ANDREW JACKSON AND THE ERVING AFFIDAVIT
In his famous Texas letter to A. V. Brown, February 12, 1843
(published in March, 1844, in the newspapers), Andrew Jackson
disclosed some "secret history" calculated to aid and encourage the
Texas "re-annexation" cause:
Soon after my election, in 1829, it was made known to me by
Mr. Erwin [G. W. Erving], formerly our minister to the court of
Madrid, that whilst at that Court he had laid the foundation of a
treaty with Spain for the cession of the Floridas and the settlement
of the boundary of Louisiana, fixing the western limit of the latter
at the Rio Grande, agreeably to the understanding of France; that
he had written home to our government for powers to complete and
sign this negotiation; but that, instead of receiving such authority,
the negotiation was taken out of his hands and transferred to
Washington, and a new treaty was there concluded, by which the
Sabine, and not the Rio Grande, was recognized and established as
the boundary of Louisiana. Finding that these statements were
true, and that our government did really give up that important
territory, when it was at its option to retain it, I was filled with
astonishment. The right to the territory was obtained from France.
Spain stood ready to acknowledge it to the Rio Grande, and yet the
authority asked by our Minister to insert the true boundary was
not only withheld, but in lieu of it, a limit was adopted which
stripped us of the whole of the vast country.
In 1829-30 . . . Mr. Irwin . . . placed a copy in my hands
of the correspondence between him and the Spanish Minister at
Madrid, which shwd. that he had negotiated a treaty by which
Spain recognized the ancient limits of Louisiana to the Rio Grande
and ceded Florida for the sum paid.
Adams withheld authority to sign it. "I knew at once," adds
Jackson, "that Mr. Adams' object was to keep down the growing
political ascendancy of the South and West."
1
Erving had in 1829 (on December 17, apparently), at Jackson's
request, given the latter a written statement regarding his negoti-
ations in 1818 at Madrid.
2 Erving referred in this "Summary" to
Thomas H. Benton's articles in the St.
Louis
Beacon
in the summer
of 1829, in which Benton, under the signatures "Americanus" and
"LaSalle," urged the "re-annexation" of Texas. Benton had
quoted several documents of the period 1818-1819 tending to show
that Erving could have got the Colorado in Texas as the western
boundary and that Adams knew when he agreed to the Florida
treaty that the Spanish minister, Onis, was authorized, as indeed
he was, to cede more territory than he did; Benton accordingly had
denounced Adams for "dismembering" and yielding to Spain a
portion of the American Louisiana Purchase. Benton no doubt
inspired Jackson's application to Erving for further information.
Erving's "Summary," which did not go beyond what Benton had
already told the public, could hardly have astonished Jackson.
Adams, the last member of Monroe's cabinet willing to yield
Texas to Spain in 1819, hotly contradicted Jackson's "Rio Grande
treaty" version when it first was made public in 1844, and charged
the Old Hero with deliberate fraud. Adams pointed out (as he
had once before, in 1836) that Jackson had been consulted by him
in 1819 and had approved the Sabine boundary in the treaty then
being negotiated. When Jackson denied this Adams had only to
produce his diary for February 1-3, 1819, to show that Jackson
really had a very "bad memory." Further doubt was thrown upon
the "astonishment" and "indignation" which Jackson professed to
have felt in 1829 on receiving Erving's "revelations" when S. L.
Gouverneur, Monroe's son-in-law, published in 1844 the letter
which President Monroe had written to Jackson in May, 1820, ex-
plaining the Florida treaty boundary: "Having long known," wrote
Monroe, "the repugnance with which the Eastern portion of our
union . . . have seen its aggrandizement to the West and South,
I have been decidedly of opinion that we ought to be content with
Florida for the present."
