I Can...
... explain how the U.S. acquired Florida.
... explain that the acquisition of Florida helped secure the United States from foreign invasion.
An excerpt from:
Brands, H. W. Andrew Jackson: His Life and times. New York: Anchor, 2006.
The War over and Jackson was the Nation’s hero, but the struggle continued. For Jackson the struggle always continued. Since his father died – which was to say, since before he was born – Jackson’s life had been a struggle. He knew nothing else, and never would. In private life he found, or made, enemies; in public life as well. As he matured in office, from Judge to militia general to major general of the army, his enemies increasingly became enemies of his country. The British were an abiding foe, from the Revolution to the recent war and beyond. His Anglophobia grew reflexive. On learning a few months after New Orleans that Napoleon had broken his exile and again challenged the British in Europe, Jackson applauded the Corsican. “The wonderful revolution in France fills everybody in the nation with astonishment, and the tricolored cockade being found in the bottom of each soldier's knapsack tells to all Europe that Napoleon reigns in the affections of the soldiers.” Bad news for Britain was good news for America. “What will be the sudden effect of this sudden revolution on the relations with America? Will it not give us an advantageous commercial treaty with Great Britain?”
When the wonderful revolution ran out at Waterloo and Napoleon was cast into final exile on St. Helena, Jackson had to look elsewhere to discomfort England. Spain was a likely target. Despotic, Catholic, proximate (in Florida), and in obvious trouble (from continuing revolts around the Americas), the Spanish provided an outlet for the aggressiveness that never let Jackson rest. Not that he lacked cause to complain about them. As before his departure from Mobile to New Orleans, the Spanish failed to keep Florida clear of enemies of America’s peace. British warships and British troops no longer prowled the harbors and shore of the region, although British traders and agents did. But Various Indians who refused to reconcile to American authority in the South made Florida their base for actions to the peace of mind and hearth of Americans in the Mississippi Territory.
The Seminoles were the worst offenders in this regard. In the early nineteenth century the Seminoles were not a tribe in the traditional sense but rather a recent agglomeration of refugees from the American South, including a substantial portion of Africans and their decedents, some held as slaves by Indians, some held by other Africans, and some runaways from plantations in Georgia and Mississippi. In both a technical and practical sense they were outlaws, living by geography outside the law of the United States and by Spain’s weakness outside the law of Spanish Florida. For this reason a man like Jackson, charged with defending the southern borders of the United States, could easily conceive them a threat. Their mere existence provided a magne for further runaways from the plantations and farms of whites and friendly Indians. Their camps and villages afforded a haven for those Creeks and other Indians who still resisted American Control of Mississippi. Worst of all, in Jackson’s view, they tempted the British to continue meddling in American affairs. Behind the Seminoles, behind the Spanish, Jackson saw the specter of Britain in Florida. So long as Florida remained beyond American control, it was a potential base for British adventurism. The law of life – his law of constant struggle- kept it from being otherwise.
Had the Seminoles been model neighbors, Jackson would have distrusted them; that they weren’t models made his animus easier to justify. And it won him allies in the government at Washington. But long before Jackson would despise William Crawford, but for now, on the subject of Florida and the Seminoles, the Tennessee general and the Georgia politician found themselves in agreement. During the war some escaped slaves and unfriendly Indians had constructed a makeshift fort on the Apalachicola River in Florida, where they defined the authority of both Spain and the United States. By the spring of 1816 they numbered perhaps three hundred and were, in Crawdfords description to Jackson, “well armed, clothed, and disciplined.” More fugitives arrived regularly. “This is a state of things which cannot fail to produce much injury to the neighboring settlements and excite irritations which may ultimately endanger the peace of the nation.” Crawford directed Jackson to warn the Spanish governor or commandant at Pensacola to clean out the “negro fort” or let the United States do so itself.
Jackson was happy to oblige. Before approaching the Spanish authorities in Florida, he directed General Edmund Gaines, to who he had delivered command of the garrison at New Orleans upon leaving that city, to prepare for the Florida campaign. By now the killing of two Americans near Fort Claiborne in southern Mississippi provided an additional complaint against denizens of the Negro Fort. “The growing hostile dispositions of the Indians must be checked by prompt and energetic movements,” Jackson told Gaines. “Half peace, half war is the stage of things which must not exist. The murderers of Johnston and McGlaskey must be had and punished. No retreat must provide an asylum for them.” Referring specifically to the Negro fort and its occupants, Jackson said, “ If the conduct of these people is such to encourage the Indian war, the fort harbors the Negroes of our citizens or friendly Indians living within out territory, or hold out inducements to the slaves of our citizens to desert from their owners’ service, this fort must be destroyed.” Jackson realized that the destruction of the fort would violate Spanish Territory. But he had violated Spanish territory before; he was prepared to do it again. “This fort has been established by some villains for the purpose of murder and plunder … It ought to be blown up regardless of the ground it stands on.
Jackson proceeded to pressure the Spanish Governor of Pensacola in much the same way he pressured the governor’s predecessor in 1814. The conduct of the bandits is such as will not be tolerated by our government, and if not put down by Spanish authority will compel us in self defense to destroy them.”
The Spanish had no desire to tangle with Jackson, or any particular reason to. The Negro Fort was utterly beyond the control of the undermanned garrison, and he decried the activities of its inhabitants, who also prey on the Spanish settlements of Florida, hardly less than Jackson did. The governor was far from resisting Jackson’s demand to see the fort reduced as to offer the American General support in this matter.
What do we learn about Andrew Jackson’s life and personality in Paragraph 1?
What does anglophobia mean?
Who "owned" Florida right after the War of 1812? How did Andrew Jackson see this as a threat to national security? Explain.
When I first read this, this was something I learned ... Who were the Seminole? What different group of people made up the Seminole? What did they do to make Jackson distrust them?
Jackson did not have permission from President Monroe to enter the territory and fight, but it ended with the U.S gaining the Florida territory. If you were President Monroe would you have disciplined him? Why or why not?
Find the name of the Treaty that was negotiated that gave the U.S Florida and explain what both sides received.
How did the acquisition of Florida help repel foreign invasion?