Andro Linklater (1944–2013)

This is a book for anyone who wondered about the lines on the maps of the United States. In it Andro Linklater, a British writer and journalist, provides a history of the surveying of America. This is necessarily a two-part task, as not only does he describe the development and importance of surveying in shaping America, but it also requires him to explain the simultaneous development of uniform measurement in the Western world. For while people were familiar with units of measurement, those show more units themselves were not standardized, as lengths, along with weights and volume differed from place to place during the colonial period.

Yet the colonists already had access to the first standard measurement, the 22-foot-long chain introduced by the 17th century mathematician Edmund Gunter. His chain was the first element of precision that made the surveying – and through that, the selling – of the vast American territories England claimed in North America. Linklater describes this tandem development well, conveying both the importance of surveying and measurement in shaping the history of the country, as well as the numerous frustrations involved in getting it right. What began as an often haphazard assessment gradually became a more professional, systematic approach by the mid-19th century, creating the checkerboard pattern and straight lines visible from the skies overhead today.

Linklater’s book is a readable history of a mundane yet critical aspect of American history. With a scope spanning from Tudor England to a land office in modern-day Sacramento he conveys something of the long process of development that brought us to where we are now. Yet his examination of surveying rests in a bed of outdated interpretations about American history. These are minor and do little to effect the author’s argument, yet they are a weakness that diminishes from the overall value of the book. All of this makes Linklater’s book a useful look at a long overlooked element shaping American history, yet one that is strongest when focusing on its main subject and not when discussing American history more broadly. show less

The name of one of the greatest traitors in American history is probably unknown to most people. His story is told in Andro Linklater's An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson (Walker, 2009). The most famous conspiracy with which Wilkinson was involved may be vaguely familiar to students of American history (this is the semi-nebulous plot spearheaded by Aaron Burr to invade Mexico and detach the western territories from the United States). As show more Linklater's book makes clear, though, this was just one episode among many in the fascinating, complicated and shocking career of James Wilkinson.

From his earliest days in the army during the Revolutionary War, Wilkinson used his position as an aide to generals (Gates, Greene, Arnold) to curry favor, but made a habit of turning on his patrons as soon as it suited him. After getting caught out in this during the Conway Cabal fiasco Wilkinson found his future prospects for command and advancement in the Continental Army looking bleak, so he slunk away. A sly political operator, though, Wilkinson worked his contacts and got himself appointed clothier general, a position at which he proved uninterested and ineffective. This led George Washington to repeatedly call for his ouster, which was finally accomplished in 1781 (when Congress voted to cut his salary in half, prompting Wilkinson to resign).

Decamping to the Kentucky frontier, Wilkinson became involved in an effort first to create an independent Kentucky government, and then with attempts to open the Mississippi River to trade by negotiating with the Spanish in New Orleans. Courting the Spanish imperial authorities with promises, Wilkinson in effect pledged to bring Kentucky into the orbit of Spain in exchange for trading rights, and arranged to receive payments from the Spanish in return for information and efforts on Spain's behalf in Kentucky (this became known as the Spanish Conspiracy). By December 1792, Linklater writes, Wilkinson was undoubtedly committing treason (he was drawing payments from Spain and providing them with vital information, while at the same time commanding an American army regiment).

Linklater carefully documents the ways in which Wilkinson managed to undercut his personal, political and military foes, while flattering and courting those who could advance his career (most notably a whole string of secretaries of war and presidents from Washington to Jefferson). Notwithstanding a body of evidence and rumors regarding Wilkinson's treason (it was remarkably well known), those in power continued to reward him with duties, positions, and responsibilities. Jefferson in particular was surprisingly indulgent of Wilkinson, particularly after Wilkinson opted to betray Burr's plans to Jefferson even though he had been deeply involved in the plot from the very start.

