To Thomas Jefferson from William Henry Harrison, 6 November 1804
From William Henry Harrison
St. Louis 6th. Novr. 1804.
Dear Sir
Mr Augustus Choteau will have the Honor to deliver you this. A gentleman who is justly considered not only from his large fortune & superior information but from the Amiableness of his character, as the first Citizen of Upper Louisiana—You will I am sure derive great pleasure from his Conversation as his Knowledge of this country is certainly superior to what is possessed by any other person & every thing that comes from him may be relied upon with the utmost Confidence
It gives me great satisfaction to be able to inform you that nine tenths of the people of this Country are warmly attached to the Government of the United States—If in the Petition of which Mr Choteau is the bearer there are found expressions which appear to Contradict this opinion, they must be attributed to the irritation produced by the1 insulting misrepresentations of them which have been published through the United States & to the violent language of the speeches of some of the members of Congress (particularly Mr Lyons) on the subject of the Louisiana bill—It was immagined that they ought not to speak of their own grievances in Terms more moderate than those used by persons who did not feel them—
The people of this District wish for nothing more than to have a Seperate Territorial Government of there own in the second or representative grade. If I had been so fortunate as to have arrived here before the meeting was dissolved which framed the petition it would have been clothed in very different language—
I have divided the District of Louisiana into five Districts in the manner you directed & am now employed in organising the Courts & Militia—
I have the Honor to be Dr Sir, with perfect esteem your Obliged Sert.
Willm. H. Harrison
RC (DLC); at foot of text: “The President of the United States”; endorsed by TJ as received 10 Jan. 1805 and “by Chouteau” and so recorded in SJL.
Petition: in September, delegates from upper Louisiana gathered at St. Louis to protest the 26 Mch. act dividing Louisiana and providing for its temporary government. Meeting president Charles Gratiot observed that Congress passed the act with little information regarding their country, and no inhabitant of the district was present to represent its interests. As a result, residents of upper Louisiana were “calumniated” in Congress and portrayed as “a set of covetous, rapacious land jobbers, who by false, antidated, counterfeited deeds, had monopolized the greatest quantity of the vacant lands of the district of Louisiana.” In a petition to Congress, signed on 29 Sep., the delegates prayed for the repeal of the act and the establishment of a representative government for Louisiana District. The petitioners also opposed plans to resettle eastern Indians in the west and sought the protection of slavery in the district, the privilege of sending a delegate to Congress, and the recognition of land titles and legal judgments issued by Spanish authorities. The meeting deputized Auguste Chouteau and Eligius Fromentin to carry the petition to Washington, where it was presented in the House of Representatives on 4 Jan. 1805 (, 13:43-6; Representation and Petition of the Representatives Elected by the Freemen of the Territory of Louisiana [Washington, D.C., 1805]; , 5:78).
1. Preceding four words interlined.