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"We Never Retreat"
Filibustering Expeditions into Spanish Texas, 1812â"1822
By Ed Bradley Texas A&M University Press
Copyright © 2015 Edward A. Bradley
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62349-261-8
CHAPTER 1
Philip Nolan
Harbinger of the Texas Filibustering Era
PHILIP NOLAN was unintentionally immortalized by Edward Everett Hale as The Man Without a Country, the title of a nationalistic tale of a US Army officer who renounces his homeland. Serialized in the Atlantic Monthly starting in December 1863, it was first published in book form the following year and subsequently went through numerous editions, with more than five hundred thousand copies appearing in print. While writing this story, Hale was under the impression that Nolan's first name was Stephen; as noted in his memoirs, Hale recalled that one Saint Stephen's Day he heard a sermon on Saint Philip, and thus on a whim decided to name his protagonist "Philip Nolan." It was only after publication of his popular tale that Hale learned the real Nolan's first name was Philip. Feeling that he had done an injustice to the historical Nolan in The Man Without a Country, Hale wrote another piece titled "Philip Nolan's Friend; or, Show Your Passports," which was published inScribner's Monthly in 1876. It was in this roundabout fashion that Nolan became the most celebrated Texas adventurer of the early nineteenth century.
The 1794 Nacogdoches census lists a Don Felipe Nolan, born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1771, but many of his contemporaries believed that he was born in Kentucky. In his 1897 edition of The Man Without a Country, Hale writes that he received a letter from a woman in Baltimore claiming that Nolan's two widowed sisters lived in the area, suggesting Nolan's residence in Maryland. Regardless of his provenance, Nolan made quite an impression on his American friends and acquaintances. He was described by Peter Ellis Bean, one of his protégés, as a "gallant leader"; James Wilkinson similarly depicted him as a "meritorious" man of "extraordinary character." Upon meeting Nolan in 1797, boundary surveyor Andrew Ellicott marveled at his "athletic exertions" and "dexterity in taking wild horses." Several men described Nolan's expertise at lassoing mustangs and subduing ferocious Indians, and Wilkinson once recalled how Nolan was able to take a bag of two thousand silver dollars off a horse with one hand and carry it for some distance. His reputation was further enhanced by his knowledge of Indian sign language and reports of his numerous dalliances with the ladies.
Even Spanish officials were impressed by Nolan—for a time. Texas governor Manuel Muñoz cited Nolan's "industrious nature" and "knowledge of geography," while Louisiana governor Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet wrote of a "young man of talents" whom "I regard very highly." Nolan had a knack for ingratiating himself with men in a position to help him.
One of these men was Wilkinson, the future Burr conspirator who had already gained an unsavory reputation due to his involvement in the Conway Cabal against George Washington. Wilkinson was a benefactor of sorts for Nolan, recommending him "in the warmest manner" in a May 1790 letter to Natchez, Mississippi, commandant Manuel Gayoso de Lemos. "He has lived two years in my family and I have found him honorable, discreet, courageous and active." In an 1800 epistle to Thomas Jefferson, Wilkinson attested to "Mr. N——'s high sense of probity—dare I Sir, I would recommend Him to your kindness." Wilkinson hired Nolan in the spring of 1788 to accompany a cargo of provisions down the Mississippi River for market at Spanish New Orleans; soon Nolan was (in Wilkinson's words) "my agent in Louisiana," facilitating the general's activities in that city.
Nolan was also employed by Wilkinson in shadier activities. During one visit with Louisiana governor Esteban Rodríguez Miró (Carondelet's predecessor) in New Orleans, Wilkinson proposed a plan for the separation of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi from the United States in return for cash and a pension. Nolan drew up the papers for the arrangement upon the governor's approval and subsequently acted as a courier for Spanish payments to Wilkinson. Should US authorities question Wilkinson about his receipt of Spanish money, Nolan was instructed to testify that it came from earlier tobacco transactions. By 1796 Wilkinson was cryptically writing his protégé that "I have bold projects in view, [and] my enterprise is unabated.... Hasten to me." The following year he informed Commandant Gayoso that Nolan "is a child of my own raising, true to his profession, and firm in his attachments to Spain. I consider him a powerful instrument in our hands should occasion offer." This association with the notorious Wilkinson has besmirched Nolan's reputation ever since. In his 1809 philippic against Wilkinson, Daniel Clark suspiciously observed that "in all the intercourse between Wilkinson and the Spaniards, we find Mr. Nolan ... [who] seems to have had as versatile talents as his adoptive father."
In the meantime, Spanish Texas had caught Nolan's eye. A royal order of 1780 allowed for the importation of cattle across the Sabine River (which served for the Spanish as the eastern boundary of the province of Texas), as these animals were scarce in Louisiana. Traders wishing to engage in such activity could obtain a passport in New Orleans, with the savviest among them also obtaining permission to import horses. Intrigued by the possibilities, Nolan ingratiated himself with Spanish officials at New Orleans and took an oath to the Spanish king, enabling him to obtain a passport in 1791. Nolan soon made his first venture into Texas, an endeavor that abruptly ended when officials at San Antonio de Béxar (the capital of Spanish Texas), suspecting he was a spy, refused to accept his passport and seized all of his wares. Now impoverished, he went into seclusion among Comanche Indians, living "the savage life" with them for two years. Returning to the Spanish settlements, he acquired enough beaver pelts to bribe authorities and purchase a number of horses, which he drove back to Louisiana in late 1793 or early 1794.
