A Year in Spanish West Florida – 1791 (pages 129-142)
(page 129, par. 3) …immigrant party raised the population of Natchez Census of 1785 for Natchez District: 1,100 whites; 900 blacks. A census of June 14, 1792, showed that the Natchez District had more than doubled to 4,691 inhabitants. Chamberlain and Faber opine “…an average of 800 enslaved people per year disembarked in New Orleans, with a peak number of 1,550 arriving in 1787. In the context of the total Atlantic slave trade, these numbers were still small; however, for Louisiana, they were enormous. All together, the thirty-seven years of Spanish rule saw a tenfold increase in the enslaved population, with as many as twenty-nine thousand slaves arriving in Louisiana—almost all of them African, almost all brought via Jamaica.”
Late colonial Natchez district’s experience was distinct from the more populous parishes anchored on Luisiana’s provincial capital New Orleans. A greater portion of the Natchez enslaved black immigrant population came down river from Anglo-America – Mid-Atlantic states, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Kentucky precincts of Virginia. Most of those African Americans were American borne Creoles, and Africans who had toiled for years on American farms prior to coming to Natchez in Spanish West Florida. As did the large Forman pioneer contingent, they had shared the arduous trek across the trans-Allegheny West in association with their overseers and owners. Still, a large majority of enslaved blacks in the Natchez district were newly imported from Africa by way of the Caribbean 1838, and arrived by way of New Orleans. See Fischer, David Hackett. “Louisiana: Afro-European Diversity, American Creativity: French, Spanish & American Rulers: Bamana, Benin & Congo Slaves” In Africa’s Gifts, Oxford University Press in preparation for 2022.
(page 131, par. 5, line 6) “well fed, well clothed, well housed, each family living separately” Forman Autobiography and Travels 1838, handwritten manuscript privately owned by the author, pp. 113-114. Slight variants are in all versions.
(page 133, par. 1, line 1) “learned of the American Army’s defeats” Forman and Draper, Op. cit., p. 30.
(page 133, par. 1, line 5) news coming to Natchez was sometimes wrong or wildly inaccurate Ibid, Samuel S. learns incorrect news alleging Indians wiped out the Gallipolis settlement on the Scioto River, p. 30.
(page 133, par. 3) The Forman carriage, now ingeniously refitted Forman and Draper, Op. cit., p. 57. “gazed at it with as much curiosity as though it had been a comet” Shields, Joseph Dunbar. Natchez – Its Early History, p. 32. “have the cane-brakes along the trail cleared away” Forman and Draper, Op. cit., p. 58.
(page 133, par. 5 to page 134, par. 4) Manuel Gayoso de Lemos (1747 – July 18, 1799) Both Manuel Gayoso and Stephen Minor were widowed during the early 1790s. Their young wives succumbed, as had so many others, to the rampant and ubiquitous yellow and malarial fevers, or to the vicissitudes of childbirth. Gayoso’s first bride Theresa Margarita Hopman y Pereira of Lisbon, with whom he had two children, lasted hardly a year in the Delta, having come with her husband from Portugal by way of Cuba and New Orleans. She left her husband Manuel to grieve for his bride and one of their twin children.
Gayoso and Minor did not remain bachelors for long. The Natchez social whirl, anchored at Concord by the governor himself, presented opportunities. In 1792 Gayoso courted and won the hand of Elizabeth Watts of Philadelphia and Louisiana. She died three months later. He then married Elizabeth’s sister, Margaret Cyrilla Watts, with whom he had a son. Holmes, Jack D.L. Gayoso: The Life of a Spanish Governor in the Mississippi Valley, and Gilbert C. Din’s article in ANB.
(page 135, par. 1) “would always be a plate for us at his table” Forman and Draper, Op. cit., p. 56. Samuel S. Forman was impressed by hospitality extended to himself and the entire Forman family as new residents of Natchez.