Not only was there no truth in Jackson's statement regarding
Erving's "Rio Grande treaty," but Erving's affidavit—a copy of
which is still preserved in the Jackson Papers--had not one word
to say about this treaty, which, according to Jackson, was described
therein. In this paper Erving says that Spain was at one time
considering the Colorado as a boundary, but was unwilling to
cede Florida; he wrote Adams on July 22, 1818, that if the
United States "should think it proper to consent to the Sabine
as a limit, that then the equivalent of the Floridas may be in
our cession." Erving confesses that Spain was unwilling to yield
both Florida and a Colorado boundary, and had at no time defi-
nitely agreed to yield even the land east of the Colorado by itself--
yet Erving querulously complained about the Florida treaty with-
out being able to bring any real charges against Adams. The
mysterious "Rio Grande treaty" was thus rather obviously a fab-
rication on Jackson's part, arising from a mentality that was
deeply calculated and exuberant in sharp productions. This Jack-
sonian claim, the history of which has not yet been told, appears
to have occupied in Jackson's expansionist scheming in 1829-1832 a
place worthy of note. It is purposed here, as far as scant records
will permit, to give a history of this claim. When it was made
publicly by Jackson so belatedly in 1844 his friends could plausibly
attribute it to his "bad memory," but its early history would
seem to place Jackson in less favorable light.
In the summer of 1829 Jackson began a campaign of publicity
in the press, through the literary agency of Benton, Swartwout, and
other close friends, to stir up public enthusiasm in behalf of the
"re-annexation" of Texas, which he was eager to effect. Jackson
was preëminently a man of vigorous action and accomplishment,
unscrupulous in the means exercised to attain his ends. In his
private notes on Texas in August, 1829--preliminary to new in-
structions to his minister at Mexico City--Jackson observed that
if the United States did not acquire Texas soon "our national
safety must pay for it hereafter an immense price, peaceably or
forcibly . . . this is the most favorable time to obtain it on
reasonable terms."
3
expressed desire that Butler impress upon the Mexican adminis-
tration the imminent and increasing danger of a revolt for inde-
pendence in Texas which would assuredly be aided by further
American emigrants and which, in succeeding, would deprive
Mexico of the profit still available to her from a seasonable sale
of that territory to the United States. Jackson had not only
advised Butler from the start to explain his mission to Mexico
with "the frankness of a soldier," but had expressly, in a per-
sonal letter to the Mexican President, introduced Butler in this
character of "soldier." The Old Hero plainly hoped to intimidate
Mexico into ceding the desired land. 4 In the early days of Butler's
mission Jackson repeatedly advised him that Texas must belong to
the United States if peace with Mexico were to he enduring, and
instructed his agent to keep this "friendly" sentiment, with sup-
porting arguments, constantly before the Mexican government.
Of his private letters to Butler in this vein, that of October 7,
1830, is particularly noteworthy here:
And you may with all the frankness of a soldier
urge the policy
of adopting the Grand Prarie, as a permanent boundary . . . for
I say to you confidentially, whenever the present boundary is run
and our western Citizens [in Texas] find the imposition that has
been practised upon them, no power can restrain them, and they
will be sufficiently numerous to declare themselves independent
and maintain it. ... Our future peace with Mexico depends upon
extending our boundary farther west, And if you cannot get it
to the grand prararie obtain to the Brasos. . . .
But candour dictates the fact should be disclosed that the Gov-
ernment possessing the Mississippi must at some day possess all
its tributary
streams.
Therefore the grand prairie including this would be boundary
that would give permanent peace to the two Republics: Our right
by the Louisiana Treaty being once complete to all this boundary
and more. The citizens of the U States will never be contented
untill this boundary is acquired, when they become informed it
was wantonly given away to keep down the prosperity and growing
political influence of the west. . . .
5
to inform them could have been only the revelation purportedly
made to him by Erving in 1829. His threat to publish the revela-
tion, to arouse the Americans on both sides of the Sabine, sug-
gests that some sinister plan lay in his mind. Otherwise, why was
he still holding the "revelation" secret and in reserve? May it have
been his intention to "re-annex" Texas forcibly when convenient
circumstances arose, whose approach he anticipated, and on that
occasion to make public announcement of Erving's "Rio Grande
treaty" to justify his imperialistic act and carry the public senti-
ment with him ? At that time he was avowedly expectant of revo-
lution in Texas. Also, he was aware that his friend, Sam Houston,
was quietly recruiting an "army" of American adventurers for
the purpose of revolutionizing and conquering Texas; and the
evidence invites the conclusion that Jackson put no obstacle or
check to Houston's project, but secretly approved of it. Jackson's
late contemporary biographer, James Parton, states this as a fact
that he knew from unquestionable sources. In October, 1830, at the
time of his above-quoted letter, Jackson may have been antici-
pating a speedy fruition of Houston's filibustering scheme. As
to why no actual attempt upon Texas was made by Houston in
1830-1832 we are not informed. While it may be that Houston
found difficulty in enlisting recruits for his "army," or that
he lacked adequate funds, or that the establishment of Mexican
military garrisons in Texas following the Mexican colonization law
of April 6, 1830, acted as a deterrent, there is still another alterna-
tive explanation, one which is more likely and, moreover, in keeping
with Houston's promise to Jackson, in 1829, to engage in no
project which would bring dishonor upon the United States.
