Florida

C

1

Settlement and Conflict

Early in the 17th century, Franciscan priests converted most of the Timucua and Apalachee of northern Florida to Christianity. An interior chain of missions eventually extended from Saint Augustine to present-day Tallahassee, and another chain ran north along the coastal islands of Georgia.

England and France contested Spain’s claim to the vast area that the Spaniards called La Florida. For 150 years following the establishment of the first permanent English settlement in America at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, English colonists pushed slowly southward into Spanish territory, establishing settlements in the Carolinas and in Georgia. The English saw the Spanish missions as a threat to their claims. Throughout the early part of the 18th century, English raiders, accompanied by their Native American allies of the Creek and Yamasee nations, attacked Spanish settlements in northern Florida. All of the Spanish missions were destroyed, and most of the Timucua and Apalachee were killed, captured as slaves, or driven into exile.

Meanwhile, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, and other French explorers of the interior of the continent reached the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1682. To counter their activities, the Spaniards in 1698 founded Pensacola in the panhandle. Over the next 20 years, the French founded settlements at Biloxi (now in Mississippi), Mobile (now in Alabama), and New Orleans (now in Louisiana). The French captured Pensacola in 1719, but returned it to Spanish rule in 1722. By 1750 France controlled the Gulf Coast area west of Pensacola, and Great Britain (a union of England, Scotland, and Wales) controlled the Atlantic Coast north of the Saint Marys River.

Toward the end of the French and Indian War (1754-1763) between France and Great Britain, Spain allied itself with France against Great Britain. But the British won the war and by the terms of the Treaty of Paris received Florida from Spain. The acquired land stretched as far west as the Mississippi River. The Spaniards retained New Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississippi.

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C

2

British Colonial Period

Under British administration, the territory was divided into two colonies, East Florida and West Florida. East Florida, with its capital at Saint Augustine, occupied most of the present-day state. West Florida, with its capital at Pensacola, extended westward from the Apalachicola River to the Mississippi and included parts of present-day Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

During the 21 years of British rule, many colonists from England and other parts of Europe settled in Florida. Indigo plants, which yield a blue dye, were grown on plantations to supply the British textile industries, and furs, citrus fruit, lumber, and naval stores were also produced for export.

When the 13 colonies of Great Britain on the Atlantic Seaboard declared their independence as the United States, during the American Revolution (1775-1783), they invited East and West Florida to join them. The Florida colonists, however, remained loyal to Great Britain. During the revolution many Loyalists—colonists who remained loyal to the British king—fled to East Florida from Georgia and South Carolina. Raids and counterraids were common along the East Florida-Georgia border, but there were no major military actions between the patriots and British forces.

C

3

Second Spanish Period

In 1779 Spain joined the Revolutionary War on the side of the United States. Spanish forces from New Orleans attacked West Florida, capturing Mobile in 1780 and Pensacola in 1781. After the Revolution, in a second Treaty of Paris in 1783, the British formally returned both East Florida and West Florida to Spain. As a result, thousands of settlers left Florida for Britain’s island possessions in the West Indies.

The Spanish governor arrived in 1784. During this second period of Spanish colonial rule, until 1821, Florida received little attention from Spain. British traders were allowed to continue their profitable businesses in Florida, and immigrants from the United States began to settle there. These new settlers strongly supported annexation by the United States, and their views were encouraged by the U.S. government.

The United States and Spain disagreed about the location of the northern boundary of West Florida. The United States maintained, on the basis of language in the peace treaty of 1783, that it was latitude 31° north. Spain claimed the boundary to be latitude 32°30’ north, the boundary established during British rule, and refused to remove its army garrison from Natchez. Finally, in 1795, under the terms of the Treaty of San Lorenzo, Spain accepted latitude 31° north as the northern boundary of West Florida.

D

The 19th Century

D

1

United States Intervention

In the second decade of the 19th century, Florida’s diverse population included Spaniards, United States settlers, English traders, adventurers, runaway slaves, and the Seminole. Spain maintained a few garrisons in the principal ports, but for the most part left the countryside alone and the Seminole to themselves. An offshoot of the Creek nation of the Georgia-Alabama frontier, the Seminole included remnants of other native peoples and a number of escaped black slaves from Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. They occupied lands in northern Florida that were coveted by residents of Georgia, although Florida belonged to Spain. Georgia residents were also unhappy over the Seminole practice of giving refuge to fugitive slaves.

In 1810 United States settlers in the western part of Florida rebelled against Spanish rule and declared their independence as the republic of West Florida. This area and other territory between the Mississippi and Perdido rivers was subsequently annexed by the United States. The eastern part, between the Perdido and Pearl rivers, was incorporated into Mississippi territory, while the area west of the Pearl was included in the Territory of Orleans (now the state of Louisiana).

During the War of 1812 the Spaniards allowed the British to occupy Pensacola and set up a naval base there. In 1814 American forces led by General Andrew Jackson attacked Pensacola and drove the British out. After the war the United States intervened in Florida on several occasions on behalf of American interests. The First Seminole War (1817-1818) began when U.S. troops, commanded by Jackson, invaded Florida to retaliate for border raids by the Seminole. Jackson seized a military post at Saint Marks and took as prisoners two British traders, Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Chrystie Ambrister. He had them court-martialed for inciting the Seminole and then, having been found guilty, executed. Learning that the Seminole had fled toward Pensacola, he made a forced march and captured the post a second time.

Jackson’s actions created an international incident. Both Spain and Britain were incensed. Most of President James Monroe’s Cabinet was ready to repudiate Jackson, but Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who had been negotiating with Spain for the sale of Florida, insisted that Jackson had not exceeded his orders. He persuaded Monroe to accept his view, and then instructed Spain that it should either govern Florida more effectively or cede it to the United States.

After long negotiations, Spain agreed in 1819 to cede Florida to the United States. A probable factor in the decision was that Spain was troubled at that time by revolts in its South American colonies and could ill afford to go to war with the United States. Under the terms of the treaty, called the Adams-Onís Treaty, the United States agreed to assume payment of claims, up to $5 million, which American citizens in Florida had lodged against Spain. The United States took formal possession of Florida in 1821.

D

2

Territorial Period

For several months, Jackson served as military governor of Florida. Then Florida was organized as a territory with its present boundaries, and William P. DuVal was appointed its first territorial governor in 1822. Tallahassee was chosen as the site of the territorial capital in 1824. Settlers poured into the territory from neighboring states, and a typical Southern plantation system, based on cotton, corn, and tobacco, was established in northern Florida.

As the territory’s population increased, settlers pushed southward, displacing the Seminole. A treaty was forced on the Seminole in 1832 by which they were to move west of the Mississippi River within three years. However, many of them, led by Osceola, one of their war leaders, repudiated the treaty. Efforts to enforce it led to the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), which took the lives of 1,466 American soldiers and even more Seminole. When the fighting ended, most of the Seminole were removed from the state, but some took refuge in the Everglades, where many of their descendants now live. After the Third Seminole War (1855-1858), about half of those remaining were moved west. The rest stayed in Florida.

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