West Florida (Spanish: Florida Occidental) was a region on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico that underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history. As its name suggests, it was formed out of the western part of former Spanish Florida (East Florida formed the eastern part, with the Apalachicola River as the border), along with lands taken from French Louisiana; Pensacola became West Florida's capital. The colony included about two thirds of what is now the Florida Panhandle, as well as parts of the modern U.S. states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
Great Britain established West and East Florida in 1763 out of land acquired from France and Spain after the Seven Years' War. As the newly acquired territory was too large to govern from one administrative center, the British divided it into two new colonies separated by the Apalachicola River. British West Florida included the part of formerly Spanish Florida, which lay west of the Apalachicola, as well as parts of formerly French Louisiana; its government was based in Pensacola. West Florida thus encompassed all territory between the Mississippi and Apalachicola Rivers, with a northern boundary which shifted several times over the subsequent years.
Both West and East Florida remained loyal to the British crown during the American Revolution, and served as havens for Tories fleeing from the Thirteen Colonies. Spain invaded West Florida and captured Pensacola in 1781, and after the war Britain ceded both Floridas to Spain. 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.
Because of disagreements with the Spanish government, American and English settlers between the Mississippi and Perdido rivers declared that area as the independent Republic of West Florida in 1810. No part of that short-lived republic lay within the borders of the modern U.S. state of Florida; rather, it comprised the Florida parishes of today's Louisiana. Within months it was annexed by the United States, which claimed the region as part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In 1819, the United States negotiated the purchase of the remainder of West Florida and all of East Florida in the Adams–Onís Treaty, and in 1822 both were merged into the Florida Territory.
The area known as West Florida was originally claimed by Spain as part of La Florida, which included most of what is now the southeastern United States. Spain made several attempts to conquer and colonize the area, notably including Tristán de Luna's short-lived settlement in 1559, but it was not settled permanently until the 17th century, with the establishment of missions to the Apalachee. In 1698, the settlement of Pensacola was established to check French expansion into the area.[citation needed]
Beginning in the late 17th century, the French established settlements along the Gulf Coast and in the region as part of their colonial La Louisiane, including Mobile (1702) and Fort Toulouse (1717) in present-day Alabama[1]: 134 and Fort Maurepas (1699) in present-day coastal Mississippi. After years of contention between France and Spain, they agreed to use the Perdido River (the modern border between Florida and Alabama) as the boundary between French Louisiana and Spanish Florida.[1]: 122
Before 1762, France had owned and administered the land west of the Perdido River as part of La Louisiane. The secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, concluded in 1762 but not made public until 1764, had effectively ceded to Spain all of French Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, as well as the Isle of Orleans. [citation needed]
However, under the treaty that had concluded the French and Indian War (Seven Years' War) in 1763, Britain obtained immediate title to all of French La Louisiane east of the Mississippi River. This included the land between the Perdido and Mississippi. Spain also ceded to Great Britain its territory of La Florida, in exchange for Cuba, which the British had captured during the war. As a result, for the next two decades, the British controlled nearly all of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico east of the Mississippi River.[1]: 134 Most of the Spanish population left Florida at that time, and its colonial government records were relocated to Havana, Cuba.[citation needed]
Spain, meanwhile, failed to make good by occupancy its title to Louisiana until 1769, when it took formal possession. For six years, therefore, Louisiana as France possessed it, and as Spain received it,[2] included none of the territory between the Mississippi and Perdido rivers, as the title to that territory had passed immediately from France to Britain in 1763.[3]: 48
Finding this new territory too large to govern as one unit, the British divided it into two new colonies, West Florida and East Florida, separated by the Apalachicola River, as set forth in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. East Florida consisted of most of the formerly Spanish Florida, and retained the old Spanish capital of St. Augustine. West Florida comprised the land between the Mississippi and Apalachicola Rivers, including land from what had been Spanish Florida and French Louisiana, with Pensacola designated as its capital. The northern boundary was arbitrarily set at the 31st parallel north.[1]: 134
Many English Americans and Scotch-Irish Americans moved to the territory at this time. The Governor of West Florida in November 1763 was George Johnstone; his lieutenant governor, Montfort Browne, was a major landowner in the province who heavily promoted its development. Seven General Assemblies were convoked between 1766 and 1778.[6][7]
In 1767, the British moved the northern boundary to the 32° 28′ north latitude,[3]: 2 extending from the Yazoo to the Chattahoochee River, which included the Natchez District and the Tombigbee District.[8] The appended area included approximately the lower halves of the present states of Mississippi and Alabama. Many new settlers arrived in the wake of the British garrison, swelling the population. In 1774 the First Continental Congress sent letters inviting West Florida to send delegates, but this proposal was declined as the inhabitants were overwhelmingly Loyalist. During the American Revolutionary War, the Governor of West Florida was Peter Chester. The commander of British forces during the war was John Campbell. The colony was attacked in 1778 by the Willing Expedition.[citation needed]
Spain entered the American Revolutionary War on the side of France, but not the Thirteen Colonies.[9] Bernardo de Gálvez, governor of Spanish Louisiana, led a military campaign along the Gulf Coast, capturing Baton Rouge and Natchez from the British in 1779, Mobile in 1780, and Pensacola in 1781.[citation needed]
In the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the war, the British agreed to a boundary between the United States and West Florida at 31° north latitude between the Mississippi and Apalachicola Rivers. However, a separate Anglo-Spanish agreement, which ceded both Florida provinces back to Spain, did not specify a northern boundary for Florida. Spain insisted that its West Florida claim extended fully to the 1767 boundary at 32° 28′, but the United States asserted that the land between 31° and 32° 28′ had always been British territory.[3]: 2 This sparked the first West Florida Controversy.[4] Negotiations in 1785–1786 between John Jay and Don Diego de Gardoqui failed to reach a satisfactory conclusion. The border was finally resolved in 1795 by the Treaty of San Lorenzo, in which Spain recognized the 31° parallel as the boundary.[citation needed]
Spain continued to maintain East and West Florida as separate colonies. When Spain acquired West Florida in 1783, the eastern British boundary was the Apalachicola River, but Spain moved it eastward to the Suwannee River in 1785.[10][11] The purpose was to transfer the military post at San Marcos (now St. Mark's) and the district of Apalachee from East Florida to West Florida.[5][12]
In the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso of 1800, Spain agreed to return Louisiana to France; however, the location of the boundary between Louisiana and West Florida was not explicitly specified. After France