(page 135, par. 3, line 2) Stephen Minor, the Pennsylvania-born Spanish official Stephen Minor (1760-1815) His first wife, Anna Bingaman Minor, daughter of a successful Anglo-British settler, died childless early in their marriage. His second wife, Martha Ellis Lintot Minor (1760 – d. before 1791) was a daughter of John Ellis of White Cliffs, located south of Natchez on the Mississippi River. There were no children from this union. Minor’s third spouse was Katherine “The Yellow Duchess” Lintot Minor, the daughter of Bernard Lintot. Martha and Stephen had three children together.
Minor succeeded as a planter, ascended to a position of trust in the Spanish administration as secretary to district governor Gayoso, and enjoyed a spouse of property and a taste for the finer things. Less than 20 years before, in 1779, travelling to Spanish West Florida as a teen from Western Pennsylvania, to seek employment and a place in the world. Family tradition asserts that he had attended Princeton University, though if he had, the college has no record of him graduating. Stephen liked to remain vague about his origins. When the Formans arrived, Stephen Minor was one of the first officials they had met. Samuel S. had Minor pegged as a Jerseyman and a Pennsylvanian, whose commonality of accent and geographical origins made the American ex pats comfortable in their new abode.
On arrival, Minor enlisted as a Spanish soldier, joining a group transporting gunpowder north from New Orleans. Governor Gálvez, a covert friend to the American cause, had worked with trader Pollock to gather these shipments, intending to better arm Americans for struggles against the British in the West. Minor fell ill, as most unacclimated Caucasians did in their early months after arrival. He became separated from fellow soldiers guarding the munitions shipment. Hostile Indians fell upon the soldiers, slaughtered them all, and took the supplies as booty. When Minor caught up, he came upon the grisly scene, returned to New Orleans unharmed, reported the incident, and awaited further assignments. He remained in the Spanish service, likely fighting in Gálvez’ conquests in West Florida, culminating in the overthrow of the English regime when Pensacola fell to the Spanish and their Native American allies.
Spanish successful conquest of Pensacola on May 10, 1781, was as important to the future of Spanish influence in North America, and to the Native tribes of the Southeast, as the contemporaneous American victory over the British Army at Yorktown.
Minor rose through the ranks to become a Spanish lieutenant, arrived at Natchez during the 1780s, serving in the garrison, and now took on additional responsibilities as Gayoso’s secretary and protégé. The young man’s language skills, imposing presence, and developing engaging manner were just what the Spanish required to win over both the Anglo-British planters who remained after the Spanish conquest and the new settlers trickling in. Most of the Anglo planters duly took the Spanish oath of allegiance, their English land grants legitimized under the new Spanish regime. Loyalists who refused Spanish allegiance were given a couple of months to liquidate their holdings and depart peaceably. See: Holmes, Jack D. L. “Stephen Minor: Natchez Pioneer.” Journal of Mississippi History, 1980, Vol. 42:17-26; and Minor Family Papers, 1763-1900, In: Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina.
For a number of other former British subjects and more recent American settlers who were quite willing to maintain Spanish allegiance, see: McMichael, F. Andrew. Atlantic Loyalties: Americans in Spanish West Florida. McMichael asserts that a “frontier pragmatism” was in play, where allegiance, national identity, and national political ideologies were secondary to advancing personal interests. In such a context the geographic southern border between the United States and Spanish West Florida was more permeable than perceived in the respective national metropoles. Spain was perceived by many Anglos and American settlers in the residual West Florida circa 1798-1810 as better protecting their interests than Spain. When that was no longer the case, the same people readily accepted, and in some cases fought for, American sovereignty in the region.
