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SHORT NORMAL LONG 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 [First [76], ( Lines: —— 0.0pt ——— Norma PgEnd [76], ( chapter four Strains on the System I Filibustering The Louisiana Purchase brought confusion and disorder to both the new U.S. territories and Spanish West Florida for the next several years. As rumors swirled regarding the disposition of each area, some locals attempted to take matters into their own hands, forcing the United States into action. Others took advantage of the confusion to pursue criminal agendas. Still others saw that the two might go hand in hand. The Kemper raids, or Kemper Rebellion as it is sometimes called, have long been regarded as a symbol of growing Anglo-American dissatisfaction with Spanish rule in the late colonial period. The Kemper brothers—Reuben, Samuel, and Nathan—themselves helped to shape much of this thinking through their efforts to proclaim a “West Florida Republic” in 1804 complete with flag and a declaration of independence reputedly authored by Edward Randolph. The Kempers owned land in both the Feliciana district in Spanish West Florida and nearby Pinckneyville, Mississippi, just over the line. Beginning in June their gang terrorized the area for several months, crossing and recrossing the border into U.S. territory as a means of escaping the Anglo-American-staffed Spanish militia. The goal of their raids, they declared, was to bring about the overthrow of Spanish rule by the residents of the district and invite what they termed a more stable American government into the area. In reality the raiders stole slaves and other property and in their wake left burned buildings and residents and a Spanish government determined to run the Kempers to ground.1 Historians have long argued that Anglo-Americans in West Florida were unhappy with Spanish rule, and that Spain maintained an ineffective presence in the New World in general and in West Florida specifically. Although a seemingly minor event in the history of Louisiana, the Kemper Rebellion was the central event that led to a change in Spanish land policy and Spanish colonial administration of the region. Given the number of armed bandits roaming the American and Spanish countryside during late 1804, it could also have been the catalyst for a local takeover by pro-American subjects of the Crown. Yet the inhabitants of Feliciana did not rise up to support the border ruffians, choosing 76 Strains on the System I: Filibustering • 77 SHORT NORMAL LONG 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 [77], ( Lines: —— 0.0pt ——— Norma PgEnd [77], ( instead to work in large numbers with the Spanish government to combat the raids and eventually track down and arrest some members of the gang. In part this was because of the nature of the raids and the raiders themselves. Intent on stealing slaves and cattle, the Kemper gang seemed less like a revolutionary vanguard and more like the leaders of a group of land pirates intent on plundering the district. The Kempers, despite their attempts to sow discontent among Spanish subjects, instead serve as a symbol of the residents’ continuing loyalty to the Spanish regime. For their part West Floridians had already experienced their share of the kind of filibustering in which the Kempers engaged. This makes the Kemper raids an excellent case study for loyalty in West Florida specifically and the borderlands in general. When examined within the context of the Baton Rouge district, the raids can help us gain insight into the ways in which the larger Spanish governmental apparatus reacted to the threat of a possible rebellion, the ways in which middling officials handled the local aspects of the raids, and the ways in which residents themselves responded. At the same time, when the raids are placed within the larger context of filibustering across the Florida/Louisiana/Texas frontier, they lose much of their significance. Along with the James Willing expedition of 1778, the Aaron Burr conspiracy of 1805, Gen. James Wilkinson’s Texas raids in 1805, and other ventures, the Kemper raids were less about protorevolutionary sentiment among West Floridians than about the...

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