The West Florida Controversy included two border disputes that involved Spain and the United States in relation to the region known as West Florida over a period of 37 years. The first dispute commenced immediately after Spain received the colonies of West and East Florida from the Kingdom of Great Britain following the American Revolutionary War. Initial disagreements were settled with Pinckney's Treaty of 1795.
The second dispute arose following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The controversy peaked with the secession of part of West Florida, known as the "Republic of West Florida", from Spanish control in 1810, and its subsequent forcible taking and annexation by the United States. In 1819 the United States and Spain negotiated the Adams–Onís Treaty, in which the United States purchased the remainder of Florida from Spain. The treaty was ratified in 1821.
First border dispute
Britain formed the territory of West Florida out of territory it received from Spain and France in the 1763 Treaty of Paris, which ended the French and Indian War (the Seven Years' War). In this treaty it received all of Spanish Florida from Spain, and nearly all of French Louisiana east of the Mississippi River from France. Finding the new territory too big to govern from one capital, the British divided it into two new colonies: West Florida, with its capital at Pensacola, and East Florida, with its capital at St. Augustine.
Twenty years later, Britain ceded both Floridas to Spain following the American Revolutionary War. They did not, however, specify the boundaries of West Florida, which had changed over the course of British stewardship. In the British period West Florida's northern border was initially set at the 31st parallel north but was moved to 32° 28′ in 1767 in order to give the West Floridians more territory, including the Natchez District and the Tombigbee District. Spain insisted that its West Florida claim extended fully to 32° 28′, but the United States asserted that the land between 31° and 32° 28′ had always been British territory, and therefore rightfully belonged to the United States. After years of disagreement, the dispute was finally resolved with Pinckney's Treaty in 1795, in which both parties agreed on the 31st parallel as the boundary between the United States and West Florida.
Second border dispute Before 1762 France had owned and administered the land west of the Perdido River as part of La Louisiane. In 1762 France signed a secret treaty with Spain that, upon being revealed in 1764, had effectively ceded all French lands west of the Mississippi River, plus the island of New Orleans, to Spain.
At the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, France ceded its remaining lands east of the Mississippi River, which included the land between the Perdido and Mississippi Rivers, to Great Britain, while Spain also ceded its Florida territory to Britain. The British created the colony of West Florida out of the French and Spanish cessions. In 1783 Great Britain returned East Florida and transferred West Florida to Spain, who ruled both provinces as separate and apart from Louisiana. In 1800, under duress from Napoleon of France, Spain agreed to restore Louisiana and the island of New Orleans to France, who in conversation had promised to return them to Spain should France ever relinquish them. On 15 October 1802, Charles IV issued a royal bill that made effective the transfer of Louisiana to France ("with the same extent that it currently has, that it had under the power of France when she ceded it to my royal crown") and the withdrawal of Spanish troops in the territory. On 15 October 1802, Charles IV published a royal bill in Barcelona that made effective the transfer of Louisiana, providing the withdrawal of the Spanish troops in the territory, on condition that the presence of the clergy be maintained and the inhabitants keep their properties. When France then sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803, a dispute arose between Spain and the United States regarding whether West Florida was part of the Louisiana Purchase. The United States laid claim to the region of West Florida between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers, asserting it had been part of French Louisiana. Spain held that such a claim was baseless.
In 1810, a group of discontented American and British settlers in the area of Baton Rouge learned that the Spanish colonial governor, who had feigned sympathy, was in fact mounting a force against them. They revolted by overrunning a Spanish garrison at Fort San Carlos in Baton Rouge on September 23, 1810, and declared the independence of the Republic of West Florida on September 26. On October 27, the United States president proclaimed that the territory should be annexed, and Spain, then embroiled in the Peninsular War with France, could do little to resist. On December 10, the United States military completed the forcible occupation and acquiescence of the Republic of West Florida.
In 1819 the United States and Spain negotiated the Adams–Onís Treaty, in which Spain transferred West Florida and all of East Florida to the United States in exchange for expunging American spoliation claims.
