Story of West FL Rebellion
Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 3:51 pm
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/G ... /home.html
THE STORY OF THE WEST FLORIDA REBELLION
BY
STANLEY CLISBY ARTHUR
Some of the tribes.. Tunica and .Houma and Village of Bayou Sara and landowners
P25...
When the petitioners filed out of Sam Fulton's house, July 8, they had named their five delegates to the convention called for by the planters of Feliciana. Those who were to represent the Baton Rouge district were: Philip Hicky, Thomas Lilley, John Morgan, Manuel Lopez, and Edmund Hawes.
ALCALDE SHEPHERD BROWN
The convention idea was not welcomed by everyone in West Florida. The commandant and alcalde in the Ste. Helena district, Shepherd Brown by name,4 was one of the objectors. He had been receiving rumors of the movement and the desire "for a new order of things" which included the taking over of the reins of government, therefore he was, to say the least, astounded to receive from the governor a written permit to allow the inhabitants of Ste. Helena and Chifoncté to meet and select delegates. Suspicioning that de Lassus had been forced to issue the permits because he was not strong enough to forbid such gatherings or to punish those behind the movement, Brown sent one of his trusted lieutenants, Joseph Thomas, to Baton Rouge to learn from the governor's own lips whether or not he had voluntarily issued the permits or whether they had been extorted.
If the governor was not acting on his "own free will and his course was designed to preserve intact this part of the kingdom and of our loved and worthy sovereign, Don Ferdinand VII, and to sustain his government and wise laws," and the right to meet in convention assembled "had been extorted by fear," then Shepherd Brown declared that the Ste. Helena district which he commanded did not desire a change of any kind, and, if the governor needed help, he, Brown, "could muster in a few hours more than five hundred men ready and willing to sacrifice their lives for the honour of the Spanish flag, and who would obey his word!"
The author of these bombastic words was an American-born individual who settled in the West Florida section soon after John McDonough arrived in Louisiana to begin his work of amassing a fortune in the New Orleans trade and in cypress swamps along the Iberville, Amite and Comite rivers. In this latter endeavor McDonough was ably assisted by his confidential agent in West Florida, Shepherd Brown. It was Brown who greased Spanish palms to secure these "worthless" lands for the notorious spendthrift of the Crescent City. No small wonder then that Shepherd Brown did not look with friendly eye on any move for any kind of government.
The governor reassured Brown's messenger, wrote the alcalde of Ste. Helena, that he had not been "forced" to permit the meeting, that all who had asked to hold them had done "so with proper respect", that he believed the people not only well disposed towards him but to Spain and their sovereign Ferdinand, and the "real meaning of the coming convention is merely an endeavor on the part of the inhabitants to prove p43 their loyalty to Spain." Which either means de Lassus was a fool, or that he was ready to make a corrupt bargain with the leaders, or that he was craftily playing for time to recruit a sufficiently large force to crush the revolt at one paralyzing blow. Events seem to prove the third suspicion.
Reassured that the governor was not acting under force, Brown issued the call in his district for popular gatherings to elect delegates to the greatly feared convention. As it would be impossible to secure one convenient common meeting place, he divided it into three sections (Ste. Helena at that time took in what is now that parish and Livingston, bounded on the west by the Tickfaw and on the east by the "Chifoncté"), two delegates to be chosen from one section, and one from each of the remaining two precincts. Those "elected" were Joseph Thomas, Shepherd Brown's trusted and confidential lieutenant; John W. Leonard, son of Don Gilberto de Leonardo5 (the father served under de Lassus as Ministro Interventor y Tesorero, which means he was the comptroller and treasurer, but when Don Gilberto left the Emerald Isle he was plain Gilbert Leonard and, even when he learned to speak Spanish, he spoke it with a thick Irish brogue); William Spiller and Benjamin O. Williams were the two selected from the outlying precincts of St. Helena. The Chifoncté, or Tanchipaho region sent one delegate only, he was William Cooper, a former "North Carolina Tory" now an adherent of Shepherd Brown.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/G ... FR/1*.html
THE STORY OF THE WEST FLORIDA REBELLION
BY
STANLEY CLISBY ARTHUR
Some of the tribes.. Tunica and .Houma and Village of Bayou Sara and landowners
P25...
