Talk:West Florida

Untitled

On my map the Perdido River seems to be exactly the border between modern Florida and modern Alabama. Assuming this, it seems that the Free and Independent Republic of West Florida, as defined in the article, contained none of modern Florida (a small exception might be a piece of the barrier island Perdio Key?). I am not a historian.

Yes and no. As the boundaries are described in the article, you are correct that the Perdido river is the boundary between present day AL and FL. Unfortunately, the boundaries were somewhat fluid as the territory changed hands from the Spanish to the British and back to the Spanish again (and the French may have at least had nominal control for a time). I have seen some accounts of West Florida that included what is now Pensacola. This article is on my list of things I'd like to improve on when I get time to do more research. As a lifelong midwesterner, the history of this area is somewhat foreign to me, so I've been putting it off while I hack away at things that are more familiar to me. older ≠ wiser 00:34, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It was definitely under French control for a time. The towns of Mobile, Alabama and Biloxi, Mississippi, located in the region, were established by the French in the early 1700s. Funnyhat 07:14, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The West Florida Controversy

The West Florida Controversy page was created to link several elements of the historic United States together, and especially to tie that specific name (which is used in several places, including the title of a book) to the West Florida page. However, some information might be pulled from that page and (where not already present) placed here.

The secondary reason for creating that page was to fill out the Wikipedia Missing Encyclopedic Articles list.

If that page were turned into a redirect, it would not be a great crime. However, if that is done, then this page should be closely examined to make sure that no connections or information are lost. -Harmil 14:46, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Republic

I'm thinking of splitting off Republic of West Florida into a separate article (the link currently redirects back to this page). This will match with other self-declared nations that have separate articles (e.g., California Republic, Vermont Republic) I think there is enough information here for a separate article, and more can be added later. --JW1805 22:12, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree and will do this now. Argos'Dad 15:16, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Borders

I'm trying to make a map, and the borders of W. Florida have perplexed me. This is what I've come up with:

1. When Spain owned it, it was simply Florida.
2. When Britain gained it, they split it into West Florida and East Florida; West Florida's borders were the the Mississippi to the Apalachicola, the Gulf, and 32'28 North.
3. When the Spanish gained it, question: Did they keep the British division of West and East?
4. With the Treaty of San Lorenzo, West Florida's northern boundary shank to 31 North.
5. The Republic of West Florida, and the subsequent US annexation of West Florida, only mention a region west of the Perdido.

Likewise, the maps we have in the article both cite the Perdido and the Apalachicola. So, question: Is this simply a confusion in borders, or did the border between W and E Florida shift westward at some point? I'd really like to know this. Further confusing things - when Florida Territory was organized in 1822, the wikipedia article says that it combined East Florida and part of West Florida, meaning that West Florida still extended to the Apalachicola. (the Perdido is the modern western boundary of Florida).

Please help make sense of this. --Golbez 03:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

If you look at primary source maps, they seem to universally show the border as that Apalachicola River.

http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/us_states/florida/index.html Baldwin and Gibson maps have the borders. Mind, this was under the British government.

http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/southeast/1800-1850.html

Two good examples between Louisiana and Adams-Onis. here here

And so far as I know, the Spanish kept the distinctions. It's not in my historic atlas of Mexico, and I don't trust historic atlases of world history (actually I'm suspicious of my localized atlases too though, but the Mexico one seems to be pretty good in general), so I can't say for sure. The maps show it, but that could be a British-American thing rather than an administrative history.

Any rate, the border was certainly the Apalachicola in name at the time, and the borders in fact were so fluid, porous, poorly charted, and imprecise that that matters more than whatever the actual control was, in terms of the map.

I don't know why so many American history texts show the pre-Onis border at the Perido, maybe because that's what Florida territory's was, or maybe we didn't hold Pensacola and did hold Mobile. Or maybe it's just more Lies My Teacher Told Me.

--71.192.116.43 03:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC) (used to be Quintucket)

Constitution

According to this, WF had a constitution with seperation of powers, etc, but, does anyone still have a copy of this? If not, where are these facts coming from? 68.39.174.238 01:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Read the article. There is a copy in the LA state archives. The Bice book has a reproduction. --JW1805 (Talk) 23:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Images of the 26 handwritten pages can be viewed and read here: http://www.modern-constitutions.de/nbu.php?page_id=02a1b5a86ff139471c0b1c57f23ac196&show_doc=US-WF-1810-10-24-en&viewmode=thumbview Jeff in CA (talk) 13:33, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Days

The article says the republic existed exactly 90 days but the Baton Rouge and Bonnie Blue articles say it existed 74. Which is correct?

