The Real Reason The United States Acquired Florida From Spain

By the early 19th century, the United States of American was still a brand-new nation. Spain, by contrast, was a kingdom with quite a few centuries under its belt with an array of territories and other interests around the globe, particularly the territories of New Spain that were situated just to the south of the upstart new nation. Why, then, would such a seemingly powerful global force as Spain hand over a significant piece of its lands, the Florida territory, to the U.S. in 1819?

As it turns out, the story of Florida's history is a pretty complicated one. Ever since Spanish explorers first started trying to lay claim to it in the early 16th century, it had been the subject of seemingly endless fights over just who was supposed to be in charge of the peninsula. It was potentially strategic, with access to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the Caribbean to the south. Everyone, it seems, was willing to fight over it. So why did Spain give it up?

Yet, the actual land itself was rural, already inhabited by indigenous people who were suspicious of European settlers, and subject to intense heat and humidity. Why would the United States want it, anyway? Here is the real reason the United States acquired Florida from Spain.

The First Spanish Period, as it's called, didn't begin until the establishment of St. Augustine on the Atlantic coast of Florida in 1565. According to JSTOR Daily, that's when Pedro Menéndez de Avilés finally succeeded where so many others before him failed — he got Europeans to settle in Florida. The group, which included an estimated 70 men, 100 women, and 150 children who were left in St. Augustine when everyone else sailed off, initially grappled with the harsh environment and isolation. However, the city persisted and has since become the oldest European-founded, continuously-settled city in the United States.

All of these colonial maneuvers came about because Spain was nervous about French explorers moving in on the region. As per History, Menéndez was sent along because pesky French Protestants were starting to settle there, who were even going so far as to establish Fort Caroline near modern-day Jacksonville on the Atlantic Coast. The majority-Catholic Spanish didn't like the religious competition, but also were leery of unfriendly settlers who might have an eye on their territory, not to mention the loaded Spanish treasure ships sailing nearby.

In 1784, when Spain had fully regained Florida — though it had already secured West Florida a few years earlier, as Exploring Florida notes — it may have felt like a victory. Yet, as the years wore on, the Florida colonies proved to be more and more like a millstone around the kingdom's neck.

Initially, colonists were reluctant to settle there, though the Spanish governor had promised to treat everyone fairly, according to the National Park Service. Officials attempted to attract new settlers through a series of benefits, but it took a couple of significant concessions to actually get people to move into Florida. The first, enacted by 1786, was to allow Protestants to live in the ostensibly Catholic territory. The second was the government's sanction of slavery in the territory, which made way for a series of plantations and slaveowners in Florida.

It didn't stop with diplomatic and moral concessions, however. Constituting America notes that endless boundary debates with the newly-formed United States made the territory more effort than Spain might have thought it was worth. Money problems for the kingdom didn't help, either.

As in so many other places, the original inhabitants of Florida were in for some serious trouble once explorers and colonists began to show up in their territory. By the mid-1700s, many of the indigenous people of Florida had been devastated by disease and conflict with settlers, Britannica reports.

Eventually, Muskogee and Creek people from around Georgia, began to migrate south in the Florida territory, according to the Florida Department of State. It took until the 1770s for this group of indigenous people from a variety of tribes to become collectively known as the Seminole, which roughly translates to "runaway" in reference to their origins.

The Seminole, however, did not consist entirely of Native people searching for new places to settle. Beginning in the early 1700s, they were joined by increasing numbers of runaway slaves who came to be known as "Black Seminoles," Britannica says. Florida was especially attractive to Black people fleeing enslavement, as Spain had abolished slavery there in 1693. For people living in the southern British colonies, such as Georgia, it could be a relatively short trip over the border to freedom. Eventually, it became clear that the U.S. wanted to claim Florida in part to appease Georgia landowners who wanted to cut off this escape route.

The acquisition of Florida by the United States began in secret. The Jacksonville Historical Society reports that, in early 1811, Congress secretly agreed that the nation should take over Florida, going so far as to pass an act to formalize their intention. This eventually morphed into the idea that the U.S. should support local uprising against the Spanish government, though this idea raised alarm bells for some members of the government, who claimed that this was all an excuse to move American troops into foreign territory.

This is more or less exactly what happened. A group of Americans living in Florida, colloquially known as "Patriots," were emboldened by the U.S. government's overtures, though the War of 1812 soon distracted Washington from the Floridian cause, according to The Daily Commercial. They went ahead anyway, claiming territory in east Florida, reportedly with the help of the U.S.

However, the plan crumbled quickly, with President James Madison publicly condemning the rebels. When the Seminoles teamed up with the Spanish against the American rebels, it was all over. Though it was unsuccessful, this incident may have further convinced Spain that it was time to get rid of Florida once and for all.

There has likely never been a time when international politics wasn't a complicated beast. It was certainly so in the early 19th century, when the tenuous relationship between the United States and Spain was about to play a fateful role in Florida's future. As Constituting America notes, previous treaties had attempted to more properly define the border between Spanish and U.S. territory, but with scattershot results. Americans also argued that Spain owed them, both for Spain helping seize American merchant ships trying to trade with Britain, and for blocking American merchants from doing business in New Orleans, a violation of an earlier treaty.

Eventually, Napoleon got involved, though not directly. In 1808, France invaded Spain and Napoleon set up a puppet government headed by his own brother. A resistance movement arose and the United States, wanting to side with the resistance and against Napoleon, also had to break with Spain.

This got pretty awkward for Luis de Onís, the Spanish minister of government who was stuck trying to negotiate with U.S. officials in Philadelphia. President Madison gave him the cold shoulder, though Onís was at least able to meet with Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, according to Adams' memoirs. Still, Onís was kept in political purgatory for years and Spain struggled with war and diplomatic disputes both in Europe and North America.

Adams insisted that the boundaries of the treaty should extend to the Pacific Ocean. This broad and rather bold move opened up a clear path for the United States to become a serious player in the nation game, thanks to its future possession of valuable land on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. So, according to the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, the treaty not only concerned Florida, but established a firm border between New Spain to the south and the United States to the north.

In return, the Transcontinental Treaty stated that the United States would release all of its previous complaints against Spain, including the charges that French privateers working with the kingdom had seized American vessels and goods. The document even granted Spanish vessels the right to dock in the newly American cities of Pensacola and St. Augustine without increased duties or taxes, presumably to show no hard feelings after this huge new land acquisition.