When the petitioners filed out of Sam Fulton's house, July 8, they had named their five delegates to the convention called for by the planters of Feliciana. Those who were to represent the Baton Rouge district were: Philip Hicky, Thomas Lilley, John Morgan, Manuel Lopez, and Edmund Hawes.
ALCALDE SHEPHERD BROWN
The convention idea was not welcomed by everyone in West Florida. The commandant and alcalde in the Ste. Helena district, Shepherd Brown by name,4 was one of the objectors. He had been receiving rumors of the movement and the desire "for a new order of things" which included the taking over of the reins of government, therefore he was, to say the least, astounded to receive from the governor a written permit to allow the inhabitants of Ste. Helena and Chifoncté to meet and select delegates. Suspicioning that de Lassus had been forced to issue the permits because he was not strong enough to forbid such gatherings or to punish those behind the movement, Brown sent one of his trusted lieutenants, Joseph Thomas, to Baton Rouge to learn from the governor's own lips whether or not he had voluntarily issued the permits or whether they had been extorted.
If the governor was not acting on his "own free will and his course was designed to preserve intact this part of the kingdom and of our loved and worthy sovereign, Don Ferdinand VII, and to sustain his government and wise laws," and the right to meet in convention assembled "had been extorted by fear," then Shepherd Brown declared that the Ste. Helena district which he commanded did not desire a change of any kind, and, if the governor needed help, he, Brown, "could muster in a few hours more than five hundred men ready and willing to sacrifice their lives for the honour of the Spanish flag, and who would obey his word!"
The author of these bombastic words was an American-born individual who settled in the West Florida section soon after John McDonough arrived in Louisiana to begin his work of amassing a fortune in the New Orleans trade and in cypress swamps along the Iberville, Amite and Comite rivers. In this latter endeavor McDonough was ably assisted by his confidential agent in West Florida, Shepherd Brown. It was Brown who greased Spanish palms to secure these "worthless" lands for the notorious spendthrift of the Crescent City. No small wonder then that Shepherd Brown did not look with friendly eye on any move for any kind of government.
The governor reassured Brown's messenger, wrote the alcalde of Ste. Helena, that he had not been "forced" to permit the meeting, that all who had asked to hold them had done "so with proper respect", that he believed the people not only well disposed towards him but to Spain and their sovereign Ferdinand, and the "real meaning of the coming convention is merely an endeavor on the part of the inhabitants to prove p43 their loyalty to Spain." Which either means de Lassus was a fool, or that he was ready to make a corrupt bargain with the leaders, or that he was craftily playing for time to recruit a sufficiently large force to crush the revolt at one paralyzing blow. Events seem to prove the third suspicion.
Reassured that the governor was not acting under force, Brown issued the call in his district for popular gatherings to elect delegates to the greatly feared convention. As it would be impossible to secure one convenient common meeting place, he divided it into three sections (Ste. Helena at that time took in what is now that parish and Livingston, bounded on the west by the Tickfaw and on the east by the "Chifoncté"), two delegates to be chosen from one section, and one from each of the remaining two precincts. Those "elected" were Joseph Thomas, Shepherd Brown's trusted and confidential lieutenant; John W. Leonard, son of Don Gilberto de Leonardo5 (the father served under de Lassus as Ministro Interventor y Tesorero, which means he was the comptroller and treasurer, but when Don Gilberto left the Emerald Isle he was plain Gilbert Leonard and, even when he learned to speak Spanish, he spoke it with a thick Irish brogue); William Spiller and Benjamin O. Williams were the two selected from the outlying precincts of St. Helena. The Chifoncté, or Tanchipaho region sent one delegate only, he was William Cooper, a former "North Carolina Tory" now an adherent of Shepherd Brown.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/G ... FR/1*.html