Namely, it may have been that Houston was playing the slow game
of encouraging his "recruits" to emigrate to Texas as colonists,
there to abide awaiting "the day" when revolt should be feasible. 6
Did Houston believe "the day" near when, on August 18, 1832,
he wrote to a friend that it was now important that he be in Texas
personally where he
could look at matters with a view to the changes which are nec-
essary and must take place before long in that country, and
without which it can never be what it ought to be for the benefit
of those interested [?]. Several persons have said to me that I was
looked for, and earnestly wished for by the citizens of Texas. . . .
The people look to the Indians in Arkansas as auxiliaries in the
event of a change--So I will pass that way, and see my old
friends.
I will ride to the Hermitage this evening, and see the Old Chief
General Jackson.
7
Why was there a demand in Texas for Houston's presence, and
a looking "to the Indians in Arkansas as auxiliaries?" Was it
because a number of recent emigrants to Texas were personally
acquainted with Houston's plan for the separation of Texas from
Mexico?
On February 25, 1832, Jackson wrote the following remarkable
private letter to Butler, which seems to show that he planned to
seize Texas whenever a state of affairs should develop there similar
to that which had come about in 1810,--so conveniently for Presi-
dent Madison--in West Florida:
I am told Mexico will contend for the [boundary] line to run
up the East fork which they say is the Sabine, and call the West
branch by another name [the Neches], which we cannot agree to,
as it would take from us two populous counties. ... I have but
little doubt but there will be an insurrection in Texas in less than
six months . . . people are emigrating to that country with a
view to this thing and it will be attempted shortly. The present
resources of Mexico will not be competent to reconquer and put
down this insurrection and regain the country, if once lost, and a
government composed of all kindred and tongues on our border,
plundering and murdering our good citizens at will, and exciting
the Indians to make war upon us, and on our borders,--this may
compelí us, in self-defence to seize that country by force and estab-
lish a regular government, there,
over it. This necessity I do not
wish to see, and would much deplore if it should occur. Therefore
it is we want to obtain a cession of that country for a fair con-
sideration, to prevent this very unpleasant emergency, that
would
compell us to seize that country on principles of real necessity and
self defence, being
well aware that Mexico cannot prevent Texas
from becoming independent of her.
8
The "highwayman's plea" is very faintly disguised here. We
can scarcely be surprised to find Adams writing in his diary at
this time, on January 31, 1832:
Mr. Johnson, Senator from Louisiana, asked me if I knew any-
thing of a treaty negotiated by G. W. Erving, in Spain, by which
the Rio del Norte was to be the boundary between the United States
and Mexico. I said there certainly never had been such a treaty.
He said the President had assured them that there was, and that
the proof of it was in the Department of State.
9
This coincidence again suggests that Jackson had fabricated the
mythical "Rio Grande treaty" of 1818 as propaganda to be issued
to the public on the appearance of revolt in Texas, to justify his
immediate seizure of that territory. Adams noted in the same diary
entry of January, 1832:
I believed the increasing settlements in Texas were all from this
country, and that the inhabitants would prefer to belong to the
United States rather than to Mexico, and it might be taken, as
Florida was taken in 1812.
At this point a curious and ambiguous maneuver on the Old
Hero's part took place. In January, 1832, Jackson seemingly--
through the agency of W. B. Lewis, his chief wire-puller--applied
to Erving for a new statement regarding his negotiations at Madrid
in 1818, on the ground that he (Jackson) had lost or mislaid
Erving's paper of 1829. Had Jackson actually mislaid Erving's
paper of 1829? Or, conscious that Erving's paper of December,
1829, lent no support whatever to the "Eio Grande treaty" claim
that he (Jackson) was making, was the President seeking to
obtain from Erving a new paper in which Erving would, agreeably
to Lewis' suggestion, lend color of support to Jackson's tale?
