimore, and several regiments from Kentucky – all “bearing to the South-West, like a torrent.” Laffite’s cooperation at Galveston was “expected” – although he was spying for Spain. Additional reports included an undated excerpt from the St. Louis Enquirer lauding the idea of an “independent state” and warning the U.S. government not to “interfere in behalf of Ferdinand,” against the will of westerners, who were becomingly “exceedingly interested in the fate of this province, because upon its fate depends in a great degree the fate of Mexico… every man who wishes to see liberty continue her march to the Pacific ocean, must wish success to the adventurers in Texas.”[5]

The U.S. government did not need to interfere because the royalist officer at Béxar, Colonel Ignacio Pérez, assembled a force of 500 soldiers that summer, and began clearing the Brazos and Trinity rivers of insurgent posts. Adding to the expedition’s dismay was Laffite’s unwillingness to lend assistance. In his 1855 History of Texas, Henderson K. Yoakum wrote that Long sent Colonel James Taylor Gaines to Galveston to convince “the pirate-chief” to aid their cause, but the only thing Laffite could do was extend to Long “his best wishes for his success” while adding that “he himself had been engaged for eight years in waging war against the royalists of Spain; but that the fate of… Mina, and others, should be a warning against an invasion by land except with a considerable force.” With no reinforcements, no popular enthusiasm, and no logistical support from the sea, by late October Colonel Pérez easily forced Long and his filibusterers back into Louisiana. Nor did Long heed Laffite’s advice, because in 1820 he regrouped at Bolivar Point and made the fatal mistake of reattempting to establish a revolutionary republic on the eve of Mexican independence. Long was captured shortly after seizing La Bahía (from rebels) in 1821, and shot in Mexico City the following year while in custody under the authority of the revolutionary government. The poor timing on the second short-lived expedition thus bookmarked the transition from royalist Texas to Mexican Texas, and the general consensus among the new nation’s criollo leadership that the frontier province was coveted by Americans.[6]

[1] This article is an amended excerpt from: Benjamin J. Swenson, America and the Mexican War of Independence: Insurgents, Patriots, and Brethren in Arms, 1810–1821 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, Publishers, 2025).

[2] Ed Bradley, “Fighting for Texas: Filibuster James Long, the Adams-Onís Treaty, and the Monroe Administration,” SHQ 102, no. 3 (1999), 333; Kent Gardien, “Take Pity on Our Glory: Men of Champ d’Asile,” SHQ 87, no. 3 (Jan. 1984), 243. See: David Murph, “The Search for Champ d’Asile,” SHQ 121, no. 2 (Oct. 2017), 200: “Some historians believe that his [Lallemand’s] goal was to enlarge the settlement’s numbers, invade Mexico, place Napoleon’s brother Joseph on the throne. Others speculate that he wanted to slip into Mexico and raid some of its northern silver mines. Several have even suggested that he hoped to raise a force large enough rescue Napoleon from exile.”

[3] “Parte Política, America” Mercurio de España, April, 1820, 257, 275–7. Biblioteca Nacional de España. 

[4] Adams (ed.), Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, vol. 4, 293. June 12, 1819.

[5] “Important from Texas.” The Clarion and Tennessee State Gazette, Nashville, Aug. 24, 1819 (via Louisiana Herald) “Province of Texas.” St. Louis Enquirer (no date)

[6] Yoakum, History of Texas, vol. 1, 200; Bradley, “Fighting for Texas: Filibuster James Long,” 431.