Florida After 1763
See also: Settlement of Spanish Florida / Presidios of Spanish Florida / Missions of Spanish Florida
While not the primary focus of this page, the post-1763 era is nonetheless an important part of Florida's colonial history. Even though Spanish Florida's colonists and the remaining indigenous inhabitants of the refugee missions evacuated to Havana and Veracruz in 1763, the colonial settlements they had established over the course of the previous 250 years were immediately re-occupied by British forces, who remained for the next two decades, attempting to transform and expand St. Augustine and Pensacola under the British colonial model. After Pensacola was reconquered by Spanish forces under Bernardo de Galvez in 1781, followed by the British loss against United States forces at Yorktown later the same year, the entirety of Florida was returned formally to Spanish control in 1783.
Even though Florida was once again a Spanish colony, the colonial population that inhabited Florida during its Second Spanish Period (1781/1783-1821) was not the same that had inhabited it before 1763. The garrisons at St. Augustine and Pensacola were sent mostly directly from Spain, and the population became increasingly Anglicized as the fledgling United States grew just to the north. When Florida was finally delivered to American control in 1821, it bore only limited resemblance to its pre-1763 condition.
Below are links to a few useful resources, which will doubtless grow as time permits.
Digitized Historical Books / Digitized Manuscript Sources / Digitized Printed Manuscript Inventories
Florida After 1763: Digitized Historical Books
The selection of digitized books below include a range of classic historical sources that provide narrative descriptions of the world of post-1763 Florida and its immediate environs.Stork, William [and Denys Rolle]
1766 An Extract from the Account of East Florida, published by Dr. Stork, who resided a considerable Time in Augustine, the Metropolis of that Province, With the Observations of Denys Rolle, who formed a Settlement on St. John’s river, in the same Province, with His Proposals to Such Persons as may be inclined to settle thereon. London.Bartram, John
1767 A Description of East-Florida, With a Journal, Kept by John Bartram of Philadelphia, Botanist to His Majesty for the Floridas; Upon a Journey from St. Augustine Up the River St. John's [Edited by William Stork]. W. Nicoll, London.Romans, Bernard
1776 A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida. R. Aitken, New York.Hutchins, Thomas
1784 An Historical Narrative and Topographical Description of Louisiana and West-Florida. Robert Aitken, Philadelphia.Bartram, William
1793 Travels Through North and South Carolina: Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges Or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. J. Moore, W. Jones, R. McAllister, and J. Rice, Dublin.Hawkins, Benjamin
c1800 A Sketch of the Creek Country in the Years 1798 and 1799. Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, Volume III, Part I. Georgia Historical Society, Savannah.[1796-1806] 1916 Letters of Benjamin Hawkins, 1796-1806. Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, Volume IX. Georgia Historical Society, Savannah.
Forbes, James Grant
1821 Sketches, Historical and Topographical, of the Floridas: More Particularly of East Florida. C.S. Van Winkle, New York.Vignoles, Charles Blacker
1823 Observations Upon the Floridas. E. Bliss & E. White, New York. [a 1917 reprint version here]Williams, John Lee
1827 A View of West Florida, Embracing Its Geography, Topography, &c. L.R. Bailey, Philadelphia.1837 The Territory of Florida: or, Sketches of the Topography, Civil and Natural History, of the Country, the Climate, and the Indian Tribes, from the First Discovery to the Present Time, with a Map, Views, &c. A.T. Goodrich, New York. [another copy here]
Florida After 1763: Digitized Manuscript Sources
There are a number of digitized manuscripts available online regarding colonial Florida's history after 1763, and some of these are accessible through the links below.
Library of Congress
East Florida Papers (see also searchable Index hosted by UF)
LDS Family Search
St. Augustine Wills, 1784-1816
Florida Land Records, 1764-1849
Spanish plat book of land records of the District of Pensacola, Province of West Florida, British and Spanish land grants, 1763-1821(digitized book of transcriptions made by Moreno 1895, ptinted by Snider and Palmer 1994)
Vanderbilt University
Notre Dame University
Louisiana Digital Library
Digitized Manuscripts with "Florida" Search Term, 1709-1821 (chronological order)
University of Florida
Vicente Sebastián Pintado. Concessiones de Tierras / 1817-1823 (6 volumes, the first of which is a huge volume of original transcripts of land records for Second Spanish Florida)
UK National Archives (Colonial America collection by institutional subscription)
West Florida: Grants of land, mortgages and conveyances, 1764-1768 (CO5/601)
West Florida: Grants of land, mortgages and conveyances, 1765-1767 (CO5/602)
West Florida: Grants of land; instructions to surveyors, certificates and plats, 1765-1768 (CO5/603)
West Florida: Grants of land, instructions to surveyors and certificates, 1765-1768 (CO5/604)
West Florida: Grants of land, mortgages and conveyances, 1768-1772 (CO5/605)
West Florida: Grants of land, 1769-1770 (CO5/606)
West Florida: Grants of Land, 1772-1778 (CO5/607)
Index to West Florida: Grants of Land, 1772-1778 (CO5/607)
Mostly for the use of my students, or anyone else generally interested in the post-colonial American Period history of Florida, I have developed a page of primary source links for further research.
Florida After 1763: Digitized Printed Manuscript Inventories
See my Printed Manuscript Inventories page, which includes several indices that focus on or include post-1763 documents.