Territory is a major cause of wars and crises between
countries. Throughout history people have been fighting
over who owns what land. In this essay I will be going over
just one of these conflicts involving territory.
This essay will go over and explain the territorial
disputes over Florida between the United States of America
and Spain. The early part of the nineteenth century saw the
United States expanding under an impulse known to historians
as manifest destiny. Manifest destiny was not only a move
westward but also towards the south. " The Acquisition of
Florida was part of this southward movement, and though
Spain did not care to let Florida Pass from under her
jurisdiction, conditions made it impossible for her to do
more than delay the action" (Martin, 1).
For years before 1810 Spanish Florida spread across a
narrow strip of the Gulf of Mexico all the way to the
Mississippi River. Temptation was high to acquire this
territory, so on October 27, 1810, President James Madison
proclaimed American authority over all the section of
Florida between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers. By the
year 1814 American troops were stationed throughout this
area and thereafter Spain never gained control of it again.
During the War of 1812 the United States was hoping to
acquire all of Florida, "especially if Spain came into the
War against the United States, but she chose to stay
non-belligerent in the struggle" (Marvin, 3). The
occupation of most of West Florida was a flagrant aggression
on Spanish territory, but the Madison administration
insisted that the territory had actually been acquired by
the purchase of Louisiana in 1803. Spain did not agree on
this view and protested against it to the bitter end , but
Spain divided what was left of Spanish Florida after
1814 into two sections, East and West Florida making the
Suwannee River the divi...