uisiana through Governor William Claiborne
and General James Wilkinson.

The leaders among the Creoles and better class of Americans counted on
a speedy escape from this autocratic government, which was confessedly
temporary. The terms of the treaty, indeed, encouraged the hope that
Louisiana would be admitted at once as a State. The inhabitants of the
ceded territory were to be "incorporated into the Union." But Congress
gave a different interpretation to these words and dashed all hopes by
the act of 1804, which, while it conceded a legislative council, made
its members and all officers appointive, and divided the province.
A delegation of Creoles went to Washington to protest against this
inconsiderate treatment. They bore a petition which contained many
stiletto-like thrusts at the President. What about those elemental
rights of representation and election which had figured in the glorious
contest for freedom? "Do political axioms on the Atlantic become
problems when transferred to the shores of the Mississippi?" To such
arguments Congress could not remain wholly indifferent. The outcome
was a third act (March 2, 1805) which established the usual form of
territorial government, an elective legislature, a delegate in Congress,
and a Governor appointed by the President. To a people who had counted
on statehood these concessions were small pinchbeck. Their irritation
was not allayed, and it continued to focus upon Governor Claiborne, the
distrusted agent of a government which they neither liked nor respected.

Strange currents and counter-currents ran through the life of this
distant province. Casa Calvo and Morales, the former Spanish officials,
continued to reside in the city, like spiders at the center of a web of
Spanish intrigue; and the threads of their web extended to West Florida,
where Governor Folch watched every movement of Americans up and down
the Mississippi, and to Texas, where Salcedo, Captain-General of
the Internal Provinces of Mexico, waited for overt aggressions from
land-hungry American frontiersmen. All these Spanish agents knew that
Monroe had left Madrid empty-handed yet still asserting claims that were
ill-disguised threats; but none of them knew whether the impending blow
would fall upon West Florida or Texas. Then, too, right under their eyes
was the Mexican Association, formed for the avowed purpose of collecting
information about Mexico which would be useful if the United States
should bec