Nolan returned to Texas with five native Louisianans and a slave in June 1794. This time his passport was honored by Governor Carondelet, who in a letter to Muñoz assessed Nolan as an able and experienced young man. Nolan's first stop was Nacogdoches, where he gained permission to capture horses with the aid of local residents. By November he was en route to La Bahía (Goliad) with some otter skins for the commandant general; following this, he proceeded to Béxar with a Nacogdoches priest. Arriving at the capital on 21 December, he was received by Muñoz. Nolan informed the governor that he wished to trade in the province as well as collect more horses. To make the arrangement more palatable, he offered to provide firearms to Texan tribes friendly to Spain. It is not known if anything ever came of this latter proposal, but Commandant General of the Internal Provinces Pedro de Nava instructed Muñoz to allow Nolan to obtain his horses. Over the next year Nolan bartered for about 250 horses, with which he arrived at Natchez in January 1796. He sold the best of the lot there and drove the rest to Frankfort, Kentucky.
While in Frankfort, Nolan became embroiled in some more shady dealings involving Wilkinson. The latter, a recent recipient of a bribe from the Spanish, had ordered the booty delivered to Nolan at Frankfort. Worried that his dealings with the Spanish would eventually be discovered, Wilkinson arranged in September 1796 for Nolan to write up a phony document that labeled the dubious transaction as payment for past commercial dealings. Once again Nolan did well by his mentor.
His next venture involved mapping the Missouri River, after which (in December 1796) he met up with Andrew Ellicott, a Revolutionary War veteran and noted surveyor and mathematician, at the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi. Ellicott was on his way to Natchez to negotiate with the Spanish in delineating the Florida boundary agreed upon between Spain and the United States in Pinckney's Treaty of 1795. After receiving "much useful information" from Nolan regarding Natchez and its inhabitants, Ellicott asked Nolan to accompany him downstream to help with navigation; in return he would instruct Nolan in astronomy and cartography. Nolan accepted the bargain and arrived at Natchez with Ellicott in February 1797, working thereafter as a courier between Ellicott and Natchez commandant Gayoso. Years later, writing to Wilkinson to address rumors that Nolan had intrigued with the Spaniards, Ellicott vouched that "he appeared strongly attached to the interest and welfare of our country."
Texas was still on Nolan's mind in early 1797. Accordingly, he approached Gayoso with an offer to split the profits of a future horse-trading expedition into Texas in return for the commandant's aid in obtaining another passport. Gayoso responded enthusiastically, and Nolan, upon finishing his work for Ellicott, proceeded to New Orleans, where he requested a passport from Governor Carondelet for the dual purpose of drawing a map of Texas and engaging in the equine trade therein. After receiving a report on the boundary negotiations at Natchez, Carondelet stated that he intended to give the Americans there lead and the inhabitants hemp, and then asked Nolan if he would take an active part in this enterprise. "A very active one," Nolan supposedly replied. Having buttered up the governor, Nolan received the passport, along with permission to bring horses from Texas into Louisiana. Carondelet also wrote to Muñoz on Nolan's behalf. Having entered a horse-buying partnership in early April with a Natchez resident, Nolan left for Texas in July 1797 with eight men and seven thousand dollars' worth of merchandise. He soon arrived at Béxar and presented his credentials to Muñoz.
Yet other Spanish officials were rightly suspicious of Nolan. At the same time he was assuring Carondelet of his willingness to take an active role in Spanish operations against the Americans, Nolan wrote Wilkinson that should war with the United States arise "you can calculate on me."
Royalists were also wary of Americans in general. As early as 1783 a Spanish nobleman warned the king that the United States would one day threaten the existence of the Spanish dominions in North America. Fears intensified in 1793 when officials learned of the attempts of American revolutionary hero George Rogers Clark to enlist the sponsorship of France for a filibustering expedition into Louisiana. At least one official thought that "the Americans" were "the true authors" of Clark's "projected invasion." Shortly after the US Army erected a fort on the lower Ohio River in 1794, Carondelet offered that the Americans were a "restless population" that in time "will demand the possession of the rich mines" of Mexico. By July 1795 the Spanish viceroy reported that the US government was preparing to send agents to Mexico to foment a revolution there, a rumor that persisted for some time despite the consummation of Pinckney's Treaty that year. Finally, at the same time Nolan was proceeding to San Antonio in the summer of 1797, the US Senate was investigating reports that Senator William Blount of Tennessee had concocted a plot to seize the Floridas and Louisiana with the aid of the British government and Indians. An outraged Carlos Martínez de Irujo y Tacón, the Spanish minister to the United States, demanded of Secretary of State Timothy Pickering that Blount be punished. US Minister to Spain David Humphreys subsequently asked the Spanish secretary of state to remove Irujo.
