West Florida

(noun)

A region on the north shore of the Gulf of Mexico that underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history.

Related Terms

Examples of West Florida in the following topics:

  • Pinckney's Treaty

    • Pinckney's Treaty between Spain and the United States defined the boundaries of the Spanish colonies of West and East Florida.
    • Among other things, the treaty ended the first phase of the West Florida Controversy, a dispute between the two nations over the boundaries of the Spanish colony of West Florida.
    • Finally, in 1800, under duress from Napoleon of France, Spain ceded an undefined portion of West Florida to France.
    • When France then sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803, disputes arose again between Spain and the United States regarding which parts of West Florida Spain had ceded to France.
    • These disputes would, in turn, determine which parts of West Florida were now U.S. property versus Spanish territory and would greatly affect the Jeffersonian administration.

  • Spain in the Revolutionary War

    • In exchange for supporting the colonies, France agreed to assist Spain by capturing of Gibraltar, Florida, and the island of Minorca.
    • France agreed to aid in the capture of Gibraltar, the Floridas, and the island of Minorca.
    • Though the Treaty of Aranjuez committed France to continue engagements with the British until Spain had gained Gibraltar, Spain agreed to accept Minorca and West Florida in lieu of Gibraltar.
    • Spain provided military assistance to the Patriots on several fronts, in European waters, the West Indies, the American Midwest, and at the Siege of Yorktown.
    • In 1781, the Spanish achieved a decisive victory against the British at the Battle of Pensacola, giving the Spanish control of West Florida.

  • Peace Overtures and the Evacuation of Philadelphia

    • The commission was headed by the Earl of Carlisle and included William Eden, a British statesman and diplomat, and George Johnstone, former Governor of West Florida.

  • Land Policy

    • Sent by Jefferson to survey, map, and gather specimens and natural artifacts for further study, Lewis and Clark undertook one of the first major explorations of western territory that initiated further contact with Native American tribes west of the Mississippi as well as the Spanish territories of Texas and New Mexico.
    • President James Madison declared West Florida a U.S. possession in 1810, while the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819 legitimized Spain's cession of East Florida and the surrender of any claims to the Oregon Country.
    • Oregon Country, which broadly covered the area west of the Rockies to the Pacific, was jointly controlled by the United States and Britain following the Anglo-American Convention of 1818--until June 1846, when the Oregon Treaty divided the territory at the 49th parallel.
    • Indirect successor states (Maine, West Virginia), the District of Columbia and states that acceded to the union after the American Revolutionary War are not included

  • The Treaty of Paris

    • The territories of East and West Florida were ceded to Spain, as was the Mediterranean island of Minorca.
    • France's only territorial gains were the island of Tobago and Senegal in West Africa.
    • The treaty between Spain and Great Britain did not establish any clearly defined northern boundary to Spanish-controlled Florida.
    • Spain used its control of Florida to block American access to the Mississippi in defiance of Article 8 of the Treaty of Paris.
    • Benjamin West's painting of the delegations at the Treaty of Paris: John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, and William Temple Franklin.

  • Archaic Hunters and Gatherers

    • These shell rings are numerous in South Carolina and Georgia but can also be found scattered around the Florida peninsula and along the Gulf of Mexico as far west as the Pearl River.
    • In some places, such as Horr's Island in southwest Florida, resources were rich enough to support sizable mound-building communities year-round.

  • The Western Lands

    • Prior to 1776, the land to the west of the British colonies was of high priority for settlers and politicians.
    • Lawrence river, building communities that remained stable for long stretches; they did not leapfrog west the way the British did.
    • The Royal Proclamation of 1763 prohibited the North American colonists from establishing or maintaining settlements west of a line running down the crest of the Appalachian Mountains.
    • The first priority of British trade officials was to populate the recently secured areas of Canada and Florida, where colonists could reasonably be expected to trade with the mother country; settlers living west of the Appalachians would be highly self-sufficient and have little opportunity to trade with English merchants.
    • Prominent American colonists joined with land speculators in Britain to lobby the government to move the line further west.

  • Madison's American Indian Policy

    • As European settlers moved west, encroaching on large tracts of Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, and Chickasaw territory, Madison ordered the U.S.
    • As U.S. expansion continued, American Indians resisted settlers' encroachment in several regions of the new nation, from the Northwest to the Southeast and into the West, as settlers encountered the tribes of the Great Plains.
    • The Seminole Wars, also known as the "Florida Wars," were three conflicts in Florida between the Seminole—the collective name given to the amalgamation of various groups of Native Americans and African Americans who settled in Florida in the early eighteenth century—and the U.S.
    • The First Seminole War (1816–1819) arose out of tensions relating to General Andrew Jackson's invasions into northern Spanish Florida and offensives against the Seminoles beginning in 1816.
    • According to the Treaty of Moultrie Creek of 1823, the Seminoles were required to leave northern Florida and were confined to a large reservation in the center of the Florida peninsula.

  • The Growth of the Sun Belt

    • It is the largest region which the U.S government does not recognize officially (in its postal regions and census).The main defining feature of the Sun Belt is its warm-temperate climate with extended summers and brief, relatively mild winters; Florida, the Gulf Coast, and southern Texas, however, have a true subtropical climate.
    • There was a shift in this period from the previously economically and politically important northeast to the south and west.
    • The climate spurred not only agricultural growth, but also saw many retirees move into retirement communities in the region, especially in Florida and Arizona.
    • The oil industry helped propel southern states such as Texas and Louisiana forward, and tourism grew in Florida and southern California as well.
    • In more recent decades high tech and new economy industries have been major drivers of growth in California, Florida and some other parts of the Sun Belt.

  • American Indian Policy and the Trail of Tears

    • Jackson's Removal Act called for relocation of all tribes to lands west of the river.
    • In 1835, the Seminole tribe refused to leave their lands in Florida, leading to the Second Seminole War.
    • Based in the Everglades of Florida, Osceola and his band used surprise attacks to defeat the U.S.
    • Some Seminole traveled deeper into the Everglades, while others moved west.
    • Removal continued out west, and numerous wars over land ensued.