(page 136, par. 2) William Dunbar was an Anglo-British holdover who thrived regardless of regime William Dunbar (1750 – 1810), Forman and Draper, Ibid, p. 51 Lyman C. Draper noted: “Sir William Dunbar, son of Sir Archibald Dunbar, was born at Elgin, Scotland, and received a superior education in Glasgow and London. Because of failing health, he obtained a stock of goods for the Indian trade; and, landing in Philadelphia in April 1771, took his goods to Fort Pitt, and about 1773 he went to West Florida to form a plantation. He suffered much during the period of the Revolution, and in 1772 settled near Natchez, He became chief surveyor under the Spanish Government, and in 1798 he was appointed astronomical commissioner on the part of Spain in establishing the boundary. He was shortly after appointed by Governor Sargent, on the organization of Mississippi Territory, under the United States Government, chief judge of the Court of Quarter Session. He corresponded with the most distinguished scientific men of his time, and contributed to the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. He died in 1810, leaving many descendants.] Also see: Rowland, Eron. Life, Letters and Papers of William Dunbar; DeRosier Jr., Arthur H. William Dunbar: Scientific Pioneer of the Old Southwest; and entry by George E. Webb in ANB.
(page 136, par. 3, lines 1-4) One captive committed suicide by drowning after capture, rather than facing discipline and a return to a life of toil Owner William Dunbar could not fathom such behavior. He asked himself rhetorically in his journal for May 12, 1777:
“Two Negroes ran away but were catched & brought back Wednesday after. Condemned that they receive 500 lashes each at 5 dift. time & to carry a chain log fixt to the ankle. Poor ignorant devils; for what do they run away? They are well clothed, work easy, & have all kinds of plantation produce at no allowance. After slighter chastisement than was intended they were set at liberty & behave well…”
An aborted slave revolt and the suicide of one of the captured escapees occurred a few years before this, just as Dunbar was endeavoring to start his plantation with enslaved laborers that he had just imported from Jamaica. From Rowland, Eron. Ibid, pp. 46-47.
(page 136, par. 4) Benjamin Monsanto (d. 1794) was a member of an extended Sephardic Jewish family – Benjamin, Isaac, Manuel, Eleanora, Gracia and Jacob – based in New Orleans. Samuel S. Forman recalled the couple he visited in 1790 or early 1791 as “Monsieur and Madam Mansanteo – Spanish Jews, I think.” Bernardo Monsanto’s spouse was Clara. They were married in the St. Louis Catholic Church in 1787 but never formally converted to Catholicism. It is unclear from Samuel S. Forman’s recollection, and in the absence of other evidence, whether the Monsanto couple observed Jewish rituals as best they could in the absence of a synagogue and other acknowledged Jews in the district.
A literal reading of the Spanish Code Noire forbade Jews from residing in Luisiana and Spanish West Florida. The patriarch of the Monsantos was forced to flee New Orleans for a time under the first Spanish colonial governor O’Reilly. In established parts of Neuvo Espana, overt or covert Marrano Jewish practice was subject to persecution under the Inquisition and residence was forbidden. King Carlos III’s royal edict, inviting immigration into the Natchez District and Luisiana signaled a more tolerant stance, and may have permitted the Monsantos to acknowledge their Jewishness.
Bernardo Monsanto owned and managed for a time a 500-acre plantation on St. Catherine’s Creek, making him a neighbor in the country of Ezekiel and Margaret Forman. He was more successful as a businessman and trader, including participating in deals involving black slaves. See Blau, Joseph L., and Salo W. Baron, eds. The Jews of the United States, Vol. 3, p. 37; and Ford, Emily, and Barry Stiefel. The Jews of New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta. From Ch. 1, “there were Jews in Louisiana, [but] there was no Judaism in Louisiana.” According to Ford and Stiefel, Bernard Monsanto “had a plantation along St. Catherine’s Creek, but no great success as planter.” Bernard Monsanto’s 1794 estate inventory can be found in McBee, M.W. The Natchez Court Records, 1767-1805: Abstracts of Early Records, pp. 116-117.
(page 137, par. 3, line 1) Rachel Donelson Jackson (1767-1828). Estranged from her first husband Captain Lewis Robards, she came to Natchez from Nashville to be close to dashing Andrew Jackson. She resided at the Green’s Plantation, Springfield, during the courtship. The elder Green, in his capacity as a Spanish alcalde of Spanish West Florida, married the couple. Unbeknownst to the couple, Rachel’s divorce had not been finalized, so technically she entered a bigamous marriage. When the Jacksons discovered the situation, they remarried in U.S. jurisdiction. Such situations were not unusual on the frontier, when government officials and religious leaders were sparse.