Given this background of Spanish suspicion, Nolan did not help himself when he falsely claimed to Muñoz that he had a special commission from Carondelet to procure horses in the province of Nuevo Santander. Muñoz forwarded Nolan's passport and a summary of his claims to Commandant General de Nava, stationed at Chihuahua. De Nava wrote Nolan that approval for entering Nuevo Santander could only be obtained from the governor of that province. In the course of trying to obtain this permission, Nolan mentioned in his correspondence the Nuevo Santander passport supposedly granted by Carondelet. Eventually Carondelet himself was contacted by royal officials, and he denied ever granting Nolan such a passport. This news soon found its way to the viceroy.
In the meantime, for some unknown reason Gayoso turned on Nolan. In March 1797 he queried Nolan as to his "political interest," prompting Nolan to say that he was on the side of Spain and that he was willing to play a role "not as a Negociator [sic], but a warrior." The day after composing this reply, Nolan further curried favor with the commandant by offering him an even split in profits to be made from a proposed commercial deal with the governor of Nuevo Santander. Gayoso approved of the scheme, responding, "For a long time I have desired the opportunity of expressing to you the sincere affection I feel for you." The deal would be carried out in the winter, after Nolan's return from Texas.
Yet by July 1797, when Nolan embarked on his third Texas expedition, Gayoso—who on 5 August was to be officially sworn in as Carondelet's replacement as governor of Louisiana—had done a volte-face. The Spaniard's boundary negotiations with Ellicott had bogged down, and Wilkinson rejected a royalist plan to detach Kentucky and Tennessee from the United States and place them under the control of Spain. Perhaps seeking to punish Wilkinson by defeating the plans of his protégé, Gayoso wrote the viceroy that a group of Americans was planning to enter Texas and foment a revolution; it would be best, he recommended, to order the arrest of any foreigner entering the province—particularly Nolan. By that point Nolan had become suspicious of Gayoso as well, describing him in a 17 July letter to Wilkinson as "a vile man, and my implacable enemy."
In October 1797 Nolan arrived at San Antonio and presented his passport to Governor Muñoz, who in turn forwarded it to Commandant General de Nava. In presenting his passport, Nolan stated that he had a commission to buy horses for a Louisiana regiment, that he wished to go to Nuevo Santander for them, and that he had a letter of recommendation from (now former) Governor Carondelet to the governor of that province. To facilitate the process, Nolan also wrote the commandant general that he was sending him a newly designed gun with instructions; perhaps he could supply de Nava with many such guns at, say, eighteen pesos apiece? De Nava subsequently directed Muñoz to assist Nolan in obtaining horses and to send the gun to him. The commandant general also wrote Nolan that since Nuevo Santander was not under his jurisdiction, he could not sanction the plan to obtain horses from that province. Nolan would have to appeal to either that province's governor or the viceroy himself.
Nolan's attempt to obtain a passport to go to Nuevo Santander proved futile. He wrote Francisco de Rendón, the intendant at Zacatecas, requesting that he recommend him to any Spanish official who could facilitate the transfer. The intendant contacted Carondelet, now in Mexico City en route to his new administrative post at Quito, Ecuador. Carondelet, while acknowledging that he had issued Nolan a passport for Texas, denied that he wrote a letter of recommendation for the governor of Nuevo Santander and claimed to know nothing of Nolan's supposed commission. The baron did testify in that same letter as to Nolan's character, but the damage to Nolan's enterprises had been done. Rendón passed Carondelet's letter along to the viceroy, who by February 1798 had also received Gayoso's letter that urged Nolan's arrest. That month the viceroy relayed Gayoso's suggestion to de Nava.
The commandant general then instructed Governor Muñoz to expel all foreigners and to arrest those who came without a passport. Initially, these instructions did not apply to Nolan, but in the summer of 1798 a new viceroy who was suspicious of him ordered his expulsion from the province. Muñoz, who was still favorable towards Nolan, delayed in carrying out these orders. When de Nava learned in April 1799 that Nolan was still in Texas, he again wrote Muñoz that Nolan must be ordered to leave at once and vow never to return. The commandant general's resolve would have been strengthened by a June 1 letter from Gayoso, who warned that Nolan was an anti-Catholic bigot with a commission from Wilkinson to examine the country preparatory to an American invasion. (De Nava did not receive this letter until Nolan had left the province.) Muñoz died in July without having contacted Nolan, but by this point the American had decided to leave Texas anyway. He was back in the United States by November 1799 with approximately twelve hundred horses, turning a profit of some twenty to thirty thousand dollars after selling his merchandise. He left behind a child, born in August 1798 to the daughter of an established Béxar family.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from "We Never Retreat" by Ed Bradley. Copyright © 2015 Edward A. Bradley. Excerpted by permission of Texas A&M University Press.
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