The British Period: A Shifting Economy 1763–1783
In July 1763, Britain formally accepted Florida from Spain and divided it into two colonies—East Florida with St. Augustine as its capital and West Florida with Pensacola as capital. For the next twenty years, Florida remained under British rule.
The new settlers attempted to make the Floridas economically successful. Colonists established plantations and exported naval stores: tar, pitch, and turpentine used in building ships. They actively engaged in trade with the Native peoples who had begun moving into Florida decades earlier. Despite their efforts, the Floridas did not become economically independent and relied on Britain for support.
British Map of Florida
Although this 1760 map shows the peninsula with exaggerated waterways, it does clearly portray the boundaries of East and West Florida.
Courtesy of the State Archives of Florida
Plantations
The first decade of Florida’s British period was a time of expansion, and Florida experienced dramatic population growth. The enslaved Black laborers that colonists brought cleared forests and drained marshes to grow indigo, cotton, sugar cane, and rice. In the 1760s and 1770s, indigo, which produced a blue dye, was the main crop raised in East Florida for export. It required intensive labor to grow and process. Many small farms also existed. Most plantations were in East Florida. The sandy soil around Pensacola could not support large plantations, and only a few farms were in operation.
Drawing of an Anil (Indigo) Plant
Illustration from Pierre Pomet's Histoire générale des drogues, 1694
Courtesy of the State Archives of Florida
Labor
Enslaved Black people made up the vast majority of the plantation labor force. Only the plantations of Smyrnéa (Smyrna) and Rollestown used white, indentured workers, who signed contracts and agreed to work for a set number of years, after which they received their own land. British planters from the Carolinas and Georgia brought more than 9,000 enslaved Black laborers. At Smyrnéa, Scottish physician Andrew Turnbull recruited more than 1,400 Menorcan (Minorcan), Greek, and Italian colonists to raise indigo. Conditions at Smyrnéa were difficult. Death from disease occurred frequently, food and clothing remained in short supply, and the overseers treated the workers harshly. Approximately 600 survivors eventually left the plantation and settled in St. Augustine.
Trading with Indigenous Communities
Britain viewed trade as key to maintaining a good relationship with Indigenous communities. Groups of Creeks had begun migrating to Florida from Georgia and Alabama in the early 1700s. British traders had been dealing with them before they moved south, and trade continued in Florida. Though they maintained their customs and traditions, trade became vital to the Native peoples of the Southeast. Some Creek Indian groups in Florida became known as Seminoles.
Native Floridians hunted raccoon, bear, and other animals for their fur, but they especially sought deer. Deerskins became one of Florida’s main exports before the American Revolutionary War. Traders obtained goods from large trading posts that served as supply depots, traveled to Native villages to conduct trade, and returned with deerskins. Indigenous people traded deerskins for European-made goods such as guns, cloth, kettles, iron tools, beads, silver earbobs, and other ornaments. Trading companies sent large quantities of deerskins to supply England’s leatherworking industry. In England, they were made into gloves, clothing, shoes, and other products.
Florida During the American Revolution
The British colonies of East and West Florida remained loyal to the British Crown when American colonists to the north began their struggle for independence in 1775. Florida had been under British control for a dozen years, and most colonists were recent immigrants who identified themselves as British subjects, rather than a people with deep American roots.
Loyalists in the British colonies often were called Tories. As British troops and pro-British civilians were pushed out of the Carolinas and Georgia, St. Augustine and East Florida provided a safe haven. Britain lost West Florida when the Spaniards captured Pensacola in 1781.
The Siege and Battle of Pensacola
The only major battle of the American Revolution fought in Florida involved the Spanish and French against British and Indigenous forces. Spanish governor of Louisiana Bernardo de Gálvez launched an expedition in 1781 to capture British-held Pensacola. The Spanish force laid siege to the city and its fort—Fort George—for two months.
The turning point in the battle occurred when a Spanish artillery shell hit the British powder magazine of a primary, outlying fortification. The British garrison felt it no longer could hold out, and its forces in the city surrendered. The Spanish victory weakened the British in the west and helped to support the American cause for independence. Following the loss of Pensacola, the British lost East Florida to Spain with the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War.
