During the Spanish possession and control of the lower Mississippi River, serious protests and diplomatic representations had been made to Spain against the onerous exactions and tributes which she imposed on commerce from the upper valley and imports through New Orleans. To haul the tobacco, wheat, corn, pork and other bulky products of the region across the mountains over dirt roads to Baltimore, the nearest seaport and market, was hardly possible. The Mississippi River was the quick and easy highway to New Orleans and tide-water. Spain was under treaty obligation to allow free navigation of the Mississippi, and to deal liberally at New Orleans with commerce from the upper valley, but she shamefully set at nought her obligations, until, in sheer exasperation, the people of Kentucky and Tennessee were on the point of fitting out a military force with which to open the river to free navigation and commerce and to drive Spain from New Orleans. The Federal Government rose to the emergency, and Spain, obliged to choose between war or cession, concluded in 1795 a treaty of cession, by which she surrendered the territory in question and agreed to retire within six months after ratification of the treaty.
