United States History Student Edition

Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way is a 600-square-foot mural (55.7 -square- meter) that was painted in the U.S. Capitol by Emanuel Leutze in 1861 and 1862. Drawing Conclusions Why do you think Leutze added images of Daniel Boone and Lewis and Clark to the border framing this painting?

The Florida Territory GUIDING QUESTION How did Florida become a state? The United States boundary with Spain in Florida was contested for years. After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, some Americans in the South believed the purchase included West Florida, a strip of land between Louisiana and the present- day Alabama-Florida border. Spain, however, continued to govern this region after the purchase. Then a few Americans decided to take matters into their own hands. In 1810 a group captured Spain’s Fort San Carlos in present-day Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They declared the independence of the “Republic of West Florida.” That same year, President Madison claimed Florida from the Mississippi River to the Perdido River as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Spain criticized the action, but because it was involved in war with France, it did not take action against the United States. In 1813 the United States took another piece of West Florida by annexing the land between the Pearl and the Perdido Rivers.

Spain continued to hold the rest of Florida. This was a source of anger and frustration for white Southerners. Enslaved African Americans from the South often fled to Florida because they knew that Americans had no authority to capture them in Spanish territory. One important community was established in 1738 called Fort Mose, near St. Augustine. This was a free black community and many enslaved people fled there to build new lives. The haven in Spanish Florida for enslaved people was a source of anger and frustration for white southerners. Americans also wished to settle the region causing more tension. In 1818 when General Andrew Jackson was leading raids against the Seminole in Florida, Jackson and his troops also seized St. Marks and Pensacola. This made Spanish officials furious, but they also realized that Spain could not hold Florida against the Americans any longer. In the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, Florida was ceded to the United States, ending the Second Spanish Period.

PHOTO: Architect of the Capitol; TEXT: O’Sullivan, John. In “The Origin of ‘Manifest Destiny,’” by Julius W. Pratt. The American Historical Review 32, no. 4 (1927): 795-98.

Political and Geographic Changes 327