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THE AMERICANS AT BARRANCAS
American military crosses into Spain's Florida, 1818.
It had been five years of uneasy peace since the young America of 1818 won its final war with England. The nation, under the leadership of President James Monroe, turned toward the uncharted West and speculations regarding the Spanish territory to the South, known as Florida. With its dominance of the continent's Southern gulf coast and the vast peninsula jutting towards the trade routes of the Caribbean and beyond, its potential did not go unnoticed by a government with a determined will for the concept of Manifest Destiny.
To complicate matters, this frontier wilderness of Florida, sparsely populated by a handful of hardscrabble towns and out-post forts, provided a lawless sanctuary for hostile Indian bands allied with former slaves from the plantations of Southern America, impervious to US authority. In the hands of a weakening Colonial rule, the place was fertile ground for all manner of intrigues and foreign mischief as well. The factious violence spread. Brutal raids by these tribes, Seminoles in particular, into settlements of Alabama and Georgia, became murderous. On their farms and river ways, all white Americans were in peril. It became clear to Americans that the nation would somehow have to bring Florida under some manner of submission and fruitless appeals with Spanish authorities made a military solution likely.
Fortunately for Monroe, he had only to turn to a warrior that was the very match to the great Napoleon himself; the most famous American of this age; hero of the triumph at New Orleans and the 1812 war; General Andrew Jackson. The victorious Commander accepted the task while on an extended respite at his Tennessee home and began raising a force. The purpose for this expedition was to pursue and destroy the Seminole tribes that waging war in the American Southeast; however, knowing that the objections of Spain over this "international incident" would be easily weathered by the sheer dynamics of America's diplomatic powers, an undertone of the order was evident in the statement "... You may find there are other objectives for you to accomplish." Jackson understood clearly the interpretation of this vague language. As commander of the Southern 7th Military District, he gathered the US Army's 4th Regiment of Infantry and guns from the US 1st Corps of Artillery and his faithful Tennessee Militia Volunteers. Young junior officers selected for this campaign considered it a stroke of good fortune to serve at the side of this great warrior. Many in this command served with Jackson during the War of 1812 and were veterans of the Battle of New Orleans.
The Army moved West and South stopping on the banks of the Apalachicola River at the ruins of "Negro Fort" that had been destroyed by US Navy gunboats two years earlier. Jackson assigned his Engineer Officer, Lt. James Gadsden and a work party to remain there to reconstruct the fort. The army moved again, pursuing and putting to death all Seminoles who resisted or stood to fight while seeking Chief Billy Bowlegs, believed to have a stronghold in the region of the Suwannee River.
In May of 1818, the combined military expedition crossed the Georgia border and began their campaign into Spain's Florida. The army came upon the Fort at St. Marks, where Jackson "suggested" that the Spanish garrison relinquish the fort to the Americans during their campaign. From this position, Jackson's soldiers led forays into the wilderness. Two British citizens; Robert Ambrister, an adventurer, along with Scottish trader Alexander Arbuthnot, were encountered and captured. The General quickly concluded they were spies aiding the Indians and after a brief court-martial, had the two executed, an international outrage that Britain would severely protest when the facts were later disclosed.
With most of the Seminole villages burned and warriors eliminated, Jackson turned back to the North with an additional, less heralded agenda to lead his armies west towards the Spanish stronghold and port town of Pensacola, on the Gulf of Mexico. This was the unspoken objective - the back channel orders that Washington had inferred to Jackson regarding "other objectives" while in Florida. Permitting British troops to operate against America in the recent War of 1812, and the support, harboring and providing for warring Indians seemed justification for the siege and occupation of the town. On May 27, the Americans were positioned to the north of the town where an exchange of cannon fire commenced. A cease fire was declared briefly as Jackson and his staff met with Spanish Governor, Col. Jose Masot and city officials protested with outrage the invasion and Jackson's demanded surrender of the town immediately. No compromise was attained, so Jackson declared that the siege would continue at dawn, During the night, Masot and his governmental staff made their way to Ft. San Carlos de Barrancas where they would oversee the defense of the town. Jackson moved his men around a bayou to the west of the fort and waited for first light. With the coming of dawn, another brief exchange of guns began during which Masot clearly realized the power arranged before him and the futility of his own position. He conceded the town to Jackson. No further hostilities were committed. General Andrew Jackson, seeing his mission concluded, returned again to his home in Tennessee.
The power of the American military and her determination of continental expansion convinced the King of Spain to sell off the troublesome colony of Florida to the Americans who were obviously prepared to shed blood. Andrew Jackson would return to the new American territory of Florida as the first governor. In 1829, Andrew Jackson became the seventh President of the United States and his administration would again go to war with the Seminoles beginning in 1835 and lasting throughout his term and beyond until 1842 and a third time a decade later.
With this tortuous beginning, Florida eventually found its way to becoming the 27th State in 1845 ...a long journey from the humid and hostile Spanish outpost from which it began. |