Controversy in detail
By terms of the treaty following the Seven Years' War "in 1763, what was then known as Louisiana was divided between Great Britain and Spain. France lost by this treaty all her possessions in North America. In addition to Canada, she ceded to Great Britain the river and port of Mobile and all her possessions on the left side of the Mississippi, except New Orleans and the island on which it was situated. The residue of Louisiana was ceded to Spain in a separate and secret treaty. The cession of Florida to Great Britain was the price paid for the restoration of Cuba to Spain. Great Britain divided the territory into East and West Florida." pp. 288–291
"Valid title by possession of her part of the ceded territory was acquired by Great Britain at once (1763). Spain failed to make good by occupancy her title until 1769, when [Alejandro] O'Reilly took formal possession. For six years, therefore, the Louisiana as France possessed it, and as Spain received it,The quoted phrase, "Louisiana as France possessed it, and as Spain received it," paraphrases a key term in Article III of the Treaty of St. Ildefonso of 1800: "Louisiana, with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain and that it had when France possessed it". included no territory between the Mississippi and Perdido rivers. In 1779-81 Spain acquired West Florida, as well as East Florida by right of conquest, confirmed by the treaty of 1783. By no logical process of reasoning can it be shown that Spain's independent title to West Florida thus acquired should be included in Spain's previously acquired title to Louisiana and the island of New Orleans," according to Chambers. p. 48
Treaty of St. Ildefonso
"By the treaty of October 1, 1800, between the French Republic and Spain, known as the St. Ildefonso treaty, Spain made a retrocession to France of the province of Louisiana as at that time possessed by Spain, and such as it was when France possessed it. … It is important, in view of subsequent discussions and negotiations, to bear in mind that in the transfer [of Louisiana to the United States] the identical language was employed that had been used in 1800, so that the government of the United States was subrogated, in express terms, to the rights of France and of Spain. … The United States insisted that by the treaty of 1800 Spain ceded the disputed territory [of West Florida], as part of Louisiana, to France, and that France, in turn, in 1803, ceded it to the United States. Spain, with equal earnestness and persistence, maintained that her cession to France comprehended what was at that time denominated Louisiana, consisting of the island of New Orleans and the country west of the Mississippi. … The very forcible contention of the United States was enfeebled somewhat by the declaration of Talleyrand, that by the treaty of St. Ildefonso Spain retroceded no part of the territory east of the Iberville, which had been held and known as West Florida, and that, in all the negotiations between the two governments, Spain had constantly refused to cede any part of the Floridas, even from the Mississippi to the Mobile." pp. 288–291
"Spain upheld her claim to the Floridas and consistently insisted from beginning to end of the territorial controversy with the United States that no just interpretation of the St. Ildefonso treaty and of its resultant Louisiana Purchase treaty would include any part of West Florida in the Louisiana retroceded to France and sold by the nation to the United States." p 49 The governor of West Florida, Vizente Folch and his superior, the governor of Cuba, [Marqués de] Someruelos, both informed the governor of Louisiana,France did not take formal delivery of Louisiana and New Orleans from Spain until November, 1803, just weeks before France formally delivered New Orleans to the United States. Therefore, Spain continued to govern Louisiana until the time of formal delivery. Juan Manuel de Salcedo, that Spain retroceded to France exactly the territory that it had received forty years before. Therefore Louisiana did not include West Florida, which Spain had acquired from Great Britain.Letters, Salcedo to Someruelos, Oct. 22, 1802; Folch to Salcedo, Nov. 22, 1802; Someruelos to Salcedo, Nov. 10, 1802, Feb. 28, 1803, Mar. 12, 1803; Spanish Transcripts, Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Miss. (Cf. Robertson, 4874, 4877, 4882, 4895, 4896) p. 87–88
The clause in Article III of the St. Ildefonso treaty, "the 'extent that it now has in the hands of Spain' did not mean to include West Florida, for the latter was separate from Louisiana in the Spanish mind; and in governmental ordinances and treaties the Floridas are always specified as distinct from Louisiana, Cuba and other Spanish possessions. 'And that it had when France possessed it.' When France possessed it between 1763 and 1769, ... it did not include West Florida. 'And such as it should be after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and the other States.' Spain entered into no treaty with other States relative to Louisiana until she ceded it back to France in 1800. … The Louisiana ceded to Spain by France, and retroceded by Spain to France, did not extend to the Perdido river. The only territory east of the Mississippi river included in the Louisiana transferred and retransferred, was … the Island of Orleans." pp. 49–50
"No better argument can be made to support this statement than the unanswerable letter by Talleyrand" of November 8, 1804, in reply to Monroe: pp. 50–52