Florida: Difference between revisions

Starting in the 1690's the Dutch started building forts on the mouth of the Mississippi river, and Dutch settlers and their native allies started encroaching on Spanish land claims. Between 1700 and 1730 the Dutch and the Spanish competed over land in the gulf coast and western Florida, with the two empires mostly using Indian allies as intermediaries. This period is usually referred to as [[the Gulf Wars]]. This led to a period of increased effort to settle the colony by the Spanish empire. Starting in 1708 the Spanish started to offer large grants to potential settlers and importing indentured servants and minor criminals from northern Spain (Galicia, Basque county, Asturias and Leon) as well as Cuba. These settlers mostly ending up in northeastern Florida surrounding San Agustín. EventuallyBetween 1726-1735, the Spanish moved over 2000 Canary Islanders (locally known as Isleños) to settle the gulf coast of the Florida colony. In the later half of the 18th century, the Spanish imported Filipino fisherman and army deserters to the western border with [[Tussenland]]. During American theater of the Silesian war, the Spanish and Dutch empires came to an agreement over the borders of the gulf colonies.

=== PirateAge Warsof Piracy ===

In the Caribbean, piracy had been a major issue since the late 16th century but from 1660 to 1750 the quantity and success of pirates in the Caribbean dramatically increased (this period is also known as the Golden Age of Piracy). This increase in piracy can be attributed to many factors including growing populations of in Western Europe, lack of major wars leading to less jobs for sailors, profitability of smuggling operations and a proliferation of "unpoliced" areas in the Caribbean and along the gulf of Mexico that served as pirate ports.

The turn of the century marked a lot of big changes in Floridian society with it's population and levels of economic development reaching catching up with many other European colonies and it's existence not being under constant threat of annexing by other power. Between 1800 and 1840 in parts of the north around San Agustin there was a rise in the number of sugar and cotton plantations much to the delight of the Spanish imperial authorities (whom previous thought Florida was more a money sink than anything and at one point before the [[Carolina#The Argentine Purchase|Argentine Purchase]] considered offering to sell Florida the British). In fact it was so well received that in 1819 the Spanish Empire changed the status of Florida to that of a captaincy general under direct control of the crown. In the early 19th century1810, the Spanish undertook the last of the Muscogee or Creek wars to pacify the natives in the interior of the colony which led to the 1813 Treaty of San Agustin in which the Spanish gave the Muscogee & Creek rights to part of their historic land in the interior of the colony in exchange for becoming citizens and adopting Catholicism. By 1819, the colony was so well-received that the Spanish Empire changed the status of Florida to that of a captaincy general under direct control of the crown. During the Latin American Spring of Nations Florida managed to avoid any major uprising due to it's more rural population and lack of liberal agitation. In 1842 on the heels of the Puerto Rican & Mexican revolts as well as the Colombian war for independence the Spanish abolished the institution of slavery.

In 1850 after years of tension between the Spanish and Dutch, the two empires went to war. This was ended in a humiliating defeat for the Dutch as they lost land on the western Dutch-Spanish frontier to New Spain as well as loosing their gulf coast holdings to the newly independent [[South Tussenland]] Republic and parts to Spanish Florida. As the Spanish had already abolished slavery after the Latin American [[History of Europe#Spring of Nations (1830s)|Spring of Nations]], many now-freed Afro-Dutch in the now western Florida rejoiced and most of the ethnically Dutch population of the territory fled north to [[Tussenland]]. Immediately after the war the governor of Spanish Florida declared that all lands in the conquered territory to be crown lands and between 1852 and 1865 these lands were doled out to the colonial elites and those with political connections. This angered many of the former slaves in the area who were expecting that the Spanish crown to distribute the land in parcels to them. Between 18501855 and 1900 a form of sharecropping developed in western Florida whereas eastern elites would allow poor farmers to farm the land in exchange to upwards of 50% of their harvest. This system had many negative effects such as keeping many poor farmers trapped in perpetual debt and poverty.