Part I of this report appeared July 2 as part of our “United States of America at 250” special section.
At the start of the American Revolution in 1775, East Florida and West Florida were the only two southern colonies that remained loyal to King George III. This was a problem for the British, as the southern colonies in North America supplied food, clothing, and other supplies to their sugar plantations in the Caribbean, a huge source of revenue for the British Empire.
The British colony of West Florida consisted of the lower halves of the present-day states of Mississippi and Alabama, and a good chunk of what is now southwest Georgia. The portion of the colony that is in present-day Florida ran east to the Apalachicola River, where the colony of East Florida began.
For most of us, the Revolutionary War calls to mind scenes of colonial militia and later blue-coated Continental Army troops in running battles with the British Redcoats from New England down to the Carolinas. However, from a global perspective, there was a whole lot of other fighting going on, and it is accurate to say it was the continuation of the 1754 to 1763 Seven Years War in Europe, which was known in North America as the French and Indian War. Essentially, The Seven Years War was a typical all-hands European dust-up, the kind that would be repeated every few decades right up through World War II.
At the end of the French and Indian War, France lost Canada, and Spain lost the upper two-thirds of Florida and the portions of Mississippi and Alabama that would form the British West Florida Colony. In addition, a whole lot of “horse-trading” of territory took place between the three warring nations, including Spain replacing France as the power in Louisiana, while Britain relinquished control of Havana, Cuba, and Manila, Philippines, which the British had captured during the war.
When the American Revolution kicked off a decade later, in 1775, France and Spain took advantage of the revolt in Britain’s American colonies to sow mischief for their old enemy around the periphery of the British Empire, including Florida. While Colonial forces directly attacked the East Florida colony several times during the Revolutionary War, Spanish forces attacked the West Florida colony. Louisiana was Spanish territory at the time, and the Governor, Bernardo de Galvez, a military officer, immediately began facilitating the smuggling of vital military supplies to the American rebels. In 1779, de Galvez launched a successful campaign to recapture Biloxi, Mobile, and Pensacola, with only a small force of soldiers and ships, completing his aims by 1781. When the American Revolution ended in 1783, England returned East Florida to the Spanish to keep control of Gibraltar and to end Spanish interests in the Bahamas.
Starting with the later War of 1812 between America and Britain, Americans settlers began the gradual occupation of Spanish Florida, much in the way that Americans would begin to lay claim to Texas a few decades later. With the Spanish Empire in decline, Spain formally ceded its claim to Florida to the United States on July 17, 1821.
