1781 - The Return of the Spanish
At the end of the Revolutionary War, Florida was still split into two colonies, East and West Florida.
The two Florida colonies had remained loyal to Great Britain throughout the Revolutionary War.
However, Spain and their ally France, were both still upset over the British victory over them during the French and Indian War.
Spain invaded and recaptured Pensacola from the British in 1781.
In 1782, Spain began awarding large tracts of Florida land to those who granted them favors, even though the Florida territory remained under British control.
During the American Revolution, the conflict between Tories (Loyalists) and Patriots led to significant violence and division within communities. Tories tended to be wealthy land owners who wanted to preserve their wealth rather than risk the insecurity of independence. Many Tories faced persecution, property confiscation, and social ostracism. Both West and East Florida remained loyal to the British crown and served as havens for Tories fleeing from the Thirteen Colonies. After the war, approximately 100,000 Loyalists fled to Canada or other British territories, where they were often compensated for their losses. They contributed to Canada's distinct identity separate from the United States.
During the colonial years, the Seminole were on relatively good terms with both the Spanish and the British due to their prolific trade network.
During the Revolution, the Seminole allied with the British.
Seminole and Maroon communities were established on the outskirts of Seminole villages, such as Bowlegs Town on the Suwannee River, an Alachua Seminole village in Paynes Town, Florida, and even one in Okahumpka (north of today's Groveland).
After the United States achieved independence in 1776, American slaveholders were increasingly worried about the armed Seminole and Maroon communities in Florida. They were especially concerned that the Maroons, "runaway slaves", would seek revenge upon the newly forming nation.
Despite several attempts by American forces to capture Florida, the British maintained control throughout most of the war.
These battles highlight Florida's role as a contested area during the Revolutionary War, although it is often overlooked in broader discussions of the conflict.
There were two main battles fought in Florida during the American Revolution, including the Battle of Thomas Creek in 1777 and the Battle of Alligator Creek Bridge in 1778, both of which were British victories against American forces.
American forces attempted to invade British-held East Florida using combined naval and land strategies, including a flotilla of Continental troops and militia cavalry.
However, both battles ended in failure due to poor planning, lack of supplies, and being outnumbered by British and Loyalist forces.
The key outcomes of the battles fought in Florida during the American Revolution included the retention of Florida under British control until the end of the war, as both East and West Florida remained loyal to the British crown.
However, in 1781, Spain invaded West Florida and successfully recaptured Pensacola from the British.
Notably, the Siege of Pensacola resulted in a Spanish victory, leading to Spain ultimately regaining control of Florida after the war.
In 1784, after the American Revolutionary War, Britain came to a settlement with Spain and they transferred East and West Florida back to Spanish ownership.
However, the lack of defined boundaries led to a series of border disputes between Spanish West Florida and the fledgling United States known as the West Florida Controversy.
The Spanish Empire's continuing decline enabled the Seminole to settle more deeply into Florida.
In the 1700s, the Seminoles founded a dynasty of chiefs of the Alachua chiefdom, in eastern Florida, led by Cowkeeper.
The American slaveholders now sought the capture and return of Florida's fugitive slaves under the Treaty of New York (1790), the first treaty ratified under the Confederation. The U.S. Army and local militia groups made increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish Florida to recapture escaped slaves living among the Seminole.
By the late 1700s, it is thought that all of the indigenous peoples of Florida were gone, having been replaced by the immigrating Seminole tribe, which had already formed as a unique tribe.
Some historians believe a small group of Timucua may have stayed behind in Florida or Georgia and possibly assimilated into the Seminoles.
At this point, the Timucua disappear from history.
population.
When the Florida colonies were under British control, English colonists and the many Tories (British supporting colonists), fled there from the colonies, during the revolution. Together, these groups had made East Florida more populous and prosperous than it had ever been as a Spanish colony. When Spain took back control, there occured a nearly complete exodus of these groups, mostly due to the Spanish governments ban on the practice of any religion, except Catholicism. Their departure again left much of the Florida territory depopulated and unguarded.
Part of Spain's reoccupation attempt of Florida involved the arrival of officials and soldiers at St. Augustine and Pensacola, however, there were very few new settlers.
As it turned out, Spain could no longer afford to support its vast colonial empire and from 1784 until 1821 (when Spain ceded Florida to the US), Florida became the setting for constant international intrigues as well as a target for greedy adventurers who wished to establish their own personal empires with Florida's vast resources.
When they signed the treaty to give Florida back to Spain, they did not clarify what the borders of the Florida Territory would actually be. The Spanish wanted to retain the expanded northern boundary that Britain had made to West Florida, but the new United States demanded the lower old boundary at the 31st parallel. This border dispute was finally resolved in the 1795 Treaty of San Lorenzo, when Spain agreed to the 31st parallel as the northern boundary.
Since Spain no longer had enough colonists to support a new colony, they were forced them to put an end to their policy of requiring all settlers to convert to Catholicism. This allowed many of the English settlers to return to Florida in the early 1800s.
Around this time, Spain could not afford enough soldiers to patrol the long frontiers of Florida. This opened up the way for a mix of American and British settlers (mostly from Georgia and South Carolina), Maroons (escaped slaves), and Natives to continue immigrating across the open border of Spanish Florida. English war ships anchored off Florida's Gulf coast and English agents encouraged the Seminoles, Creeks, and Mikisúkî to resist American colonists. American officials, angry that the Spaniards could not oust the English or control the Natives, were particularly incensed by the protection and shelter the Seminoles offered to the Maroons. These freedom seekers had been finding refuge in Spanish Florida for over a century, but the new American government was determined to stop this practice. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, conflicts, skirmishes, and ambushes erupted and ethnic hatreds flared into violence more and more frequently on the new frontier.
The American migrants, mixed with the settlers from Florida's British period would become the progenitors of the people known as Florida Crackers.
In West Florida, these American and British settlers established a permanent foothold during the first decade of the 1800s.
In the summer of 1810, they began plans for a rebellion against the Spanish authority.
By September of the same year, these plans turned into open revolts, the settlers overtook the Spanish garrison at Baton Rouge and proclaimed the area as the "Free and Independent Republic of West Florida" on September 23.
(This area would later become part of the state of Louisiana, not Florida.)
Their flag was the first known use of the "Bonnie Blue Flag", a single white five-pointed star on a blue field.
On October 27, 1810, most of the area for the Republic of West Florida was annexed into the U.S. by proclamation of President James Madison.
He claimed that the region was included in the Louisiana Purchase and it was incorporated into the newly formed Territory of Orleans.
Some leaders of the newly declared republic objected to the takeover by the United States government.
However, all of them deferred to the arriving American troops by mid-December of 1810.