Talk:Republic of West Florida

The name of the flag

The article currently states that the flag of the Republic of West Florida was "later" called the Bonnie Blue Flag. This oversimplifies the question. Please see Talk:Bonnie Blue Flag for more on the issue of naming. In brief, the nickname "Bonnie Blue" dates from 1861, not 1810. The identity of the West Florida and Bonnie Blue flags has been assumed but nor proved. In 2006 the state of Louisiana passed a law linking the nickname "Bonnie Blue" to the 1810 flag. — ℜob C. alias ÀLAROB 17:25, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

The History of the Short-Lived Independent Republic of Florida

Smithsonian magazine just published an excellent article entitled History of the Short-Lived Independent Republic of Florida. It could serve as an excellent, verifiable source, for anyone looking to add information to this article. Squideshi (talk) 04:28, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

"In the predawn fog of September 23, 1810, about 50 men, led by Revolutionary War veteran Philemon Thomas, walked in the open gate of Fort San Carlos in Baton Rouge. An additional 25 men on horseback rode through a gap in the fort’s wall. Spanish soldiers discharged a handful of muskets before Thomas’ men let go a single volley that killed or wounded five Spaniards. The remaining soldados surrendered or fled.

Revolutions come in all shapes and sizes, but the West Florida Rebellion holds the record as the shortest. In less than one minute it was over, setting in motion a chain of events that would transform the United States into a continental and, eventually, world power.

The nation’s expansion had begun seven years earlier, when President Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory from France. But Spain, which had ceded the territory to Napoleon, maintained that it did not include the area known as West Florida, which stretched from the Perdido River across southern Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana to the Mississippi River. For its part, the United States believed West Florida was its own, but rather than risk confrontation and war, Jefferson and his successor James Madison allowed Spain to administer it until an opportunity arose.

Things were peaceful until 1808, when Spain appointed Col. Charles Delassus as governor. The inefficiency and corruption of officials under him threatened the prosperity of American colonists in West Florida, who presented demands for political reform. Delassus pretended to go along, while secretly plotting to arrest the ringleaders.

Learning of Delassus’ duplicity, the Americanos struck first. After capturing Fort San Carlos, they declared the Republic of West Florida, replacing the Spanish flag with their banner—a white star on a field of blue. Some derided what one U.S. newspaper editor called “the little mimick Revolution,” but President Madison knew that his strategy of passive expansionism had evicted Spain at no expense to the United States.

On December 10, 1810, the Republic of West Florida’s lone star came down and the Stars and Stripes took its place. For the first time, the United States had acquired significant territory from another sovereignty without war or compensation.

It didn’t take long for other territories to follow West Florida’s example. In 1835-36, Texas rose in revolt against Mexico, fighting under West Florida’s lone star flag and voluntarily submitting to U.S. annexation in 1845. (The five-point star had emerged as a symbol of enlightenment and defiance against tyranny—and would remain a motif for the flag of the Texas Republic.)

A year later at Sonoma, a small band of American and Mexican settlers declared the California Republic. The subsequent revolt against local authorities lasted 26 days before the United States took over. In the ensuing war with Mexico, the United States acquired all of California and most or all of Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Utah and Oklahoma.

While much has been written about the U.S.-Mexican War, the event that started it all, the 1810 revolution, has largely been viewed as a footnote. As a historian, it became clear to me that there was more at work here than a small band of unruly, land-hungry American colonists. West Florida became the template for Manifest Destiny—a near-perfect embodiment of the men and forces that would propel Americans across their continent."

By William C. Davis, Smithsonian Magazine, May 2013

Jeff in CA (talk) 18:26, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

The above contradicts the statement "The Pearl River with its branch that flowed into The Rigolets formed the eastern boundary of the republic." in the article. John W. Nicholson (talk) 23:28, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

The Mobile and Pensacola Districts of the Spanish Province of West Florida did not form part of the Republic of West Florida. An expedition that the Republic sent to capture Mobile ended in failure to dislodge the Spanish force there. Only the districts to the west of the Pearl were part of the Republic. Jeff in CA (talk) 01:05, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

And that contradicts the Lumberton, MS Historical Marker https://www.stoppingpoints.com/mississippi/Lamar/Old+West+Florida+%28Lamar%29.html. John W. Nicholson (talk)

http://www.mississippimarkers.com/uploads/6/1/1/7/6117286/7455133.jpg John W. Nicholson (talk)

1806 John Cary map shows West Florida (including Pensacola, which was not part of the U.S. claim) in the hands of Spain, separate from the U.S.-held Louisiana Purchase.

The historical marker is correct and does not contradict the above description. Here's why:

In the 18th century, France possessed the area from Mobile westward to the Mississippi River as part of its territory of Louisiana, which covered a huge swath of America on both sides of the Mississippi River. When the Seven-Years War ended in 1763, France gave up all of Louisiana west of the Mississippi River (plus the island of New Orleans) to Spain and gave the remainder of its Louisiana Territory to England. England also got Spanish Florida from Spain in exchange for giving Havana back to Spain. England put most of Spanish Florida in a colony called East Florida. England combined the land from the Apalachicola River to the Mississippi River with territory that it carved out of land it already possessed to the north. This was the English colony of West Florida. In 1783 Spain got East Florida back from England, as well as West Florida for the first time.

Therefore, the area in what is now the lower tip of the state of Mississippi (shown in the map of the Lumberton area that you cited) indeed at one time was part of French Louisiana, the English colony of West Florida and the Spanish province of West Florida. But it was not within the area that the Republic of West Florida controlled, which lies entirely within the borders of the present state of Louisiana. In 1810 the U.S. seized and occupied the Republic of West Florida. In 1811 the U.S. extended its military control to what is now the lower tip of Mississippi. Then in 1812 Congress authorized the U.S. military to take the rest of the Mobile District from Spain and assigned all of the Mobile District to the Mississippi Territory. The U.S. military evicted the Spanish from Mobile in 1813. Spain controlled the part of its province of West Florida east of Mobile until the 1821 ratification of the Adams-Onis Treaty.Jeff in CA (talk) 03:42, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Boundaries

In the boundaries section it says West Florida did not contain any part of Florida, but the map marks the Apalachicola river as the Eastern border and Pensacola clearly inside the borders. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.24.165.97 (talk) 02:19, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

The territory created by the English appears to have extended to the Apalachicola River. However the Republic of West Florida only claimed as far east as the Mobile District, but failed to capture that district from the Spanish. Thus the actual territory of the Republic of West Florida only included land west of the Pearl River. Jeff in CA (talk) 14:31, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

User:WCCasey has changed this article as it pertains to reflect incorrect boundaries of the Republic of West Florida. The question is whether the republic did not include only the Florida parishes of present Louisiana, but rather all the territory of the Spanish province west of the Pearl Perdido River. (edited on 19-Oct-15)

"[T]he revolutionaries ... in an early October convention, [ ] laid claim to all the unoccupied lands in the territory, because they had 'wrested the Government and country from Spain at the risk of their lives and fortunes.'", (letter, John Rhea to James Madison, October 10, 1810, qtd. in Arthur 1935, 123.)

Arthur, Stanley Clisby. 1935. The Story of the West Florida Rebellion. St. Francisville, La.: St. Francisville Democrat.

See “'Not Merely Perfidious but Ungrateful”: The U.S. Takeover of West Florida", by Robert Higgs, March 14, 2005, http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1478

The article notes (as does Jeff in CA) that Republic of West Florida forces tried - and failed - to capture Mobile, which controlled the remaining Spanish territory (which was not "unoccupied lands") between the Pearl and the Apalachicola (see also the 1903 map in the section "United States Annexation"). WCCasey (talk) 00:12, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Need a better/revised map

The current map is riddled with misspellings, as noted on its talk page:

• The name of the Apalachicola River is misspelled as "Adalachicola"
• The name of the Chattahoochee River is misspelled as "Chatahoocfe"
• The name of the Louisiana Purchase is misspelled as "Louisiana Purchased"
• The name of the Amite River is misspelled as "Amita" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.60.29.39 (talk) 14:45, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Comments:

* The name of the Apalachicola River is misspelled as "Adalachicola" ... If you expand the map, what appears to be a "D" is a "P" with its lobe too big.

* The name of the Chattahoochee River is misspelled as "Chatahoocfe" ... On the map it actually says, "Chatahoochee". The map was made in the 19th century. Place names that originated from Native American words were spelled both with and without double consonants (i.e., either "t" or "tt".)

* The name of the Louisiana Purchase is misspelled as "Louisiana Purchased" ... You left out 1803. This may be better understood as "Louisiana (purchased 1803)".

* The name of the Amite River is misspelled as "Amita" ... The place where that appears on the map is cross-hatched. On the map it is correctly spelled as Amite. Unless one enlarges the map, the cross-hatch makes the "E" seem to be an "A".

Jeff in CA (talk) 15:39, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

A-ha! I see that the note about the misspellings applied to another transcribed map that used to occupy the place of the 1898 map in this article. I switched that one out a while ago. Someone did indeed do a terrible job in trying to reproduce this 1898 map on their PC (seen at the Wikimedia page to which you linked). That person made transcription errors, with the results mentioned above.Jeff in CA (talk) 16:07, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Random quotation marks

I was just copyediting this article, and I noticed how a lot of text is in quotes. It does fit with the quotation parts from actual people's perspectives, but the random parts with quotation marks and no indication that they are indeed quotes. Do these fit, or should they be removed? EMachine03 (talk) 22:35, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Most, if not all, are exact quotes from source material accompanied by citations to those sources. In this type of academic writing, any material that is an exact quote from a source publication should be shown in quotation marks. I would not change or remove any that are of this nature. Jeff in CA (talk) 14:30, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Or if there is some compelling reason to reduce the number of quotes, paraphrase the idea. Prof. Mc (talk) 14:01, 16 May 2016 (UTC)