Broad Stripes and Bright Stars

It was well after midnight when Secretary of State John Quincy Adams finally closed the curtain on the events of Feb. 22, 1819.

“It was perhaps the most important day of my life,” he wrote in his diary, describing arriving home at 1 a.m. from social events that included a ball to celebrate former President George Washington’s birthday. Earlier in the day in Washington, D.C., Spain had finally ceded the colonies of East Florida and West Florida to the United States when American and Spanish diplomats signed the Adams-Onis Treaty that he had helped negotiate. The document,  also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, also defined the western boundary of the Louisiana Purchase, extending the U.S. border to the Pacific Ocean.

“What the consequences may be of the compact this day signed with Spain, is known only to the all wise, and all beneficent disposer of Events,” Adams wrote. “May no disappointment embitter the hope, which this event warrants us in cherishing; and may its future influence on the destinies of my Country be as extensive and as favourable as our warmest anticipations can paint it!”

It took another two years, though, for the formal transfer to take place and American flags to fly in Florida.

European diplomacy moved slowly, frustrating Americans’ eagerness and  impatience for access to land in the Floridas. Distance delayed the transfer as letters and documents crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Political upheaval within Spain added to the wait. Finally, on Oct. 20, 1820, King Ferdinand VII agreed to the treaty. The news of the king’s assent reached the Floridas more than two months later. Two months after that, on Feb. 22, 1821, U.S. President James Monroe proclaimed the treaty in effect.

President Monroe appointed Major General Andrew Jackson to govern the new U.S. lands in the Floridas. In mid-April 1821, Jackson traveled from Nashville to Pensacola to await the transfer of West Florida. He waited and he waited.

At the time, Spanish East Florida covered what is now the eastern half of Florida: from the Atlantic coast near the current Georgia-Forida border, west to the Apalachicola River in the Panhandle. From there it stretched south to the Florida Keys. West Florida included what is now the western Panhandle through coastal Alabama and Mississippi to the Mississippi River.

The U.S wanted the Floridas for a variety of strategic reasons. The territory was a weakly governed frontier that threatened the security of the southern U.S. border. It provided access to the lucrative Gulf trade routes, the ports of Pensacola and St. Augustine, and the Mississippi and Apalachicola Rivers. The transfer signalled an expansion of the U.S. to the natural boundaries of the Atlantic Ocean, Mississippi River, and the Gulf. And it held cotton-growing land and timber trade routes.

 By the time the treaty was signed, U.S. officials, diplomats, and citizens felt they had waited too long for the transfer of the Floridas. The influential Niles’ Weekly Register, a Baltimore newspaper, commented that the Spaniards had tested Americans’ patience up to the very end. From the point of view of the newspaper, the United States had endured “twenty years of negotiations” with Spain.

The first of the transfer formalities took place at Fort San Marcos de Apalache (Fort St. Marks) on June 27, 1821. Major Alexander C. W. Fanning wrote to Andrew Jackson that “the U.S. troops this day at 4 ock [sic] received from the Spanish authorities this post, and that your orders on this subject are fully complied with.” The site of Fort San Marcos de Apalache is today a state park at St. Marks, south of Tallahassee near Wakulla Springs.

Less than a month later, in the twin capitals of St. Augustine and Pensacola, the formal transfer took place, officially making the two Florida colonies a U.S. territory and launching a 24-year journey to statehood.

At the time of the transfers, which  involved signing the relevant documents and turning over Spanish fortifications and artillery to the U.S., the Spanish flag had flown over Spain’s Florida territory for nearly 250 years, with a 20-year British interlude.