Erving, according to Adams, was anxious to become American
minister to Paris and, deceitful in character, would readily have
supported or connived at Jackson's hoax, from hope of sharing
favorably in Jackson's patronage. Our knowledge of the indirect
application which Jackson appears
to have made to Erving in
January, 1832, for a new
affidavit rests solely upon the following
purported letter from Erving to Jackson, dated "Kalorama, Feb.
5, 1832," which is found in the Jackson Papers and which, in
1844, Jackson placed in the hands of certain friends in Tyler's
administration along with Erving's syllabus:
Dear Sir--Major Lewis asked me on Wednesday or Thursday
last, what had become of the paper which I drew up for your
inspection some years ago,--and I replied that I supposed it to
be still in your possession, he told me that you had not been able
to find it, tho' probably on reexamination you might find it:--
That you may not have any further trouble in looking for it, and
supposing that you may desire to refer to it, I have thought it
best to make out another copy;--The paper which I take the liberty
of transmitting herewith is I think an exact copy (a few verbal
alterations excepted) of that which I made pursuant to your desire
and submitted to you on the 17 Decb 1829.--There are some mat-
ters in this paper (more especially that marked *-- in the 18
page) which possibly may attract your particular attention;--if
any such should seem to you to require more development or fur-
ther explanation, I should be happy to receive your orders.
10
This purported letter--which on its back has no address, can-
cellation, or seal, but only Jackson's endorsement: "Feb 5th 1832--
G. W. Erving"--might well arouse a reader's suspicion. There is
only one copy of Erving's "Examination" in the Jackson Papers,
and it would appear to be in the handwriting of a clerk or copyist.
On page 25 "1829" is written in ink in the margin. There seems
to be no way of determining when and by whom this one extant
copy was written. The question naturally arises: were there ever
two distinct papers of different date, and, if so, what became of
one of them?
Did Lewis actually apply to Erving, on Jackson's behalf, in
January, or in the first few days of February, 1832? Or, is the
purported Erving letter of February 5, 1832, a Jacksonian fraud,
or forgery, under cover of which Jackson substituted a new "Erving
affidavit" of his own manufacture and one giving more comfort to his
"Rio Grande treaty" claim than Erving's genuine paper had given?
About this, one can but surmise. It is sufficiently clear, however,
that the copy of the Erving affidavit which Jackson had Lewis
show to a few select members of Congress and of Tyler's cabinet in
1843-1844
11 made no reference to the "Rio Grande treaty." For
the two or three of these gentlemen who lent any public support
to Jackson's claim did not give it full and unequivocal support,
and finally were forced to admit that Jackson had misrepresented
Erving's affidavit. Ingersoll equivocally supported Jackson's mis-
representation in a paper which he wrote in April, 1844, with the
hope of inducing the House Committee on Foreign Affairs to pre-
sent it to Congress as their report; when this committee--of which
Adams was also a member--refused to adopt Ingersoll's "report,"
he published it in the Washington
Globe.
In this "Report" Inger-
soll announced that
the revelation which the committee will make, from unquestionable
intelligence, discloses the incredible fact that Texas was yielded
by the treaty to Spain, when she was perfectly willing that our
title to Louisiana should have been confirmed, at least over all the
country beyond the Sabine to the Colorado, if not to the Bravo.
Mr. George W. Erving's confidential communication to President
Jackson, of the 17th December, 1829, repeated the 5th of February,
1832, proves this indubitably.
But, strangely enough, Ingersoll, while making a few citations
from Erving's paper--which by themselves seemed
to have a sig-
nificance quite beyond that which actually they had in their con-
text--refrained from laying Erving's paper before the public.
Adams in vain challenged Ingersoll to give him a sight of the
paper. As Adams observed, it was obvious enough that Erving's
paper did not make the "revelation" that Jackson had pretended
to find there. "This incredible fact the committee [Ingersoll]
refused to reveal, not because it was incredible, but because it was
not true," Adams remarked sarcastically.
