The Burr Conspiracy
Aaron Burr is fairly well known, and for good reason. After all, he shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Yes. A duel. That was in 1804 while he was Vice President of the United States. He may be the only Vice President to actually kill someone while in office, though surprisingly he isn’t the only elected official to fight in a duel. That was fairly common up until the 1850s.
The scandal surrounding his illegal duel with Hamilton is well-known, but what isn’t as well-known is that he tried to annex parts of then-Spanish territory in the Western parts of the United States, by himself. His plans were then, supposedly, to create his own empire, and appoint himself as the leader.
The conspiracy kicked off in 1805, when Burr moved to the West and started recruiting members for his own private army. He was assisted by US General James Wilkinson, who was also a Spanish spy. Burr and Wilkinson gathered men and arms on a small island in the Ohio River, and planned their eventual takeover of Spanish territory towards the west.
Whatever they had planned, and the eventual feasibility of those plans will never be known, because Wilkinson betrayed Burr to President Thomas Jefferson. Burr was arrested and tried for treason, but was acquitted since his actions were against Spain and not the United States.
Some of the conspiracies came from Burr’s quest to perhaps separate several territories that came with the Louisiana Purchase, and enfold them into his own empire.
There isn’t much known about this conspiracy outside of the few details listed here. We know that it happened, and we suspect the goals that Burr had because of Wilkinson’s betrayal. But one thing we do know, and that we find most interesting, is that Burr actually faced more inquiry and punishment for his attempt to annex his own empire than he did over killing Alexander Hamilton.