Editing History of Florida (section)

==Territory and statehood==
===Florida Territory (1822–1845)===
{{Main article|Florida Territory}} {{See also|Seminole Wars}}
[[File:Andrew Jackson.jpg|thumb|150px|Andrew Jackson served as the first military [[Governor of Florida]].]]

[[Florida Territory]] became an [[organized territory]] of the United States on March 30, 1822. The U.S. merged [[East Florida]] and [[West Florida]] (although the majority of West Florida was annexed to [[Territory of Orleans]] and [[Mississippi Territory]]), and established a new capital in [[Tallahassee, Florida|Tallahassee]], conveniently located halfway between the East Florida capital of St. Augustine and the West Florida capital of Pensacola. The boundaries of Florida's first two counties, [[Escambia County, Florida|Escambia]] and [[St. Johns County, Florida|St. Johns]], approximately coincided with the boundaries of West and East Florida respectively.

The free black and Indigenous slaves, Black Seminoles, living near St. Augustine, fled to Havana, Cuba to avoid coming under US control. Some Seminole also abandoned their settlements and moved further south.<ref>{{cite book|last=Simmons|first=William H.|title= Notices of East Florida : with an account of the Seminole nation of Indians|year=1822|publisher=University of Pittsburgh|page=42|oclc=1049959679|url=https://archive.org/details/noticesofeastflo00simm/page/n6/mode/2up}}</ref> Hundreds of [[Black Seminoles]] and fugitive slaves escaped in the early nineteenth century from [[Cape Florida]] to [[The Bahamas]], where they settled on [[Andros Island]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Mulroy|first=Kevin|title=The Seminole Freedmen: A History (Race and Culture in the American West)|year=2007|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|page=26|isbn=978-0806153476}}</ref>

[[File:Osceola.png|thumb|Seminole leader [[Osceola]].]]
As settlement increased, pressure grew on the United States government to remove the Indians from their lands in Florida. Many settlers in Florida developed plantation agriculture, similar to other areas of the Deep South. To the consternation of new landowners, the Seminoles harbored and integrated runaway black slaves, and clashes between whites and Indians grew with the influx of new settlers.

In 1832, the United States government signed the [[Treaty of Payne's Landing]] with some of the Seminole chiefs, promising them lands west of the Mississippi River if they agreed to leave Florida voluntarily. Many Seminoles left then, while those who remained prepared to defend their claims to the land. White settlers pressured the government to remove all of the Indians, by force if necessary, and in 1835, the U.S. Army arrived to enforce the treaty.

The [[Second Seminole War]] began at the end of 1835 with the [[Dade Battle]], when Seminoles ambushed Army troops marching from [[Fort Brooke]] (Tampa) to reinforce [[Fort King]] (Ocala).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://mitchellarchives.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/dade-report.jpg|title=From Florida|publisher=Daily National Intelligencer|date=January 27, 1836|url-status=live|archive-date=2011-07-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110714102456/https://mitchellarchives.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/dade-report.jpg}}</ref> They killed or mortally wounded all but one of the 110 troops. Between 900 and 1,500 Seminole warriors effectively employed guerrilla tactics against United States Army troops for seven years. Osceola, a charismatic young war leader, came to symbolize the war and the Seminoles after he was arrested by Brigadier General [[Joseph Marion Hernandez]] while negotiating under a white truce flag in October 1837, by order of General [[Thomas Jesup]]. First imprisoned at [[Fort Marion]], he died of [[malaria]] at [[Fort Moultrie]] in [[South Carolina]] less than three months after his capture. The war ended in 1842. The U.S. government is estimated to have spent between $20&nbsp;million (${{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|20000000|1842|r=0}}}} in {{Inflation-year|US}} dollars) and $40&nbsp;million (${{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|40000000|1842|r=0}}}} in {{Inflation-year|US}} dollars) on the war; at the time, this was considered a large sum. Almost all of the Seminoles were forcibly exiled to Creek lands west of the Mississippi; several hundred remained in the [[Everglades]].<ref name=tebeau/>{{rp|156}}