The 74 days appears to be counted from September 23 (the date of the capture of the Spanish fort at Baton Rouge) to December 6, the day that U.S. forces entered St. Francisville. Jeff in CA (talk) 13:29, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

DBWF

What ever happened to the article for the Dominion of British West Florida —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.134.123.62 (talk • contribs) 22:08, November 17, 200.

• It was deleted because it was not notable. --JW1805 (Talk) 23:08, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Spanish and British colonies

This article stops short at 1810 and focuses on the short-lived Republic of West Florida at Baton Rouge. There ought to be articles on the British and Spanish colonies, each called West Florida, that existed from 1763 to 1820 and figured in the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the history of the Seminoles.

In 1763 at the end of the Seven Years War, Spanish Florida went to Britain and French Louisiana to Spain. The British divided the province into East Florida (the peninsula) and West Florida (the panhandle and the Gulf coast extending to the Mississippi, with a vaguely defined northern border). At the same time Creek Indians moving south from the Georgia frontier to "the Floridas" became the autonomous Seminole Nation. William Bartram and Bernard Romans wrote about the two British colonies at this time, and James Macpherson (the inventor of Ossian) was secretary to the colonial governor at Pensacola for a while.

In 1783, after Spain allied with the United States, Bernardo de Gálvez took Pensacola and forced Britain to cede the Floridas back to Spain, but Spanish authorities allowed a British trading firm to hold a monopoly on the Indian trade. Spain also built a fort on the Tombigbee River in the northern reaches of the colony (now in Alabama), which ended up in American territory after the treaty of San Lorenzo. This was St. Stephens, the capital of Mississippi Territory, then of Alabama Territory, then of the state of Alabama.

The United States whittled away at West Florida from 1798 on. The 1810 uprising at Baton Rouge added the "Florida parishes" to the Louisiana Territory.

In 1812 the U.S. formally asserted a (specious) claim to all the land west of the Perdido River, recognizing only the present-day Florida panhandle as Spanish. Spain rejected this claim, but in 1813 U.S. forces seized Mobile and accused Spanish officials of inciting the Creek Indians. After the Creek War, Andrew Jackson in 1814 occupied Pensacola on his own initiative and hanged two British citizens. Spain kept possession of a much-reduced West Florida until 1820, when the U.S. purchased East and West Florida and merged them as the Florida Territory.

I'll source this stuff and write it up as time permits, and of course anyone else is welcome. I think we'll end up needing three articles — British West Florida, Spanish West Florida, and Republic of West Florida — with this article as either a redirect to the latter or a disambiguation page. (Looks like we'll also have to allow for the fanciful Dominion of British West Florida, "founded" in 2005 on the Internet.) -- ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 15:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

14th colony?

"14th British Colony" should not redirect to West Florida. Instead, it should be going to Nova Scotia, which is widely considered to be the "14th Colony" in discussions of the American Revolution due to its proximity to the 13 and its participation in protesting increased taxation in the 1760s and 1770s. --GregRog (talk) 18:25, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Colony

There is nothing wrong with describing West Florida (and East Florida) as a colony under British rule. It was a colony in the same way that the Thirteen Colonies were colonies. It is certainly no worse than "territory", and it is routinely called a "colony" in sources. Examples include Gannon's History of Florida, as well as these works I found online:[1][2][3]--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

"Commander of the West Florida Dragoons"

That phrase appears in 3 WP articles, but the nature and strength of this cavalry (presumably) unit are never defined.
Varlaam (talk) 07:54, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Nuance in the question of whether West Florida was included in the Louisiana Purchase?

