Peter Chester

Peter Chester (1720-1799) served as the third and final governor of British West Florida, from 1770 to 1781. Much of his administration took place during a period of increasing tensions between England and its American colonies that eventually erupted into the American Revolutionary War. Chester struggled to maintain Great Britain’s territorial hold over the eastern portion of the lower Mississippi Valley. As a crucial pathway for commerce and agricultural development, the Mississippi River dictated the flow of British trade and settlement in the eighteenth century. Chester was fairly successful at promoting British interests with Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek Indians, including maintaining their allegiance to Britain during the war.

Chester was born on August 21, 1720, in Hertfordshire, England, to Robert Chester and Katherine Webb Chester, his father’s second wife. He had numerous siblings and step-siblings. One brother, Edward, was known for owning the Cokenach (sometimes spelled Cockenhatch) estate. Chester married Jane Cochrane, with whom he had two children. He would serve in the British military as a lieutenant colonel.

Chester succeeded the acting governor of British West Florida, Lt. Gov. Elias Durnford, on August 10, 1770. British West Florida was acquired from France following its defeat in the French and Indian War (the Seven Year’s War, 1756-63). The colony comprised parts of present-day Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. As an integral part of the British plan for administering new territories acquired from France after its defeat, West Florida served as a critical military and commercial hub.

Elias and Rebecca Walker Durnford

Under the direction of Durnford, British troops had organized Pensacola to resemble other British colonies in America, with a city plan and street grid. Pensacola’s favorable location near Spanish territory, and proximity to the harbor, made it the preferred seat of governance for British West Florida. In comparison to Mobile, the second largest town in West Florida, Pensacola handled five times more international trade. But Pensacola’s sandy and infertile soil made it unsuitable for agricultural development.

Chester’s administration aimed to strengthen Britain’s military outposts in Pensacola and Mobile by expanding West Florida’s boundaries to include locations more suitable for agriculture, such as the Natchez District in southwest present-day Mississippi. As Great Britain struggled with Spain over control of the Mississippi River, Chester hoped to divert the flow of commerce away from New Orleans to Pensacola and Mobile. The British government encouraged immigration to the region through land grants, and many large grants were awarded by Chester in the 1770s. Also during his administration, the Protestant Church was established in the region, alongside the Episcopal Church and Church of England. Chester and John Stuart, the superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Southern District of North America, would meet several times with leaders of the Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Upper Creeks over boundary lines and trade issues.

In response to the Declaration of Independence, Chester declared Pensacola a place of refuge for colonists who remained loyal to the Crown. Loyalists, primarily from Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia, soon began moving to Pensacola, and Chester’s administration granted land on a larger and more reckless scale, with settlers encroaching on tribal lands protected by treaty. At the same time, Stuart alerted Chester on August 17, 1778, to rumors of Americans gathering forces to move into West Florida and open a new theater of war in the southwest as a first step towards clearing the Mississippi River for trade with the crucial port of New Orleans, then part of Spain’s Province of Louisiana.

The American Continental Congress initially sought to ally with France to overcome Britain’s stronghold in West Florida. After traveling to Baton Rouge, however, James Willing, a representative of the Continental Congress and captain in the Continental Army, discovered that the French were more concerned with the presence of nearby Spanish troops, leaving Willing to return to Washington without an ally against the British. Finally, in October 1776, Spain unofficially agreed to support the colonists, allowing them passage on the Mississippi River. (The eastern border of Spain’s Province of Louisiana was the eastern bank of the river.). On November 21, 1777, a congressional committee approved Willing’s request to take a small force of a few dozen subordinates down the Mississippi to deliver dispatches to Spanish authorities and take delivery of supplies stockpiled for Americans in New Orleans, an affair that became known as the “Willing Expedition.”

Willing and his crew departed Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania on January 10, 1778. After arriving in West Florida at Walnut Hills (present-day Vicksburg, Mississippi), the Americans surprised a small number of British guards and plundered a nearby trader’s house. They continued down the river towards Natchez, plundering homes and small towns along the way, before arriving in the city on February 19, 1778. The lack of British fortifications was apparent, and Willing and his men easily took the town. After raising the American flag in Natchez, Willing demanded that locals pledge their neutrality in the war.

Bernardo de Gálvez

After news of Willing’s Raid reached Pensacola, Chester authorized a small infantry force of approximately two dozen men to intercept him and end his campaign. On March 14, the British surprised a small group of Americans at Manchac, near Lake Maurepas in present-day Louisiana, killing at least one and injuring a dozen others. Willing continued down the river, reaching New Orleans by mid-April 1778.

Spanish governor of the Louisiana territory Bernardo de Gálvez granted safe quarters for Willing’s men and a few British refugees as Spain was still neutral in the war between Great Britain and the colonies. Without money or a plan to continue, Willing remained in New Orleans until November 15, 1778. In the aftermath of the Willing’s expedition, Chester devised a surveillance plan with Jamaica to monitor all incoming and outgoing ships. In addition, Chester declared all maritime trade illegal unless the loyalty of the traders was known and verified by the British government.

Hoping to strengthen Britain’s fortifications, Stuart advocated for increasing alliances with neighboring Native American nations. He and Chester met with the Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks to discourage them from collaborating with American colonists and rewarded them with gifts and presents. The Choctaws would later be courted with gifts by Gálvez. The Creeks were also influenced by the colonists and considered raiding West Florida. Retaining these alliances, however, with gifts, powder, and shot proved a massive expense for the Crown, which was already expending a large amount of money in the war against the colonies. Relations were later hampered by Stuart’s unexpected death in 1779, for he was considered a friend by the tribes.

Following an agreement signed at Aranjuez, Spain, in 1777, the Spanish government retracted its neutrality agreement with France and entered the American Revolution in alliance with the French. Shortly after, Gálvez seized Baton Rouge in the summer of 1789 and Mobile with his victory in the Battle of Fort Charlotte in March 1780. In May 1781, Spain captured Pensacola and its garrison, effectively ending British control in West Florida. On September 3, 1783, representatives of King George III signed the Peace of Paris with representatives of the United States ending the American Revolution. As part of that treaty, Spain regained British land holdings in East and West Florida.

At some point, Chester returned to England, where he died on December 20, 1799, in Bath.