Florida Founder William P. DuVal , livre ebook

Florida Founder William P. DuVal
Front cover illustrations: inset , William P. DuVal, courtesy of the Collection of the Museum of Florida History; map , courtesy of the Library of Congress
F LORIDA F OUNDER W ILLIAM P . D U V AL

Frontier Bon Vivant
J AMES M . D ENHAM
2015 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-1-61117-466-3 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-61117-467-0 (ebook)
Contents
Illustrations
Preface
1. Scion of the Old Dominion
2. Soldier and War Hawk Politician
3. Judge and Governor
4. Founder of the Florida Territory
5. Neamathla and a New Territorial Capital
6. A Corrupt Bargain and a New Home in Florida
7. Trials, Tribulations, and Left-Handed Justice
8. I have health, activity, good spirits, and a small share of Perserverity
9. Harassed by the persecution of their neighbors
10. Storm Clouds on the Horizon
11. I intend to examine Your relation to the President
12. Nullifying an Election
13. I shall return very poor to Kentucky
14. Do all you can for Texas
15. Canals, Banks, and a Constitutional Convention
16. Faith Bonds, Division, Depression, and a Plague
17. Tyler Too, Washington Intrigue, and St. Augustine
18. State of Texas-State of Florida
19. I will not be the cause of disunion in our ranks
20. Gone to Texas-Gone to Washington
Epilogue
Abbreviations in Notes
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
M APS
Wilderness Road to Kentucky Settlements, c. 1800
Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois Territories during the War of 1812
William Pope DuVal s Florida Territory, ca. 1834
I LLUSTRATIONS
Henry Clay, ca. 1810
Washington Irving, ca. 1820
General Andrew Jackson in uniform
John C. Calhoun, ca. 1820
President James Monroe
James Gadsden, ca. 1820
Neamathla, ca. 1830s
Samuel Southard, ca. 1820s
Tallahassee Plan, 1824
Tuko-see-Mathla
Legislative Council Meeting House, Tallahassee, ca. 1826
John Gratton Gamble
Thomas Brown, ca. 1820s
Achille Murat, ca. 1820s
William Wirt
President Andrew Jackson
John Quincy Adams, ca. 1830s
William Pope DuVal, ca. 1830s
The Capitol, Washington, D.C. West from City Hall, 1832
Lewis Cass, ca. 1833
City of Washington from beyond the Navy Yard, 1834
Louisville, Kentucky, Street Scene, ca. 1834
John Eaton, ca. 1834
Tallahassee Street Scene, ca. 1836
John P. DuVal
Samuel Parkhill and his brother John
Robert Raymond Reid
Martin Van Buren, ca. 1840
Richard Keith Call, ca. 1840
Washington Irving, ca. 1840
John Tyler, ca. 1840
William P. DuVal, ca. 1840
Thomas Douglas, 1840
St. Augustine Plaza, ca. 1840
David Levy Yulee
Edward Carrington Cabell, ca. 1848
Thomas Brown
John C. Calhoun, ca. 1850
Washington-Capitol, ca. 1848
Preface
B ORN ONE YEAR AFTER the American Revolution in Richmond, Virginia, and dying six years before the Civil War, William Pope DuVal lived a life full of excitement, adventure, triumph, tragedies, and disappointments. Son of a well-to-do Richmond lawyer, Revolutionary War hero, and scion of a prominent Huguenot family, the fifteen-year-old DuVal and his older brother joined thousands of other Virginians heading west to Kentucky in 1800. The DuVal brothers purpose in traveling to the dark and bloody ground of Kentucky was to patent thousands of acres of Kentucky land their father had acquired from his service in the American Revolution. While the dangers of migration were real enough, the DuVal brothers had advantages that other migrants to Kentucky lacked-cash and connections. With a loan from his father and land warrants in his saddlebags, DuVal found relatives and his father s business associates who eased the transition from urbane Richmond to the Kentucky frontier.
Reading law in the Bardstown area, DuVal achieved notoriety as a lawyer and politician. In 1812 he was elected to Congress, but before going to Washington, D.C., he volunteered for service in the War of 1812. DuVal s service in the Indiana Territory during the War of 1812 was brief and inauspicious, but he did meet numerous persons with whom he would associate in later years, such as William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Ninian Edwards, Duff Green, and Lewis Cass. As a War Hawk congressman representing Kentucky s Tenth District in the Thirteenth Congress, DuVal debated legislation on the controversial issues of the day, including the embargo, conscription, and the National Bank. And in the fall of 1814, he was among the members of the Thirteenth Congress who arrived to find the capital in ashes after the British attack. DuVal met many men who would have a significant impact on his future career in politics. Among these was his lifelong mentor, John C. Calhoun. Returning to Kentucky after one term, he practiced law but fell on hard times during the Panic of 1819. Relief came in 1821, when Calhoun, James Monroe s secretary of war, used his influence to have DuVal appointed judge in the newly created Florida Territory. The next year, also thanks to Calhoun s influence, Monroe appointed DuVal the territory s second governor, succeeding Andrew Jackson s brief three-month tenure. DuVal served three consecutive terms, remaining territorial governor until 1834. In those years he presided over the first civil territorial government of Florida and the founding of the capital at Tallahassee.
As territorial governor DuVal labored under extreme hardships. When he arrived in the territory, in 1822, Florida contained only a few thousand white inhabitants who were clustered around two Spanish towns, Pensacola and St. Augustine, separated by almost five hundred miles of wilderness. Also in Florida were roughly five thousand Indians, many of them refugee Creeks, recently arrived from conflicts in Alabama. They joined other Creeks of varying linguistic and cultural backgrounds, collectively referred to as Seminoles. In the Peninsula some bands lived alongside their black allies in towns. Other Creeks, who had allied themselves with Andrew Jackson during the First Seminole War, lived on reservations along the Apalachicola River. Still other bands lived in Middle Florida, the region that would form the focal point of white settlements in the years following the founding of Tallahassee. As ex officio superintendent of Indian affairs, DuVal worked closely with Washington officials and oversaw the initial negotiations with the Seminole Indians. Careful examination of DuVal s correspondence offers a mixed picture of his attitudes regarding Florida s Native Americans. Some of his writings reflect compassion, while others reflect frustration and anger. One close student of the Seminole Wars summarizes these conflicting emotions well: One can assume the double burden of governorship and superintendency had frayed his nerves. After all, he was under steady attack from all quarters. The tender-minded assailed him for having used force in various agreements with the Indians (which he denied); the economy-minded criticized him for spending money to feed the Indians (yet if he had not done so, they would have starved); while day in and day out the slaveholders carped at him for every move. 1 Though tension existed between DuVal and Seminole leaders, the majority trusted him, and the fact that there was no major rebellion until he left office is a tribute to his skill.
As a political appointee DuVal was closely linked to national politics from the 1820s through the 1840s. During his tenure as governor and throughout his life DuVal maintained close political ties to Kentucky, Washington, and the Virginia Dynasty. A Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican politician turned Jacksonian Democrat, DuVal, though a Kentuckian, counted Henry Clay among his enemies throughout his life. Even before the Corrupt Bargain episode, DuVal was convinced that Jackson s elevation to the White House was inevitable. Joining his Kentucky associates in earnest, DuVal worked hard for Old Hickory s election in 1824 and 1828. He and his friend Richard Keith Call visited the Hermitage often during those years. Not long after the election, however, DuVal was one of the many casualties of the Peggy Eaton Affair and the Nullification Crisis. The Jackson-Calhoun split was catastrophic for DuVal s political fortunes. The fallout soured DuVal and Jackson s cordial relationship, and the result was that John Eaton himself supplanted DuVal as territorial governor of Florida in 1834. The break also wrecked John C. Calhoun s presidential aspirations, elevating Martin Van Buren to the presidency in 1836. Not surprisingly, DuVal and his friend Call were lukewarm on Van Buren and eventually broke with his administration. Both supported William Henry Harrison (DuVal s old War of 1812 comrade) and the Whig Party in the election of 1840. DuVal eventually returned to the Democrats, but the temporary departure from party orthodoxy damaged his standing in the party, both nationally and later in Florida.
After DuVal left the governor s chair, he returned briefly to Kentucky, where he lent his efforts to the cause of Texas independence. Two of his sons participated in that conflict: Burr, his oldest, was killed in the Goliad Massacre, while another son, John C., was one of its few survivors. In 1836 DuVal was appointed an honorary brigadier general