The Fabric of America (47 page)

68
the United States sold fewer than one hundred thousand acres
: Pattison,
Beginning of the American Rectangular Land Survey
.

68
“Nothing occurs as a probable mode of relief ”
: Treasury Report, September 29, 1786.

68
The strength of the secessionist movement in New England is explored in
A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America
by Jon Kukla (New York: Knopf, 2003).

69
The nature of Shays's Rebellion remains hotly debated. The traditional context, that subsistence farmers were protesting the arrival of the cash economy, was put forth by David Zatmary in
Shays'Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980); but Leonard L. Richards makes a convincing case for a particular cause, the pressure of taxation to pay
bondholders
, in
Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). However, the rebels' name and the nature of their demands also offer obvious connections to the prewar Regulators and the later Whiskey Rebellion.

80
For Washington's correspondence concerning Shays's Rebellion with Henry Knox and James Madison, see
The Papers of George Washington: Confederation Series
, vol. 4, ed. W. W. Abbot (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1995).

72
AE's encounter with the Seneca is described in his report “Observatory on the West Side of the Conawango,” August 29, 1787, to the President and Supreme Executive Council of
Pennsylvania
, and in a letter to SE, September 13, 1787, Papers.

73
“with chain and compass”
:
Thirty Thousand Miles with John Heckewelder
, ed. Paul A. Wallace (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1958).

74
The competition between New York and the United States for control over the Iroquois lands emerges from
The Divided Ground : I
ndians
, Settlers and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution
by Alan Taylor (New York: Knopf, 2006), and Max M. Mintz's
Seeds of Empire: The American Revolutionary Conquest of the Iroquois
(New York: New York University Press, 1999).

79
“
it is in our United capacity we are known”
: George Washington to his brother John Augustine Washington, June 15, 1783, George Washington Papers.

79
“all the parts combined”
: George Washington, Farewell Address, September 17, 1796, George Washington Papers.

79
“
that all business between them”
: George Washington to Timothy Pickering, September 4, 1790, George Washington Papers.

81
“It will be fortunate”
: George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, April 1, 1791, George Washington Papers.

81
“The States individually”
: George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, April 4, 1791, George Washington Papers.

82
Unfortunately no reliable biography of John Nicholson has yet been published. The details of the accusations against him as
comptroller general
are taken from
The Pennsylvania state trials:containing the impeachment, trial, and acquittal of Francis Hopkinson, and John Nicholson, esquires
(Philadelphia: printed by Francis Bailey, 1794).

83
“This Mr Gorham
”: AE to SE, August 15, 1789, Papers.

84
“
I have long known Mr Andrew Ellicott
”: Manuscript reproduced in
AE Life
.

84
AE's report to Washington, January 15, 1790.

86
James Madison's extensive, unofficial notes are the source for the flavor of debates in the Constitutional Convention.

87
“
the U.S. are sovereign”
: Oliver Ellsworth, August 20, 1787, James Madison's “Notes on Debates.”

89
“The moment the idea is admitted”
: John Adams, “A Defense of the American Constitutions,” 1787.

90
“
Down this chasm”
:
AE Life.

91
In the 1890s, when Washington, D.C., was being stripped of its nineteenth-century clutter to bring it back to the original design, Pierre L'Enfant was romantically portrayed as the tragic genius who had single-handedly brought the city into being. The contributions of Washington, Jefferson, and the commissioners were largely pushed aside, and AE was ignored or vilified. Later scholarship has redressed some of the balance, as in
Thomas Jefferson and the National Capital
, ed. Saul K. Padover (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1946), and Kenneth R. Bowling's
Creation of Washington, D.C.: The Idea and Location of the American Capital
(Fairfax: George Mason University Press, 1991); the Library of Congress's unrivaled collection of maps is invaluable; and the Mary Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project—
www.capitolhillhistory.org/index.html
—offers particularly useful ideas about the forces involved.

91
Report in the
Georgetown Weekly Ledger
, March 12, 1791: quoted in “The Survey of the Federal Territory,” in
With Compass and Chain: American Surveyors and Their Instruments
by Silvio Bedini (Frederick, MD: Professional Surveyor Publishing, 2001).

92
Jefferson had discussed the exact site in “Notes on the Permanent Seat of Congress,” April 13, 1784, Ford, ed.,
Works of Thomas Jefferson
.

93
AE's work and instruments: Bedini,
With Compass and Chain.

94
The most reliable biography of Benjamin Banneker is Silvio Bedini's
The Life of Benjamin Banneker
(New York: Scribner, 1972).

95
Pierre L'Enfant has been the subject of innumerable biographies and articles. The most useful are Elizabeth S. Kite's
L'Enfant and Washington, 1791
–
1792
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1929); and H. Paul Caemmerer,
The Life of Pierre Charles L'Enfant, Planner of the City of Washington
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1950).

96
“ ‘The plan should be drawn”
: L'Enfant to George Washington, September 11, 1789, Caemmerer,
Life of L'Enfant
.

97
Correspondence between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, L'Enfant and the commissioners, is to be found in “The George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress,”
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mgwquery.html
.