12 When Erving's diplo-
matic dispatches were transmitted by the Department of State to
the House on June 14, 1844, Adams could write in his diary that
the documents gave "abundant evidence to falsify the pretension
of George W. Erving that he could have negotiated a boundary
even to the Colorado." The purported Erving letter of February 5,
1832, which Ingersoll published in his spurious "Report," also
exercised Adams' suspicion and sarcasm. He doubted Jackson's
profession to the effect that he had "lost," or mislaid, Erving's
paper of 1829: "Ay, what has become of it? Why it was sup-
pressed, and a counterfeit substituted [in 1832] in its place." As
the extant copy of Erving's paper has no asterisk on page 18, it
hardly can have been the copy purportedly given Jackson by
Erving in 1832.
The purported Erving letter dated "Kalorama, Feb. 5, 1832,"
has a very fictitious atmosphere in every respect--in the unlikeli-
hood of Lewis' visiting Erving--who was living generally at Boston
at that time, according to his statement in 1844
13--in the rather
incredible way in which Lewis allegedly broached to Erving the
object of his visit, in Erving's recollection of the exact day (Decem-
ber 17, 1829, allegedly) on which he had originally given Jackson
his "Summary," etc. The writer ventures to suggest the following
two alternative hypotheses as the most likely explanations of the
strange Erving letter of February 5, 1832: (1) that Erving was
at Washington at that time and actually did write the letter and
so connive at and assist Jackson's hoax, Jackson perhaps approach-
ing Erving in this matter through Lewis as intermediary,
14 or (2)
that the purported Lewis-Erving interview was purely imaginary,
and that the Erving letter of February 5, 1832, was a Jacksonian
forgery. Our present knowledge does not permit a too definite
interpretation of this ambiguous transaction; the problem will be
clarified considerably whenever it shall, if, indeed, it can, be ascer-
tained just where Lewis and Erving actually were at the time of the
alleged interview and thus be determined whether such an inter-
view could
have taken place. What, then, if it be found that Lewis
was at Washington and Erving at Boston rather than that both
gentlemen converged at the same place during that period? In
any case, the Jacksonian transaction of January-February, 1832,
has an air of chicanery. Consider also that, as seen above, in
speaking in late January, 1832, of Erving's "Rio Grande treaty,"
Jackson declared that "the proof of it was in the Department of
State." Strange if it were not! And, if so, why did the President
himself not get these proofs from the Department of State--or did
he actually suspect that they were not there? Why send Lewis to get
another affidavit from Erving when everything on the subject was
under Jackson's finger in the archives at Washington? One can
only wonder at such strange indirection, unless one is acquainted
with Jackson's gift and habit of subterranean intrigue.
Erving, who was living in Paris in 1844, when Adams was re-
futing Jackson and Ingersoll in the matter of the "Rio Grande
treaty" claim, on the occasion of its first and last public appear-
ance, now made his only statement on the matter, in a letter pub-
lished in the Washington
Globe,
January 13, 1845. This statement
gave the final blow to Jackson's story. Erving denied having ever
told Jackson that he had obtained Spain's consent to anything,
much less a Rio Grande boundary; he expressed "regret" that
Jackson had been the victim of "misunderstanding." He made
no mention of having given Jackson more than the one paper in
the early part of his administration. In short, Erving's statement
of November 12, 1844, does not materially assist us in elucidating
the mystery; as negative evidence it is of uncertain value. Now
he stated that the Spanish minister, Pizarro, at one time in 1818
merely considered yielding "as limit a river between the Sabine
and the Colorado"--but at a time when Spain had not yet agreed
to yield Florida. Erving then declared that "the transfer of the
negotiations to Washington was made at my instance."
Jackson, who never confessed to a falsehood or "error" when
exposed and never retracted a libelous statement no matter how
grossly untrue it was shown to be, made a characteristic strategic
retreat from his "Rio Grande treaty" claim in October, 1844, as a
result of Adams' onslaught:
I believed from the disclosures made to me of the transactions
of 1819, that Mr. Adams surrendered the interests of the United
States when he took the Sabine river as the boundary between us
and Spain, when he might have gone to the Colorado, if not to
the Rio del Norte. Such was the natural inference from the facts
stated by Mr. Erving; and there is nothing in the account now
given of the negotiation to alter this impression.