Earlier in the 1780s, Andrew Jackson’s host, Mr. Green, was part of Georgia’s attempt to assert the American state’s authority in Natchez as the newfangled Bourbon County. Rather than executing or exiling for treason the American Natchez immigrants who abetted this scheme, the mild Spanish administration delivered a firm slap on the wrist, with no long-term diminution in participants’ land holdings, social position, or influence, as Spanish subjects in West Florida. Just a few years later, Mr. Green fully accommodated as an alcalde in the Spanish service.
The pairing of Andrew and Rachel earned scant notice at the time. Only much later, when Andy Jackson had become the Hero of the Battle of New Orleans and President of the United States, did the legality of Rachel’s divorce and remarriage provide grist for politically motivated personal attacks against the Presidential candidate and his lady. Rachel Jackson died before Andrew Jackson assumed the presidency, a circumstance the widowed president attributed to the merciless hounding from his political enemies concerning Rachel’s alleged improprieties. The topic remained a flash point for controversy during his presidency. The following include discussions of the Greens, the Bourbon County controversy, and the Jacksons’ marriage: Claiborne, J.F.H. Mississippi as a Province, Territory, and State; American Historical Review Vol. 15, pp. 70-73; Whitaker, A.P. The Spanish-American Frontier, pp. 55-58; Kane, Hanett T. Natchez on the Mississippi, pp. 28-35.
(page 138, par. 4, line 1) Papers that Samuel S. had long forgotten have recently come to light William Dunbar to Samuel S. Forman certificate, March 11, 1791, In Samuel S. Forman papers, 1745-1877, Fairchild Collection, New York: NYPL.
(page 139, par. 2, lines 2-3) Ezekiel Forman assured that these farewells took place in style The Formans’ coachman Philip drove the carriage , one of the first in the Natchez District. The source manuscripts variously identify the coachman as Philip or Moses. For purposes of this book, I concluded that these are dissimilar names recalled for the same person. It is possible that Philip and Moses were separate and unrelated people imperfectly recalled. See Appendix II for possible misidentification of coachman Moses and Philip.
(page 139, par. 4) Parting from the family Samuel S. Forman’s trip down the wide Mississippi from Natchez to New Orleans was uneventful regarding navigation. A contemporary navigational guide for boaters coached that the trip by flatboat or keelboat could “safely proceed day and night” Cramer, Zadok. The Ohio and Mississippi Navigator, pp. 70-75.
(page 139, par. 6, line 2) Samuel S. stepped aboard the brig Navarre, to make his way north to Philadelphia Samuel S. Forman Papers, In: Fairchild Collection, NYPL Op. cit., Samuel S. Forman’s Spanish passport signed by Luisiana governor Estavan Miro, and account spreadsheet dated December 20, 1792 detailing Samuel S. Forman’s cargo from New Orleans to Philadelphia transported on account of General David Forman. Samuel S. Forman did not discuss an intriguing aspect of his cargo from New Orleans to Philadelphia: He transported five casks of tobacco, which would have amounted to 5,000 pounds of Natchez-produced tobacco. Cotemporary Spanish records reveal that Ezekiel Forman and his enslaved African Americans produced 5,000 pounds of tobacco in their first crop year at Natchez. It is possible that Ezekiel, accompanying Samuel S. to New Orleans for his departure in late May 1791, may have been dissatisfied with the subsidized price offered at the Spanish warehouse. He may have decided to assign his younger cousin Samuel S. Forman as supercargo to accompany his entire crop to Philadelphia in hopes of realizing a better price. Surviving business documents leave it unclear what General David Forman’s ownership interest was in that first crop, and whether the 5,000 pounds of tobacco produced on Ezekiel Forman’s newly established plantation in its first year, and the shipment of 5 casks of tobacco Samuel S. Forman took to Philadelphia on the brig Navarre, was one and the same.