99
“If the commissioners live near the place”
: Thomas Jefferson, “Opinion on the Capital,” November 29, 1790, Ford, ed.,
Works of Thomas Jefferson
.

101
On the influence of
Versailles
, see
The Making of America: A history of city planning in the United States
by John W. Reps (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965).

101
AE's help to L'Enfant, see Bedini, “Survey of the Federal Territory.”

107
L'Enfant's dismissal and the growing interference of the commissioners emerges from Washington's correspondence. See “George Washington Papers” and Bowling's
Creation of Washington
.

109
The evidence for AE's responsibility for naming Pennsylvania Avenue lies in the maps. Much ink has been spent in identifying one or another map as L'Enfant's or AE's, but since L'Enfant could not draw a scale map, the December map is manifestly a collaboration. The February map is AE's.

110
The deterioration of relations between AE and the commissioners emerges in his letters to SE,
AE Life
; his correspondence with Jefferson, in Ford, ed.,
Works of Thomas Jefferson
; and the commissioners' correspondence with George Washington, in Padover, ed.,
Thomas Jefferson and the National Capital
.

114
For the effect of the capital's failure on urban developments in the United States, see Reps,
Making of America
.

117
The battle of wills between the president and the state of Pennsylvania emerges from his correspondence and journal. See “George Washington Papers.”

117
“
The President of the United States”
: Henry Knox to Thomas Mifflin, May 24, 1794, “Papers relating to the Establishment at Presqu' Isle,” in John B. Lynn and William Egle, eds.,
Pennsylvania Archives
, second series (Harrisburg, 1890).

117
“
The interference of the General Government
”:
AE Life
.

118
the Whiskey Rebellion: see Bouton, “A Road Closed”; and Thomas P. Slaughter's
Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

120
The background to the San Lorenzo Treaty is covered in Kukla's
Wilderness So Immense
.

121
“The people of this region”:
The Conquest of the Old Southwest
by Archibald Henderson (New York: The Century Company, 1920).

121
“This country will in a few years Revolt”
: Kukla,
Wilderness So Immense.

123
AE's accounts of his work in demarcating the boundary with Spain come from his
Journal of Andrew Ellicott
; his correspondence with Timothy Pickering and other official letters held by the Library of Congress, Papers; and his letters to SE,
AE Life
. For his chief adversary, see
Gayoso: The Life of a Spanish Governor in the Mississippi Valley, 1789
–
1799
by Jack D. L. Holmes (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965).

125
Brief notes on Natchez personalities appear in Professor Kenneth Stampp's introduction to the
Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution Through the Civil War
(Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1985).

127
Albert James Pickett's
History of Alabama and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi from the earliest times
(1851), now online—
http://homepages.rootsweb.com /~cmamcrk4/pktfm.html
—is dated but has firsthand memories and accounts of events.

128
James Wilkinson's character emerges most clearly from his self-serving autobiography,
Memoirs of My Own Times
(Philadelphia: Abraham Small, 1816). The opposite view comes from Daniel Clark's devastating exposé,
Proofs of the Corruption of General James Wilkinson and of His Connexion with Aaron Burr
(Philadelphia: Hall & Pierie, 1809),
http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/98/hhr98_1.html
. Jon Kukla offers a modern interpretation in
A Territory So Immense
, and James Savage's online essay “Spaniards, Scoundrels, and Statesmen: General James Wilkinson and the Spanish Conspiracy, 1787—1790,”
http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/98/hhr98_1.html
, gives a useful summary.

131
“
to leave it to the discretion”
: John Adams, “Message to the Senate and House,” June 12, 1797.

131
Blount's letter is quoted in William Masteron's
William Blount
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1954).

134
For Lintot's warning about “the Distribution of Land,” see Papers.

135
“
That domestic slavery is wrong”
:
Journal
.

136
“
I feel a consciousness
”: AE to Pickering, October 18, 1797, Papers.

136
William Dunbar's life is covered in
Life, Letters and Papers of William Dunbar
by Mrs. Dunbar Rowland (Jackson: Press of the Mississippi Historical Society, 1930). His letters to AE are in Papers.

137
“
I would not by this”
: AE to Daniel Clark, September 15, 1797, Papers.

138
For the inheritance of Margaret Gayoso, see U.S. Supreme Court docket,
Robinson v. Minor,
51 U.S. 627 (1850).

139
“
By a packet just arrived”
: Gayoso to AE, January 10, 1798, Papers.

139
“My Love”:
AE to SE, February 8, 1798, Papers.

141
The sources for AE's account of his onerous running of the boundary and dramatic journey are his
Journal,
Papers, and
AE Life.

141
“
The situation of our encampment”
:
Journal
.

142
“
It is a pleasing and interesting reflection
”: AE to Gayoso, May 22, 1798, Papers.

143
“
This mode tho' less scientific
”: AE to Pickering, July 12, 1798, Papers.

143
The account of the mutiny is contained only in letters in Papers.

145
The discovery of Wilkinson's treachery is referred to in the
Journal, AE Life
, and AE's letter to Daniel Clark in 1808.

147
“
When you consider
”: AE to Pickering, January 12, 1799, Papers.

148
“
When you look at the picture”
: AE to SE, February 17, 1799,
AE Life
.