Acquiring, But Not Buying Florida
Long before Florida became a favored vacation destination, the U.S. government wanted to acquire Florida. In 1763, 12 years before the American Revolution began, the Spanish traded their colonial possession called Florida for Cuba. Once in position of the territory, the British promptly divided Florida into East and West Florida.
Because most of the settlers in Florida were Loyalists, the colony did not join the others in the rebellion. In fact, Florida became a haven for Loyalists in South Carolina and Georgia who wanted to remain British citizens.
However, in 1781, Spanish troops captured Pensacola, and in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Britain ceded Florida back to the Spanish. By this time, the territory, whose northern border was the 31st parallel, had been flooded by American settlers who were a mix of Loyalists and Patriots.
The desire for independence festered for almost two decades. The Loyalists and Patriots did not want to be ruled by the English or the Spanish. In October 1810, the Republic of West Florida was declared and was ultimately annexed by the United States in January 181 (See 2/2/25 post – Revolt of the Floridians – https://marcliebman.com/revolt-of-the-floridians/ ).
Unfortunately, annexing another country’s territory generally does not make the owner happy. Madison took the gamble that the Spanish could not force the American settlers to submit to its rule. The American president suspected Spain, which had its hands full in Mexico and its Central and South American colonies, didn’t have the resources or the will to contest the American actions.
Spanish power in Florida was reduced to its enclave around St. Augustine and a few other coastal towns. The interior was now controlled by the Seminole Indians, who were routinely raiding U.S. settlements in Georgia and what was the Republic of West Florida.
Then in March 1812, a year after West Florida was annexed by the U.S. George Matthews and a band of settlers took Amelia Island in Northern Florida and declared the Republic of East Florida. However, the raids by Seminoles into Georgia didn’t stop, and Andrew Jackson led a series of raids into Florida to defeat the Seminoles.
This 1818 campaign, known as the First Seminole War, gave the U.S. control of Florida. However, the seat of government was still in Georgia. In protest, the Spanish government asked the British for help in the negotiations, but Britain declined.
John Quincy Adams was sent to negotiate a settlement with Spain that gave the U.S. Florida in exchange for an agreement by the U.S. to pay claims of up to $5,000,000 ($124,253,937 in January 2025). The treaty signed on February 22, 1819, didn’t go into effect until February 22, 1821. Why? The Spanish hoped the delay would keep the U.S. from interfering in their South and Central American pacification efforts.
What is not widely known is that the Adams-Onís Treaty – named after John Quincy Adams and the Spanish negotiator Luis de Onís – gave the U.S. far more than just Florida. In the agreement, Spain gave up all claims to its territory in North America other than Mexico and Texas. It established the western border of the U.S. This meant that under the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, U.S. settlers could move into a jointly U.S.-British controlled region on the Pacific Ocean we called the Oregon Country (Later it would be called the Oregon Territory), and the British called Columbia District. What was now most important was that the U.S. had control of territory from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
Image shows the Western border of the U.S. defined by the Adams- Onís Treaty.
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