British West Florida

East and West Florida, 1763 In the Seven Years' War (1754, 1756-1763), British forces soundly defeated those of the Spanish and the French. One result was a new British province, West Florida, fashioned in 1763 from what had been enemy possessions in what are now Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle. Territorially, British West Florida included more than half of the present state of Alabama. Its first northern boundary was just below modern Montgomery, but as a result of lobbying by West Florida's first governor, George Johnstone, the boundary was expanded in 1764 to below present-day Birmingham. The only towns of significant size in West Florida were its two ports on the Gulf of Mexico: Pensacola, British West Florida's capital, and Mobile, which had been the most significant French post on the Gulf. Apart from a scattering of traders, the population surrounding the British settlements was primarily Native American, particularly Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws.

The onset of the American Revolution in 1775 hobbled the growth of population and the expansion of trade that usually followed. American privateers further hampered the flow of goods and immigrants to British territories. One even dared to enter Mobile's harbor and seize a loaded merchant vessel. The one population group that did increase during the Revolution was the Tories. Looking for a refuge from persecution, Tories found the province an especially attractive haven because the British crown offered free land in West Florida as a reward to anyone who met any of three criteria: proven Loyalism, service in the Seven Years' War, or head of household. Despite this influx, even at its height in 1779, it is unlikely that the number of White inhabitants of West Florida exceeded 6,000.

George Johnstone Throughout the colony's existence the military comprised a major component of the population. In 1763 the 22nd Infantry Regiment occupied Mobile's Fort Condé, established by the French in 1702, and renamed it Fort Charlotte to honor Britain's queen. At the time, Mobile was home to 40 French families of perhaps 200 individuals. British military leaders thought that a military presence might preserve order if the port's French inhabitants grew restless under British rule. In fact the residents accepted British authority without resistance, but also without noticeable enthusiasm.

Relations with Indigenous Peoples

The many entrepreneurs who flocked to West Florida to make fortunes through trade with the Spanish empire found frustration, but they also found willing trade partners in the regions Native American groups. Although large vessels could not enter Mobile harbor with ease, a 130-ton vessel arrived annually to ship skins and furs to Britain, and the many rivers flowing into Mobile Bay provided easy access to the interior. The Creeks and Choctaws were at war for a decade prior to the American Revolution, so no doubt their supply of hides for trading was low when the British established West Florida. Even so, merchant houses in Mobile, and the partnership of James McGillivray, John Miller, William Struthers, and Peter Swanson in particular, exported tens of thousands of skins each year.

The deerskin trade formed the basis for a mutually beneficial relationship between colonial authorities and indigenous groups, guiding interactions in West Florida. This economic exchange provided access to a variety of items that were in high demand among Indian and European societies. European manufactured goods such as cloth, hats, shirts, blankets, beads, mirrors, knives, guns, axes, gunpowder, and iron kettles had already transformed life in indigenous communities in the region by the time the British arrived. The British provided high-quality goods in greater abundance than area Indians had previously enjoyed. For the British, the deerskin trade represented a lucrative source of a prized raw material then in demand in Europe, where the skins were transformed into gloves, hats, pants, and book bindings, among other uses.

British authorities struggled to regulate this trade, however. Overseen by the Office of Indian Affairs, traders were ostensibly governed by a series of laws and practices agreed to in conferences with tribal leaders, where bonds of friendship were solidified in elaborate ceremonies. But traders operating out of the immediate reach of colonial authorities sometimes took advantage of Indian peoples in their dealings through a variety of means. The supply of alcohol in generous quantities at negotiations was especially disruptive. Realizing that rogue traders could potentially pose a threat to the economic health and safety of the colony, their operations were a special concern of West Florida’s government.

Slavery in British West Florida

Land was either cheap or free in West Florida, so many immigrants were able to acquire large holdings and establish plantations worked by enslaved people. Plantations produced indigo, tobacco, and rice, but the most profitable export was timber products. Around Mobile, and along adjacent rivers, including the Tensaw, Dog, Fowl, and Fish, the light soil made cattle raising and the production of tar, turpentine, and potash (a mineral used as fertilizer) the most common pursuits.

Enslaved laborers of African descent made many of these endeavors possible. By the mid-1770s, an estimated 1,500 enslaved people resided in the colony, with most laboring on West Florida plantations of varying size. These people were either brought to the region by their owners or were purchased from traders working in the colony or in neighboring Spanish Louisiana. Their lives entailed constant toil in difficult conditions, from the brutal heat of summer to the damp cold of winter. Frequently subsisting on monotonous food and exposed to harsh environmental conditions, the enslaved people of the colonial era were hit particularly hard by contagious diseases and other maladies for which the primitive medical knowledge of the day had few remedies.

Under constant fear of the dire consequences of uprisings by the enslaved, West Florida lawmakers sought to control the volatile institution through legislation meant to both monitor enslaved people and prevent harsh treatment by enslavers that might spark rebellion. The general assembly passed an elaborate series of laws prescribing how the enslaved were to be governed and setting out expectations for how owners were to treat their human property. Laws restricted gatherings, travel, and other activities by enslaved people, and owners were expected to furnish them with necessities and refrain from severe punishments and abuses. Although there is no evidence of any attempt at an organized slave rebellion in West Florida, a number of enslaved people expressed their dissatisfaction with their condition by attempting to flee bondage and find new homes in nearby Native American villages or communities of mixed-race individuals in Louisiana or elsewhere, but with limited success.

Spain Wins Colony

Bernardo de Gálvez During the first three years of the American Revolution, West Florida remained uninvolved and unmolested, even though it spurned overtures from the Continental Congress, and its legislature and council proudly professed loyalty to King George III. The apparent immunity of the province disappeared in 1778 when James Willing of the U.S. Navy launched a raid through the province's back door, the Mississippi River. Meeting almost no resistance, his force of about 100 men destroyed many plantations in the colony's western districts. Although his success was short-lived, and Willing soon saw the inside of a British jail, his achievement alerted the British crown to West Florida's vulnerability. Two regiments of Loyalists from Pennsylvania and Maryland and a German regiment from Waldeck arrived in January 1779 to bolster the 16th Infantry Regiment, until then the sole regular unit available during the Revolution for the defense of the colony.

These reinforcements proved no match for the dashing and resourceful Bernardo de Gálvez, Spanish governor of Louisiana, who invaded West Florida as soon as he could after Spain declared war on Britain on June 21, 1779. Having conquered small British garrisons on the Mississippi, Gálvez and his commander José Manuel de Ezpeleta laid siege to Mobile's Fort Charlotte in March 1780. The commandant of the crumbling fort, Elias Durnford, had in his command a few regulars, a number of sailors, two dozen dragoons of the West Florida Royal Foresters, some volunteers, and armed slaves supplied by local citizens. All told he had 304 defenders to pit against almost 2,000 besiegers. After Spanish artillery smashed breaches in Fort Charlotte's walls, Durnford surrendered on the 13th day of the siege. Gálvez acknowledged the spirit of Durnford's defense by allowing him the full honors of war, that is, he allowed the defenders to march out with drums beating and colors flying before they surrendered their weapons to the victors.

For the next year the new governor of Mobile, José de Ezpeleta, attacked the Pensacola garrison and Britain's Native American allies from Mobile. Pensacola was West Florida's last stronghold. It surrendered to Gálvez in May 1781, thus ending British rule in West Florida .