15
How well the little weasel words "if not" saved appearances!
The history of Jackson's "Rio Grande treaty" claim comes to an
end at this point, leaving Adams in doubt as to whether he had
killed or only scotched the hydra-headed
conspiracy of Andrew Jackson, Aaron Yail Brown, George W.
Erving, and Charles J. Ingersoll, with their coadjutors and tools,
to ruin my good name and fabricate a fable to justify the robbery
of Texas from Mexico, by the pretense that Texas had been by me
treacherously surrendered to Spain.
16
The real victory lay with Jackson, for the annexation of Texas
was within a few months finally consummated, before the Old Hero
died in July, 1845. Aware of his notable part in the accomplish-
ment of this measure--for his many Texas letters published at
frequent intervals during 1844-1845 had exercised a powerful and
pervasive influence on the public mind--Jackson could with some
truth write on the eve of annexation, after his protege Polk's
election:
The dismemberment of our territory in 1819, by the failure to
execute the guaranty in the treaty of 1803, has but recently at-
tracted public attention. But it has been silently operating, and
is now exerting a great and momentous influence on our system
of government.
Austin, Texas.
FOOTNOTES:
(Baltimore), LXVI, 70; R. M. McElroy, Winning of the Far West, 2-3.
Floridas during the mission of George W. Erving authorized and instructed
to that effect in the year 1816--as extracted from the despatches and letters
of that minister (100 in number) to the Secrety of State," MS., is in the
Jackson Papers, Vol. 74, in the Library of Congress. This manuscript,
twenty-seven pages in length, has been examined by the present writer. It
quotes profusely from Adams' and Erving's dispatches. It was obviously
written in 1829, but was based (according to Erving's statement in 1844)
upon an earlier syllabus which he had "formed from the records in the
Department of State, immediately after my return to Washington, whilst
Mr. Monroe was yet in office." Erving to a friend, Paris, November 12, 1844,
in Washington Globe, January 13, 1845. J. Q. Adams declares that "there
was not a greater liar upon earth" than Erving.
XIII, 267, note; 269.
nessean, who moved to Texas in 1835: "Sam Houston was then [1829-1831]
. . . among the Cherokees, pulling the wires, by making friends with all the
wild tribes of the red men of the forest; thereby intending, with their aid,
and with what emigration he could draw out from Tennessee and elsewhere,
to set in motion 'a little two-horse republic under the Lone Star,' with the
fond expectation that he would be its first president. This he had privately
prophesied would be the case, in a confidential interview with his friend
McIntosh ... at Nashville, about the time Houston abandoned the guber-
natorial chair of Tennessee. . . . McIntosh committed this secret to me."
Morrell, Flowers and Fruits from the Wilderness; or Thirty-Six Years in
Texas (Boston, 1872), 20-21. Author's italics.
Prentiss MSS., in University of Texas Archives.
80. The entire letter is quoted above. The letter was published, in C. J.
Ingersoll's Texas "Report," in the Washington Globe, May 1, 1844.
Ingersoll, and Upshur, as the records show; it was probably shown also to
other gentlemen at Washington. See McElroy, Winning of the Far West,
7; 61, note. Ingersoll incorporated Erving's "revelations" in his Texas
"Report," published in the Washington Globe, May 1, 1844.
"Rio Grande treaty") in public speeches at Weymouth Landing and Boston
in October, 1844; published in Niles' Register, LXVII, 106-107, 158-159.
Cf. J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, XII, 54, 83, 145; A. V. Brown, Speeches and
Writings (Nashville, 1854), 503-518.
Why Erving was at Kalorama at this time (January-February, 1832)--if
he actually was--further research may some day determine. One wonders
if Erving came to Kalorama (i. e., Washington) at Jackson's wish.
Major Henry Lee (who was then living at Paris) to solicit perjured testi-
mony from Lee to support Jackson's falsehood in another matter. See the
writer's "Jackson's 'Rhea Letter' Hoax," in Journal of Southern History,
II. 492-495.
LXVII, 171.
R. R. Stenberg.
How to cite:
R. R. Stenberg, "Andrew Jackson and the Erving Affidavit", Volume 41, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v041/n2/contrib_DIVL3569.html
[Accessed Thu Dec 4 12:51:49 CST 2008]
