Samuel Kemper: Filibuster Commander and Burr Conspirator (1776–1814)

Samuel Kemper, Burr conspirator and filibuster commander of the Republican Army of the North, was born on October 8, 1776, in Fauquier County, Virginia, to Peter Kemper and Isabella (Nicholls) Kemper. The family subsequently moved with their father to Ohio. In 1803, at the invitation of a neighbor, Ohio senator John Smith who had invested in land in Spanish West Florida, Samuel and his brothers Reuben and Nathan occupied Smith’s land—thus satisfying Spanish law designed to prevent speculation. After a dispute over a store that the Kempers operated for Smith, the latter had the three brothers evicted. The Kempers and a small band of followers then embarked on a series of reprisal raids into Spanish territory. This brought them to the attention of a cabal of American mercantile leaders known as the Mexican Association of New Orleans, who supported filibuster attacks against Spain. One of its members, Edward Randolph, persuaded Samuel Kemper to lead about twenty to thirty men in an attack on Fort San Carlos in Baton Rouge on August 7, 1804. Kemper marched into the province, unfurled a flag, and read a proclamation hastily drafted by his patron calling for rebellion. The attack failed, and the Kempers became outlaws. Samuel Kemper, around this time, operated a tavern in Pinckneyville, Mississippi.

In March 1806 the Mexican Association recruited the Kempers into the Aaron Burr conspiracy. Another recruit from the same time recalled the oath given him: “to use all means and to aid and assist in effecting the emancipation of Mexico and Peru.” It was likely the same oath given to the Kempers. Samuel and Reuben were tasked with raising men and materiel and were given a cypher and code words to use in their correspondence. Two of their associates in the conspiracy, Josiah Taylor and William Murray, later fought in Texas alongside Samuel Kemper.

When the Burr conspiracy collapsed, Reuben Kemper claimed the men were misled into the cabal, but in 1810, as revolution once again flared in West Florida, Reuben and Samuel participated. Two years later, as José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara began putting together the filibuster that would become the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition, he tapped existing Burrite networks for his project. Reuben Kemper played a support role in Natchez, but Samuel joined the expedition as the second-in-command to former U.S. officer Augustus Magee.

The Republican Army of the North, with an initial force of up to 150 men, entered Texas on August 7, 1812; the vanguard was led by Samuel Kemper. At a place called Salitre Prairie, he surprised a small Spanish force of twenty men and routed it, demoralizing Spanish forces in Northeast Texas and leading to the abandonment of Nacogdoches.

At La Bahía, the rebels seized the presidio, but were besieged there by the Spanish under Simón de Herrera and Manuel María de Salcedo from November 1812 to February 1813. Magee, suffering from tuberculosis, grew increasingly sick over the course of the siege and died on February 6, 1813. Samuel Kemper, who had already been shouldering the burdens of command, was now elevated to the colonelcy.

Kemper was more bold than his predecessor and also showed more respect for his Mexican allies, allowing them key positions and greater authority. Whereas Magee had given command of the Mexican rebels to two long-term Spanish residents who were, respectively, an Anglo-American and a French Creole, Kemper empowered native commanders who had proven themselves in battle, including Miguel Menchaca and Antonio Delgado. Kemper selected Menchaca to lead an ambush on Spanish forces on the morning of February 10, 1813, which crippled the subsequent Spanish assault that same day. After a four-hour fight, the Spanish were defeated. They lifted the siege and retreated back to San Antonio.

Kemper then unleashed Menchaca and other scouts to harass the enemy, then when his army had been reinforced, set out for San Antonio on March 18, 1813. At the battle of Rosillo on March 29, the Spanish attempted an ambush, but Kemper launched a counterattack under Maj. Reuben Ross on his right wing targeting the enemy artillery, which broke the enemy. They fled in disorder to San Antonio.

After Mexican rebels under Delgado massacred fourteen Spanish officers, some Americans resigned from the expedition in disgust. Kemper returned to the United States for several months and missed the battle of Alazán in July, but returned in August and once again assumed command of the Republican Army’s Anglo-American contingent under José Álvarez de Toledo, who had replaced Gutiérrez. At the battle of Medina on August 18, 1813, Kemper held joint command with Toledo in the field, and his subordinate leading the Americans in battle was his fellow Burr conspirator, Josiah Taylor. The two men, who had in 1806 taken the Mexican Association’s oath to emancipate Spanish territories were now making good on their promise in 1813.

Kemper had prepared an ambush of the Spanish forces, but after an enemy patrol stumbled into Republican lines, Kemper and Menchaca abandoned these prepared positions and ignored Toledo’s emphatic concerns. As Republican veteran James Gaines recalled, “These two colonels were opposed to Toledo personally, so that when he gave the order to retreat to the river, Kemper and Monchack [Menchaca] galloped violently up & down the lines countermanding the order and swearing that there should be no retreat.”

In doing so, the Republican army crashed into the main Spanish force under Gen. Joaquín de Arredondo. After a fight of several hours, in which the rebels nearly pushed Arredondo from his position, the exhausted rebels broke and were routed with heavy loss. Kemper and most of the mounted officers escaped the battlefield and, after a brief attempt to fortify Nacogdoches, abandoned Texas.

Kemper was involved with efforts to restart the filibuster in 1814, then joined Gen. Andrew Jackson’s forces in a company of cavalry to defend New Orleans. Before the battle, however, he contracted the measles and died on November 4, 1814.