On July 10, 1821, the U.S.S. Tartar entered St. Augustine’s harbor at 3 p.m. East Florida Governor José María Coppinger ordered the 23-star U.S. flag raised to the level of the Spanish flag, which was already at half mast at Castillo de San Marcos. Spanish forces at the old fortress fired a 21-gun salute while U.S. soldiers marched to the fort’s entrance. At 4 p.m., East Florida was officially part of the United States of America. Colonel Coppinger, representing Spain, and Colonel Butler, appointed by Andrew Jackson to represent the U.S., signed The Act of Transfer at the Governor’s House, which today is a cultural center and museum adjacent to St. Augustine’s plaza. The words of the Act were written side by side on the four-page document—the Spanish language on the left side of each page and the English language on the right. Coppinger and Butler each signed beneath the appropriate language. Also present in the room at the signing were the St. Augustine city council men, the city attorney, several military and naval officers of the U.S., and a few private individuals. The keys to St. Augustine’s City Gate were delivered to Colonel Butler from the City Council.

After the signing, U.S. warships Savage and Tartar fired a 21-gun salute. Spanish troops saluted their American counterparts and marched from the fortress to the ships that would sail them away from St. Augustine.

A week later a similar ceremony took place in Pensacola. This time Andrew Jackson himself presided over the transfer. At St. Augustine, relations between the representatives of Spain and the United States had remained publicly cordial while they represented their respective nations. But at Pensacola, Andrew Jackson and the governor of Spanish West Florida, José María Callava, were both more prideful than Butler and Coppinger. It’s also likely that they misunderstood each other. In a 1954 article in the Florida Historical Quarterly, historian Herbert Doherty wrote that Jackson was a “product of the frontier … a man more accustomed to dealing with Indians and frontiersmen.” Callava was a product of Europe and “well versed in formalities.” He was “more urbane and possessed more sophistication than Jackson,” Doherty wrote. Callava even sent Jackson information on how the transfer of Louisiana to the United States was conducted as an example of diplomacy.

The public square in Pensacola, now an outdoor garden and park called Plaza Ferdinand VII, hosted the formal transfer of West Florida. At 10 a.m. on July 17, 1821, General Jackson and Richard K. Call, an attorney and special aide to Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, passed between the double line formed by the troops of Spain and of the United States. Jackson, Call, Callava, and José Cruzat entered the Government House to sign the documents. Then the signers emerged from the building and again walked through the double line of soldiers. The United States flag was displayed upon the flagstaff and the artillery fired salutes. The U.S.S. Hornet fired a salute for each U.S. state and one for the new territory.

The formal transfer of the fort in Pensacola was next. At Fort San Carlos de Barrancas, Spanish troops departed the fortification and U.S. troops replaced them in a manner similar to the change in St. Augustine. In that city, though, the fort could be seen from the Governor’s House; in Pensacola, the fort was nine miles away. At Barrancas the Spanish flag was lowered to half mast and the U.S. flag raised to the same level. Spanish troops saluted both flags. Then the Spanish colors were hauled down and the American flag was hoisted. United States troops saluted the U.S. flag.

 The flag of the United States now flew over all of Florida.

Not all of the transfers had been completed. After the formal ceremonies, American and Spanish officials argued over possession of the Spanish governmental archives. American authorities objected to the removal of papers to Spanish Cuba, particularly records pertaining to land ownership—land grants, deeds, mortgages, and land inheritance documents. In Pensacola, now-former Governor Callava and now-Governor Jackson confronted each other. When Callava refused to turn over the Spanish government’s papers to Jackson, claiming he had  diplomatic immunity, Jackson had him imprisoned. While Callava was in jail, U.S. representatives removed the Spanish papers from Callava’s residence.

In St. Augustine, when now-former Governor Coppinger likewise refused to turn over the archives of his former East Florida colony, American officials broke into his residence and confiscated the papers. Today the archives of Spanish East Florida, never sent to Havana or Spain, are preserved in the Library of Congress. Among the papers are the Spanish governor’s report and description of the transfer and The Act of Transfer itself signed by Coppinger and Butler.

Jackson moved quickly to normalize life in the new U.S. territory. On July 18, 1821, the day following the transfer in Pensacola, Major General Andrew Jackson as  “Governor of the Provinces of the Floridas” published six ordinances for the general governance of the new Florida territory. In Ordinance No. 3, and in compliance with the treaty of cession, Jackson proclaimed that “on entrance of the Ceded Territories into the Union, the inhabitants thereof shall be admitted to the enjoyment of all the rights, privileges, and immunities of the citizens of the United States.”