America`s Advantage from Europe`s Distress. 1783

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Pinckney’s Treaty
Figure 2: Thomas Pinckney, by W. C. Armstrong
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Bemis, Samuel Flagg. Pinckney’s Treaty: America’s Advantage
from Europe’s Distress, 1783-1800. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1960.
Collin Schnakenberg
Collin Schnakenberg is a graduating senior history major and Honors Fellow from
Crane, Missouri. He was the Tau Sigma Chapter President in 2014-2015 and
2015-2016. He will begin graduate studies in British history at Georgetown
University in the fall, and he was awarded the A.F. Zimmerman Scholarship from
Phi Alpha Theta in 2016.
In the formative years of the American republic, foreign policy weighed heavily on the
minds of its leaders. Indeed, much of the party system arose in support or opposition
to the 1794 Treaty of London, better known as Jay’s Treaty after its chief American
negotiator, John Jay. However, a contemporary treaty occurred soon afterward between
the United States and Spain, another Revolutionary War ally. This agreement was
entitled the Treaty of San Lorenzo in Spain, or as Pinckney’s Treaty in the United
States, after diplomat Thomas Pinckney. Though it was largely uncontroversial in
the United States, Pinckney’s Treaty was an essential component of America’s ideal
of Manifest Destiny, for it granted western Americans the right to navigate on the
Mississippi River and laid a greater claim to the Louisiana Territory when the United
States purchased the land from Napoleonic France in 1803. To rectify the historical
oversight of this treaty, Samuel Flagg Bemis, a famed early twentieth century historian,
wrote a 1926 work entitled Pinckney’s Treaty: America’s Advantage from Europe’s Distress,
1783-1800. Bemis’ work on this subject gained distinction from historians of his day,
secured for him the 1927 Pulitzer Prize for History, and furthered the growing field
of diplomatic history. In his work, Bemis sought above all for objectivity, a common
characteristic of historians in that era. Consequently, he endeavored to merely present
the facts and chronology rather than seek to prove a point. Nonetheless, a definite thesis
emerged, as seen in the subtitle to the work. By taking advantage of the numerous wars
between France, Britain, and Spain, as well as the longstanding diplomatic relationship
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between Spain and the United States and the secrecy surrounding Jay’s Treaty,
Pinckney accomplished nearly all of the United States’ goals, including the important
access to the Mississippi.
Bemis begins his book by tracing the relationship between Spain and the
United States since the Revolutionary War. In particular, he details the negotiations
between John Jay, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs under the Confederacy, and Don
Diego de Gardoqui, the chief financial intermediary between Spain and the United
States throughout the Revolutionary War and ambassador to the United States. The
resulting Jay-Gardoqui treaty of 1786 guaranteed Spain’s control of navigation on
the Mississippi, for this was the chief concern of the Spaniards.1 The treaty fell apart,
however, when Congress failed to ratify it, leading Jay to bemoan the political anarchy
into which the United States was slipping.2 Bemis then delves into the decade-long wait
that both Spain and the United States endured, as well as the Spanish policy in regard
to western Americans, who had to ship their goods across the Appalachian Mountains
to the eastern markets instead of the much more profitable New Orleans markets (with
their ready ships to Europe). The negotiations again continued when the Prime Minister
of Spain, Manuel Godoy, issued a series of propositions to the United States. This
diplomatic outreach was partially due to the dissatisfaction the Spanish felt with their
“unholy” alliance with their traditional enemy Great Britain against their traditional
ally France.3 The Spanish worked quickly to establish a formal treaty with the United
States before the British or the French. As Godoy began his negotiations, word reached
the Spanish that Britain had also entered into negotiations with the United States.
Though the full terms of Jay’s Treaty would not be known to Godoy until after the
signing of Pinckney’s Treaty, the Spanish feared that the British and the United States
would ally to maintain free navigation of the Mississippi.4 Even amidst the pressure of
competing alliances, the initial representatives from the United States, William Short
and William Carmichael, proved unsatisfying, and Godoy dismissed them for their
lower rank in the American government and declared them not worthy to enter into
1. Bemis, 83.
2. Ibid., 89.
3. Ibid., 198.
4. Ibid., 234.
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negotiations with King Charles IV.5 The United States responded by sending Thomas
Pinckney, who was much more likeable, to Godoy. As Pinckney entered Madrid, he was
favored by the complete dissolution of the First Coalition against France, as Prussia, the
Netherlands, and Spain itself had left the fight to Britain. Spain feared reparations from
Britain for leaving the Coalition and hastily bargained with Pinckney in terms highly
favorable to the United States.6 In his haste, Godoy gave the United States freedom
to fully navigate on the Mississippi River and ceded their claim on the upper half of
modern day Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, setting the line at the 31st parallel.
The Senate unanimously and quickly signed and passed the treaty.7 Pinckney received
high praise for his actions abroad, and the Spanish moved out of their forts in the ceded
lands without much trouble. Indeed, the Pinckney Treaty constituted one of America’s
greatest diplomatic successes.
Though Bemis does a fantastic job of setting the stage for the negotiations
with Spain, he does so without much regard to the overall effects of the treaty, except
in the conclusion. By starting his narrative in the midst of the Confederation, Bemis
does not reach the beginning of the negotiations until the second-to-last chapter, which
hampers the telling of the actual negotiations and the effects. Nonetheless, Bemis
provides a detailed background, which certainly proves beneficial in understanding
the tensions and reasoning underlying the negotiations. Though the author wrote in
the era of patriotic Whig history, where America appears as the ultimate fulfillment
of the progressing view of liberty, he seems to do a fair job of presenting a level of
objectivity in his interpretation. Bemis was an American, but he does not favor the
American Pinckney over the Spanish Godoy. Though surely tempted to slight the
Spanish foresight, he presents a realistic view of the mindsets of Pinckney and Godoy.
He argues that Pinckney “misread the international puzzle” and that Godoy balked
at the uncertainty that accompanied Jay’s Treaty and the possibility of an AngloAmerican alliance.8 Fortunately, Bemis consulted both American and Spanish primary
and secondary sources. He uses eclectic guides from archives in America, Spain, and
5. Bemis, 245.
6. Ibid., 267-268.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., 268.
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even Cuba to validate his claims.9 In addition, he provides secondary sources about
Spanish colonial claims and the question of the Mississippi.10 Though the secondary
sources are much less numerous than the primary, this lack is understandable, for
diplomatic history had just started to gain prestige in the United States following the
First World War (though Leopold van Ranke had popularized it in Europe). Beneficial
to any historian of the era are the extensive source notes that Bemis included in his
appendix as well.
Bemis proved to be an engaging author and a proficient historian, eventually
winning another Pulitzer Prize and becoming president of the American Historical
Association. Though he might have addressed more of the treaty’s effects, he ably
discussed how the treaty came into existence and traced diplomatic relations between
Spain and the fledgling United States from the early days of the Confederacy to the
turn of the century. This book is crucial for any who wish to understand diplomatic
relations in late eighteenth century America.
9. Bemis, 317-318.
10. Ibid., 323-324.
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