Florida History - Statehood
From 1521 when Spanish adventurer Juan Ponce de León landed in St. Agustine to the War of Independence in the late 18th century, Florida was predominantly a Spanish territory until the English briefly took the control of the region in 1763.
Once the Spanish left Florida, the British government split the peninsula in two parts, East Florida with the capital town of St. Augustine, and West Florida, with the small military town of Pensacola as the seat.
Although, English settlers tried to establish relations and trading with the remaining native tribes of Creek Indian descent, they moved voluntarily to the north of Florida, adopting the name of Seminoles.
The English then tried to attract white settlers offering them land and facilities to people who relocated to the peninsula, but during the American Revolutionary War between 1775–1783, Spain, and France joined forces to defeat the British troops and regain control of Florida.
After the war, The British left the United States, and former Spanish colonists returned to this region along with new American settlers now attracted by the Spaniards favorable land grants to acquire property. Even though, along with them a large number of escaped slaves populated the two Florida’s, place in which there was no authority able to reach them.
Following the Treaty and several surveys, a new internal conflict arose with the Seminole Indians in 1818. Finally, General Andrew Jackson established a new territorial government in 1821 on behalf of the United States.
Once that occurred, Florida was granted with a territorial status, the newly formed government kept sparsely dotted Spaniards, native Indians, African American settlements, and merging the two Florida’s into one.
Federal government established in Tallahassee as the new capital city due to its strategic location halfway between St. Augustine and Pensacola. Florida’s population increased with new settlers from plantations in Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas, who pressured to get the Indian tribes removed from the peninsula.
The problem derived in a series of three wars with the Seminole that ended up when they were finally moved to land that is today Oklahoma, allowing the peninsula to receive its statehood.
On March 3, 1845 Florida became the 27th state of the United States and William D. Moseley was elected the first governor, incidentally the same year in which Andrew Jackson, former military governor of Florida, died.
While in 1840, Florida's population was about 54,477 people with almost one-half of the population made up of African American slaves, in 1850 the state of Florida had 87,445 inhabitants from which nearly 39,000 were African American and around one thousand of free Blacks.
With slavery becoming a dominating issue in public affairs, in 1861 President Abraham Lincoln issued an ordinance allowing Florida to secede from the Union. After this, the peninsula joined with the Confederate States of America along with another ten southern states, during the Civil War.
After federal troops occupied Tallahassee on May 10, 1865, Florida retook their way back as one of the flourishing United States of America.