During the territorial period, the region of Middle Florida between the Apalachee and Suwanee Rivers grew in population.<ref name=":5" />

When Florida was a territory, there was much debate regarding its statehood. It was proposed several times that the territory be split with varying motivations ranging from: the regions of East and West Florida feeling a sense of disconnection from each other, adding another slave state and that Pensacola would be a good port for Alabama.<ref name=":22">{{Cite journal |last=Martin |first=Walter |date=1941 |title=The Proposed Division of the Territory of Florida |url=https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2066&context=fhq |journal=Florida Historical Quarterly |type=PDF |volume=20 |issue=3 |access-date= |via=STARS @ UCF}}</ref> A statehood referendum was held in 1837 with a majority (63%) voting in favor of statehood.<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last=Moussalli |first=Stephanie D. |date=1995 |title=Florida's Frontier Constitution: The Statehood, Banking & Slavery Controversies |url=https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4117&context=fhq |format=PDF |journal=Florida Historical Quarterly |volume=74 |issue=4 |via=STARS}}</ref> In 1845 a bill was introduced in the US House to admit East and West Florida as separate states but this was later voted down and modified to all of Florida instead which ended up passing.<ref name=":22" />

===Statehood (1845)===
[[File:Florida Capitol 1845.jpg|thumb|250px|The brick [[Florida State Capitol|Capitol]] as built in 1845.]]
On March 3, 1845, Florida became the 27th state of the United States of America. Its first governor was [[William Dunn Moseley]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gov. William Dunn Moseley |url=https://www.nga.org/governor/william-dunn-moseley/#:~:text=WILLIAM%20DUNN%20MOSELEY%2C%20Florida's%20first,practice%20in%20Wilmington%2C%20North%20Carolina. |access-date=December 22, 2024 |website=National Governors Association}}</ref>

Almost half the state's population were enslaved African Americans working on large cotton and sugar [[Plantations in the American South|plantations]], between the [[Apalachicola River|Apalachicola]] and [[Suwannee River|Suwannee]] rivers in the north central part of the state.<ref name=tebeau/>{{rp|158}} Like the people who owned them, many slaves had come from the coastal areas of Georgia and the Carolinas. They were part of the [[Gullah]]–[[Geechee]] culture of the [[Lowcountry]]. Others were enslaved African Americans from the upper South who had been sold to traders taking slaves to the deep South.{{sfn|Smith|2017|pp=9–11}}

In the 1850s, with the potential transfer of ownership of federal land to the state, including Seminole land, the federal government decided to convince the remaining Seminoles to emigrate. The Army reactivated Fort Harvie and renamed it to [[Fort Myers, Florida|Fort Myers]]. Increased Army patrols led to hostilities, and eventually a Seminole attack on Fort Myers which killed two United States soldiers.<ref name=tebeau/>{{rp|155}} The [[Third Seminole War]] lasted from 1855 to 1858 which ended with most of the remaining Seminoles, mostly women and children moving to Indian Territory. In 1859, another 75 Seminoles surrendered and were sent to the West, but a small number continued to live in the Everglades.<ref name=tebeau/>{{rp|156}}

On the eve of the Civil War, Florida had the smallest population of the Southern states. It was invested in plantation agriculture, which was dependent on the labor of enslaved African Americans. By 1860, Florida had 140,424 people, of whom 44% were enslaved and fewer than 1,000 were [[free black|free people of color]].<ref name=tebeau/>{{rp|157}} Florida also had one of the highest per capita murder rates prior to the Civil War, thanks to a weakened central government, the institution of slavery, and a troubled political history.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Denham|first1=James M.|last2=Roth|first2=Randolph|year=2007|title=Why Was Antebellum Florida Murderous? A Quantitative Analysis of Homicide in Florida, 1821–1861|journal=The Florida Historical Quarterly|volume=86|number=2|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25594611|pages=216–217|jstor=25594611 }}</ref>