World events once again impacted Spain's foothold on the American continent in 1763.

   Britain's capture of Havana, Spain's Caribbean capital, led to an exchange by treaty: Spain would regain Havana in exchange for Spanish Florida.

   After two centuries of rule, the Spanish Burgundy flag came down and British Jack flew over the Castillo de San Marcos.

   It would remain for 20 years, a British southern base during the American Revolution.

    This 14th American colony for an expanding British empire offered new commercial trade opportunities which might have continued well beyond the 20-year span, but for that war.

   Under its first governor, James Grant, nearly three million acres were granted in East Florida. He planted, tracked, and kept extensive journals as he tested new plants in Florida's subtropical soil.

   Rice was cultivated at many British East Florida estates, and might have become an increasingly significant export crop if the British had retained control of East Florida.

   But storm clouds were gathering in the north, where populations were swelling with American-born subjects, unattached to the mother country.

   With the Declaration of Independence in 1776, St. Augustine became a loyalist refuge, its population swelled by immigrants from England and loyalists fleeing the northern colonies. British newcomers had no history of the growing commercial unrest and separatist democratic culture of the northern colonies. Their loyalties remained with England.

   Most of the war took place far north of Florida, but cross-border raids increased. In 1779, Spain entered the war in alliance with France. The energetic Bernardo de Gálvez, governor of Spanish Louisiana, immediately began operations to gain control of British West Florida. His Siege of Pensacola in 1781 returned West Florida to Spain.

   Having lost control of the majority of its American colonies, Britain had little interest in keeping Florida. Now an isolated outpost, it had little prospect of staying productive. On September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the American Revolution. In it Britain recognized the independence of the United States.

   Under separate treaty, England ceded Florida back to Spain in exchange for the Bahama Islands.

The curtain fell on twenty years of English occupation, and a second period under Spain began.

 

   This year, give the gift of history, St. Augustine Bedtime Stories, dramatic accounts of famous people and events in St. Augustine's history. Information here.