The number of times Wilkinson was almost brought down, and managed to right his ship by ruining the credibility of his accusers and telling well-crafted, outright lies about the nature of his relationship with the Spanish authorities, is astounding. That he was finally brought down at all ends up being something of a surprise: even after a disastrous loss of troops to illness during the early days of War of 1812 Wilkinson was granted command of the operations to take Canada; when this effort failed spectacularly he survived yet another court-martial (Linklater writes that contemporary jibes had it that Wilkinson "never won a battle, but never lost an inquiry") and was only cashiered during the wholesale downsizing of the military at the end of the war. Even this embittered Wilkinson, who fired off angry letters in every direction and published a three-volume memoir in defense of himself. He ended his days in semi-exile in Mexico, dying there in 1825.

Some of the most breathtaking elements of Wilkinson's treason include his simultaneous memoranda to Jefferson and to his Spanish handlers instructing them (in practically opposite terms) how to deal with the American takeover of the Louisiana Purchase territory. Knowing of the Lewis and Clark expedition, for example, Wilkinson suggested to the Spanish that they might want to intercept the explorers (an attempt was made, but the effort failed). And Wilkinson's careful (and occasionally hysterical) efforts to protect his treason were of great interest: his payments were sent upriver hidden in barrels of foodstuffs, and he and his handlers used ciphers and codes to communicate with each other (an appendix documents some of the codes).

Linklater's book contains a few more than usual errors of the typographic variety, and he missteps (p. 188) in calling Burr the Federalist candidate for president in 1800 (John Adams was running for reelection, of course; Burr was ostensibly the Republican candidate for vice-president, but ended up being Jefferson's strongest competitor when the electoral college vote resulted in a tie and threw the election to the House). These aside, this is a good survey of Wilkinson's life and treasons. Vile he may have been (this is by no means a hagiography), Wilkinson's abilities to dissimulate and keep himself in the good graces of those who mattered were prodigious.

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If you like your history of the American founding which exalts only virtue, General James Wilkinson will not be to your liking. Heroes are by definition virtuous and exceptional. But history is not made only by heroes. In Wilkinson’s case it was made by one who was conniving and deceitful. He committed treason, but was never held to task for it, despite many knowing about it. He was an O.J. Simpson of his day who used his popularity and celebrity and glad-hand manner to charm people, and show more was able to use the legal process to dodge the bullet of being held to task for his misdeeds. All this despite widespread belief in his guilt.

Wilkinson’s star first rose when he played a role at the Battle of Saratoga as the deputy adjutant general of the continental army’s field commander, General Horatio Gates. Wilkinson, then a 20 year old lieutenant colonel, was a gregarious fellow who easily ingratiated himself with his superiors, and rose in standing and office accordingly. It was perhaps a sign of his future life as a traitor that he worked closely with Benedict Arnold at Saratoga. Both men were insecure and ambitious for recognition as they tried to claw their way to the top rungs of military command in the continental army. The difference between them was that Arnold was a brilliant and courageous leader of men in battle. Wilkinson on the other hand, both at Saratoga and for all of his military life, was a military bureaucrat who engaged in networking and organization. He knew little of military tactics or strategy, or if he did, he never exhibited them on the field of battle. He spent much of the war as the “clothier general,” organizing supplies for the continental army, a job which he performed poorly.

After the Revolutionary War he tried his hand at commercial ventures. He was not very successful there either, and always spent more money than he made. After the Revolution enterprising men saw promise in the lands west of that spine of mountains which divided the new American states from the western lands. Wilkinson was one of them, and went to Kentucky where he bought land for speculation and sold goods consigned by Kentucky farmers to the merchants of New Orleans. This required him to navigate the Mississippi River past the Spanish fort at St. Louis and to deal with the Spanish. And deal he did. The Spanish empire controlled commerce on the Mississippi in the late 1780s. He did what he thought prudent to advance his commercial interests. As Wilkinson wrote in a formal document to the Spanish on August 22, 1787, he was “transferring my allegiance from the United States to his Catholic Majesty.” So began his life as a spy for pay.

Wilkinson’s relationship with the Spanish as “Agent 13" yielded payoffs from the Spanish for information about what the new American government was doing. He plotted to cause Kentucky and the other western lands to secede from the United States and align with Spain. Later in the 1800s he conspired with Aaron Burr (another scoundrel and traitor) to make the western states a sovereign county independent of the United States. But Wilkinson, true to his life as a deceiver and turncoat, always stabbed these fellow schemers in the back when he saw possible failure in these plots. He ultimately backed the right horse by switching his allegiance back to the United States and betrayed his co-conspirators. He did all of this while an officer, general, and ultimately the “commander in chief” of the army of the United States.

When rumors of his payoffs from the Spanish circulated, and these rumors plagued him his whole life, he claimed that this was money for goods sold. When rumors of his foreign allegiances and his plotting with Burr surfaced, Wilkinson snowed people with more deceptions. He survived three trials by court marshal using good lawyers, his effusive personality, and good connections to beat the rap for his betrayals.

It is easier to read the biography of a hero than one of a scoundrel. Linklater’s well researched and very readable book on General James Wilkinson reminds us that the founders of our nation were not all good guys. The author’s meticulous research uncovers documents from Spanish archives unread for 200 years which prove Wilkinson to have been a traitor to his country. Lots of people believed this in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but Linklater proves it. The author even includes an interesting appendix in this biography to explain the complex code which Wilkinson used to write his messages to the Spanish, as well as an appendix which records the records of payoffs.

Linklater’s biography of Wilkinson reminds us that the figures of history were not all patriots who exuded virtue. Some served the newborn nation with grievous flaws. Wilkinson was one such man. He was faithful to his wife and good to his children, and he made friends with many. But he lied and stabbed many former friends in the back, and came perilously close to destroying the new United States in its infancy. Only his self interest and his fear of failure brought him back from the edge of full-blown treason like his old friend Benedict Arnold. show less

Linklater has achieved that almost perfect fusion of history, science and biography that a great many authors have aimed for - and fallen short of - in recent years. He relates the story of the evolution of standard weights and measures in Europe and the colonial and post-colonial Americas. But rather than the dry account that this might have been, he spices the story with observations about human foibles, greed and ambition. The reader will become aware that the story couldn't really have show more been told any other way - so closely did the abstract concepts of weights and measures intersect with the lives of individuals and nations. The universal acts of owning or trading goods or land, and of delineating political boundaries involves an acceptance of some kind of weight or measure, and Linklater illustrates how little consensus existed as to what they were even until recent times.

The abstract is given real substance, and his story as a whole finds its central theme, as Linklater discusses the partition of the American colonies, Territories and States. He describes the process as essentially one of creating 'property' and hence wealth and how the way that property was divided, sold and possessed gave the European settlements in North America a particular character that broke with the traditions of old Europe. It has to be acknowledged that the story of the development of the United States encompasses many more influences than Linklater addresses here. But if the reader understands that Linklater is speaking from the area of his expertise - and enthusiasm - then his thesis can be seen as a very worthwhile contribution to the bigger picture, the other parts of which the reader can pursue elsewhere.

Personally, I was most engaged by Linklater's story of how the European States, corporations and individuals came into ownership of all of the lands of North America to the disadvantage of the native American people who had lived on them up to that time. He touches upon the fundamental disconnect between the attitudes of the native Americans to the land and the European view of it as property that could be measured and turned into a commodity.

It was here I wished there had been more detail and a deeper discussion about the relationship between the native Americans and the land. Linklater gives due attention to the often shameful story of their dispossession of vast tracts of the North American continent. But I have the sense that he has committed an act of dispossession himself by leaving the reader to understand that the native Americans had a less precise sense of place and boundaries than Europeans and that the story of marking and measuring territory only started with the colonial surveyors. Linklater acknowledges that there is a huge divide between the concepts of 'custody' and 'ownership' of land. But I am left to wonder whether his inference that ownership created the need for (and was created by the existence of) precise measurement, while the native American concept of 'custody' did not, might simply be a reflection of his lack of familiarity with native American traditions and practices.

This, however, is a minor quibble with a book that should be regarded as essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the United States, of cartography, or the science of measures. For those interested in the clash between concepts of place and measurement between different cultures I can recommend in addition to this book both Hugh Brody's 'Maps and Dreams' (relating the experience of native Americans in British Columbia) and Hugh Beach's 'A Year in Lapland: Guest of the Reindeer Herders'. show less