Talk:West Florida

message: On my map the Perdido River seems to be exactly the border between modern Florida and modern Alabama. Assuming this, it seems that the Free and Independent Republic of West Florida, as defined in the article, contained none of modern Florida (a small exception might be a piece of the barrier island Perdio Key?). I am not a historian.
:Yes and no. As the boundaries are described in the article, you are correct that the Perdido river is the boundary between present day AL and FL. Unfortunately, the boundaries were somewhat fluid as the territory changed hands from the Spanish to the British and back to the Spanish again (and the French may have at least had nominal control for a time). I have seen some accounts of West Florida that included what is now Pensacola. This article is on my list of things I'd like to improve on when I get time to do more research. As a lifelong midwesterner, the history of this area is somewhat foreign to me, so I've been putting it off while I hack away at things that are more familiar to me. older ≠ wiser 00:34, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It was definitely under French control for a time. The towns of Mobile, Alabama and Biloxi, Mississippi, located in the region, were established by the French in the early 1700s.  Funnyhat 07:14, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: The West Florida Controversy page was created to link several elements of the historic United States together, and especially to tie that specific name (which is used in several places, including the title of a book) to the West Florida page. However, some information might be pulled from that page and (where not already present) placed here.
The secondary reason for creating that page was to fill out the Wikipedia Missing Encyclopedic Articles list.
If that page were turned into a redirect, it would not be a great crime. However, if that is done, then this page should be closely examined to make sure that no connections or information are lost. -Harmil 14:46, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The [[West Florida Controversy]]

message: I'm thinking of splitting off Republic of West Florida into a separate article (the link currently redirects back to this page).  This will match with other self-declared nations that have separate articles (e.g., California Republic, Vermont Republic)  I think there is enough information here for a separate article, and more can be added later.  --JW1805 22:12, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree and will do this now. Argos'Dad 15:16, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Republic 

message: I'm trying to make a map, and the borders of W. Florida have perplexed me. This is what I've come up with:
#When Spain owned it, it was simply Florida.
#When Britain gained it, they split it into West Florida and East Florida; West Florida's borders were the the Mississippi to the Apalachicola, the Gulf, and 32'28 North.
#When the Spanish gained it, question: Did they keep the British division of West and East?
#With the Treaty of San Lorenzo, West Florida's northern boundary shank to 31 North.
#The Republic of West Florida, and the subsequent US annexation of West Florida, only mention a region west of the Perdido. 
Likewise, the maps we have in the article both cite the Perdido and the Apalachicola. So, question: Is this simply a confusion in borders, or did the border between W and E Florida shift westward at some point? I'd really like to know this. Further confusing things - when Florida Territory was organized in 1822, the wikipedia article says that it combined East Florida and part of West Florida, meaning that West Florida still extended to the Apalachicola. (the Perdido is the modern western boundary of Florida).
Please help make sense of this. --Golbez 03:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Borders 

message: What ever happened to the article for the Dominion of British West Florida  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.134.123.62 (talk • contribs) 22:08, November 17, 200.
*It was deleted because it was not notable.  --JW1805 (Talk) 23:08, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  DBWF 

message: This article stops short at 1810 and focuses on the short-lived Republic of West Florida at Baton Rouge. There ought to be articles on the British and Spanish colonies, each called West Florida, that existed from 1763 to 1820 and figured in the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the history of the Seminoles. 
In 1763 at the end of the Seven Years War, Spanish Florida went to Britain and French Louisiana to Spain. The British divided the province into East Florida (the peninsula) and West Florida (the panhandle and the Gulf coast extending to the Mississippi, with a vaguely defined northern border). At the same time Creek Indians moving south from the Georgia frontier to "the Floridas" became the autonomous Seminole Nation. William Bartram and Bernard Romans wrote about the two British colonies at this time, and James Macpherson (the inventor of Ossian) was secretary to the colonial governor at Pensacola for a while. 
In 1783, after Spain allied with the United States, Bernardo de Gálvez took Pensacola and forced Britain to cede the Floridas back to Spain, but Spanish authorities allowed a British trading firm to hold a monopoly on the Indian trade. Spain also built a fort on the Tombigbee River in the northern reaches of the colony (now in Alabama), which ended up in American territory after the treaty of San Lorenzo. This was St. Stephens, the capital of Mississippi Territory, then of Alabama Territory, then of the state of Alabama. 
The United States whittled away at West Florida from 1798 on. The 1810 uprising at Baton Rouge added the "Florida parishes" to the Louisiana Territory. 
In 1812 the U.S. formally asserted a (specious) claim to all the land west of the Perdido River, recognizing only the present-day Florida panhandle as Spanish. Spain rejected this claim, but in 1813 U.S. forces seized Mobile and accused Spanish officials of inciting the Creek Indians. After the Creek War, Andrew Jackson in 1814 occupied Pensacola on his own initiative and hanged two British citizens. Spain kept possession of a much-reduced West Florida until 1820, when the U.S. purchased East and West Florida and merged them as the Florida Territory. 
I'll source this stuff and write it up as time permits, and of course anyone else is welcome. I think we'll end up needing three articles — British West Florida, Spanish West Florida, and Republic of West Florida — with this article as either a redirect to the latter or a disambiguation page. (Looks like we'll also have to allow for the fanciful Dominion of British West Florida, "founded" in 2005 on the Internet.) -- ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 15:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spanish and British colonies 

message: "14th British Colony" should not redirect to West Florida.  Instead, it should be going to Nova Scotia, which is widely considered to be the "14th Colony" in discussions of the American Revolution due to its proximity to the 13 and its participation in protesting increased taxation in the 1760s and 1770s. --GregRog (talk) 18:25, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  14th colony? 

message: There is nothing wrong with describing West Florida (and East Florida) as a colony under British rule. It was a colony in the same way that the Thirteen Colonies were colonies. It is certainly no worse than "territory", and it is routinely called a "colony" in sources. Examples include Gannon's History of Florida, as well as these works I found online:--Cúchullain t/c 13:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Colony

message: That phrase appears in 3 WP articles, but the nature and strength of this cavalry (presumably) unit are never defined.Varlaam (talk) 07:54, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Commander of the West Florida Dragoons" 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
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Participate in the deletion discussion at the . —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:52, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion