Florida History-First Spanish to British Colonization

Learn about the first period of Spanish Colonization and the British Colonization period of Florida history.

The First Period of Spanish Colonization

The French adventurers caused quite some worry for Spain and accelerated her plans for colonization. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés hastened across the Atlantic, his sights set on removing the French and creating a Spanish settlement. Menéndez arrived in 1565 at a place he called San Augustín (St. Augustine) and this became the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States. His goal of expelling the French was accomplished by attacking and killing all settlers except for non-combatants and Frenchmen who professed belief in the Roman Catholic faith. Menéndez also captured Fort Caroline and renamed it San Mateo.

The French response occurred two years later, when Dominique de Gourgues recaptured San Mateo and made the Spanish soldiers stationed there pay with their lives. However, this did not halt the Spanish advance. Their plan of constructing forts and Roman Catholic missions continued. The Spanish missions established among native peoples soon extended across north Florida and as far north along the Atlantic coast as South Carolina.

The English, also eager to exploit the wealth of the Americas, increasingly came into conflict with Spain’s expanding empire. In 1586 the English captain Sir Francis Drake looted and burned the tiny village of St. Augustine. However, Spanish control of Florida was quickly regained.

In fact, as late as 1600, Spain’s power over what is now the southeastern United States was unquestioned. When English settlers came to America, they established their first colonies well to the North—at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 and Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. English colonists wanted to take advantage of the continent’s natural resources and relentlessly pushed the limits of Spanish power southward into southern Georgia. At the same time, French explorers were moving down the Mississippi River valley and eastward along the Gulf Coast.

The English colonists in the Carolina colonies were very hostile toward Spain. Led by Colonel James Moore, the Carolinians and their Creek Native American allies attacked Spanish Florida in 1702 and destroyed the town of St. Augustine. However, they could not capture the fort, named Castillo de San Marcos. Two years later, they destroyed the Spanish missions between Tallahassee and St. Augustine, killing many native people and enslaving many others. The French continued to harass Spanish Florida’s western border and captured Pensacola in 1719, twenty-one years after the town had been established.

Spain’s adversaries moved even closer when England founded Georgia in 1733, its southernmost continental colony. Georgians attacked Florida in 1740, assaulting the Castillo de San Marcos at St. Augustine for almost a month. While the attack was not successful, it did illustrate the growing weakness of Spanish Florida.

The British Colonization of Florida

Britain gained control of Florida in 1763 in exchange for Havana, Cuba, which the British had captured from Spain during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). Spain evacuated Florida after the exchange, leaving the province virtually empty, as most of the Native Americans had by now succumbed to the ravages of European disease and slavery. At that time, St. Augustine was still a garrison community with fewer than five hundred houses, and Pensacola also was a small military town.

The British had ambitious plans for Florida. First, it was split into two parts: East Florida, with its capital at St. Augustine; and West Florida, with its seat at Pensacola. British surveyors mapped much of the landscape and coastline and tried to develop relations with a new group of Native American people who were moving into the area from the North. The British called these people of Creek Indian descent Seminolies, or Seminoles. Britain attempted to attract white settlers by offering land on which to settle and help for those who produced products for export. This plan might have converted Florida into a flourishing colony, but British rule lasted only twenty years.

The two Floridas remained loyal to Great Britain throughout the War for American Independence (1776–83). However, Spain—participating indirectly in the war as an ally of France—captured Pensacola from the British in 1781. In 1784 it regained control of the rest of Florida as part of the peace treaty that ended the American Revolution.

Under President Andrew Jackson, the U.S. government spent $20 million and the lives of many U.S. soldiers, Native Americans, and U.S. citizens to force the removal of the Seminoles. In the end, the outcome was not as the federal government had planned. Some Native Americans migrated "voluntarily." Some were captured and sent west under military guard; and others escaped into the Everglades, where they made a life for themselves away from contact with whites.

Today, reservations occupied by Florida’s Native American people exist at Immokalee, Hollywood, Brighton (near the city of Okeechobee), and along the Big Cypress Swamp. In addition to the Seminole people, Florida also has a separate Miccosukee tribe.