I had inserted a quote from the 1898 work of Henry Chambers that stated, "Historians have too readily accepted the dicta of Madison and Livingston, Secretary of State and Minister to France, respectively, when the Louisiana purchase was made, that West Florida was included in the Louisiana purchase, when the weight of historical and contemporary testimony is directly opposed to any such conclusion." Prof._Mc reverted with the comment, "Removing quote from a very outdated source. In the intervening 110 years many historians have taken more nuanced positions." As the source is 118 years old, I have no quarrel with this comment. I'm sure others would join me in wanting to learn more about the more nuanced positions, which presumably have elements that counter what Chambers called "the historical and contemporary testimony." Would anyone care to add some discussion here? Thanks. Jeff in CA (talk) 06:12, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Almost any book on West Florida written in the last 20 years, either by Latin American historians, Caribbeanists, Atlantic World historians or by American historians accepts that there are at least two sides to the debate, and will contain qualifying language to the effect that while Madison and Livingston claimed that WF was included, and TJ accepted the claim out of convenience, neither France nor Spain accepted that claim and the original treaties were at best murky on the issue. In fact within a couple of decades of Chambers writing those words in 1898, Cox and Arthur were writing that Madison and Livingston were probably wrong. The references at the bottom of the main article list four historians who assume that "the weight of historical and contemporary testimony is directly opposed to any such conclusion." So it might be more accurate to have the section explain that while 19th century US historians accepted Madison and Livingston, as they were working from the papers left by Madison and Livingston, 20th century US historians did not, as they were working from a wider range of historical documents. It should also be noted that Latin American historians never accepted Madison and Livingston's claims. Prof. Mc (talk) 22:04, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Let me see if I have the import of what you are saying and please correct me if I do not.

1. While Chambers concluded that Madison and Livingston were definitely wrong, Cox and Arthur wrote that they were probably wrong, i.e., they were not as categorical as Chambers had been.

2. Chambers, Curry and Cox all inform me to the same effect that "while Madison and Livingston claimed that WF was included, and TJ accepted the claim out of convenience, neither France nor Spain accepted that claim." Thus, while I accept what you have stated about language written in the last 20 years, I do not see any daylight in that regard between that language and the language of these earlier historians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

3. You refer to four historians as assuming, perhaps stipulating, the quoted conclusion of Chambers. This signifies what?

4. Chambers in 1898 indeed concluded that "19th century US historians accepted Madison and Livingston" too readily, and he supported that conclusion by demonstrating his "working from a wider range of historical documents," thereby implicitly suggesting future historians living in the impending new century do the same.

Please help me understand further. It is not clear to me what those nuanced aspects of the 1800 to 1810 historical situation are which are in need of further explanation and development. Any further advice you have would be appreciated. Jeff in CA (talk) 20:37, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Jeff in CA. My issue is with this part of the Chambers quote: "Historians have too readily accepted the dicta of Madison and Livingston." Having that in the main article, on its own, suggests that it has currency. It does not. Chambers is an outdated source that no historian today would use, and to which few if any modern historians refer.

I am looking at a variety of books on West Florida, Louisiana, and what American historians call the southeast or southwest borderlands (depending). What they all write is some version of "The United States claimed that West Florida was included in the Purchase. Spain did not accept that claim." These include Usner, Indians, Settlers, & Slaves, Haynes The Mississippi Territory and the Southwest Frontier, McMichael in Brown, ed., Coastal Encounters and again in the book cited in the main article, Ingersoll's Mammon and Manon, Fabel in Smith and Hilton, eds., Nexus of Empire, Hyde Jr. in Pistols and Politics, Davis in Rogue Republic, Narrett in Adventurism and Empire, and Hoffman's Florida's Frontiers. Those are just the books I could locate on my shelves quickly, in which I could find the topic quickly, and only those published since 1990. None use Chambers as a source--because it is so outdated, because it was superseded by Cox with regard to West Florida, and because Cox and Arthur are themselves considered outdated. All of them acknowledge that the US government believed one thing, the Spanish believed another thing, and that each side, and the locals, used whichever position was most advantageous to their immediate needs.

Cox and Arthur are, similarly, outdated. So it is not accurate to say "Historians have too readily accepted the dicta of Madison and Livingston" unless it is qualified to read something like "Prior to the 1990s, some American historians accepted Madison and Livingston's claim . . . ." Even then, though, the statement is not relevant without a larger bibliographical context. Simply put, I suppose, modern historians aren't interested in whether Madison and Livingston were right, but what people at the time claimed, and how they used those claims to further their aims. So it seems to me that in the interest of accuracy the article ought to either have a historiographical discussion of the issue, or it ought to simply state something along the lines of my last sentence in the previous paragraph. Prof. Mc (talk) 14:19, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! Wonderful! I get what you are saying now. On rainy days, my skull sometimes seems to expand in thickness. Jeff in CA (talk) 19:21, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

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