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British West Florida embraced a large part of
the present states of Alabama and Mississippi,
extending northward beyond the present city of
Montgomery, Alabama. Its first governor was
Captain George Johnstone, who arrived in
February, 1764, at Pensacola with a British
regiment and many Highlanders from Charleston
and New York. Among other activities, he
planned the town of Pensacola, confirmed land
title of all Frenchmen who had improved their
properties, and invited Swiss and German
families to migrate from New Orleans to West
Florida. Lieutenant Governor Montford Browne
succeeded Johnstone, and his successor, John
Eliot arrived in West Florida in the spring of
1769. In August 1770 Peter Chester was chosen
as Eliot's successor.
In 1772-73 the British began seriously to
settle West Florida. Holmes' Annals record
that, before the summer of 1773, 400 families
came from the Atlantic seaboard in a body by way
of the Ohio and Mississippi.148 The
same reference tells the settlers from New
England, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including
the Ogden and Swayze colonies from New Jersey
and the Phineas Lyman colony of Connecticut,
came by way of the Ohio and Mississippi.
Numerous parties from the western portions of
North Carolina and Virginia usually came by land
to the Holston and there constructed flat-boats
and barges at Long Island in the Cherokee
Nation. Pensacola, the capital of the Province,
did not receive a great deal of this
immigration. The pioneers, who were bent on
owning land and establishing homes, soon
discovered that the country near Walnut Hills
(Vicksburg), Natchez, Bayou Sara and Baton Rouge
were the real garden spots of what had come to
be regarded as the Promised Land of America.149
So the tide flowed steadily southwest into
West Florida, passing the more northern frontier
settlements, since the year 1772 - known as the
"starving year" - had given these a bad
reputation which lasted for some time.
Governor Chester served until Spain took
advantage of the Revolution to the north, and
seized the Province of West Florida in 1781.
Thereafter, Spain exercised jurisdiction over
all the area known as the Florida parishes,
Louisiana, and the seaboards of Mississippi,
claiming the whole country between the
Mississippi and Perdido rivers.
The United States claimed the same district,
under the treaty of Paris made in 1803, as part
and parcel of Louisiana, but Spain did not want
to deliver it. After the western portion of the
district was occupied by American settlers, the
Spanish rule was broken. A "Florida Convention"
was set up by the Americans and they announced
themselves an Independent State, under the name
of the Commonwealth of West Florida. The
President of the United States, however, made a
proclamation that claimed the whole district as
part and parcel of ancient Louisiana, which, by
the treaty of 1803 with France, had been
purchased by the United States. Possession was
to be taken and it was to be considered a
portion of the Orleans Territory. By 1810 the
West Florida Convention has peaceably expired.150
PASSPORTS IN WEST FLORIDA
Pensacola 26th Sept. 1770
My Lord,
I have the Honor to transmit to your
Lordship here inclosed [sic] the Copy of a
letter that I lately received from one John
McIntire together with a copy of the Deposition
of Daniel Huay, both relative to a Settlement
now forming at the Natchez with this Province. .
. .
Peter Chester
[Governor of the Province of West Florida
under the British Cominion, 1770-1781]
[To The Earl Of Hillsborough]
Fort Natchez, 19th July 1770
I make bold to let your Excellency know that
we are to the number of Eight Souls arrived from
Fort Pitt in design to settle at Fort Natchez. .
. . The bearer Mr. Huay sets out to bring his
family and his Neighbours for this settlement if
encouraged. . . .
John McIntire
Deposition of Daniel Huay
Daniel Huay of the Province of North
Carolina being duly sworn deposeth and sayeth;
that some time in the month of April last being
then at a place called the Muskingham River
which runs into the Ohio, on his return from the
Illinois or Fort-Chartres to Fort Pitt, he this
deponent found there a Considerable Number of
English Families, Men Women and Children, who
told this deponent, and some of them he knew
came from Red Stone Creek in Pennsylvania by the
way of Fort Pitt and were on their Rout to the
Natchez on the Mississippi in the Province of
West Florida where they proposed to make a
settlement, or on Lands Contiguous thereto which
should be granted them: That upon the
application of Samuel Wells and John McIntire in
behalf of the aforesaid party they appearing to
be the most Considerable and leading men among
them and through his great desire of viewing the
Lands on the Mississippi this deponent was
Induced to accompany the said party from
Muskingham as a Pilot or guide down the Ohio and
so to Fort Natchez on the Mississippi aforesaid
at which place the said party together with this
deponent arrived sometime in the month of July
last. That the number of the said Party when
this deponent left them at Fort Natchez
consisted of seventy nine men, women and
Children and Eighteen Negroes. . . .
Daniel Huay
Sworn and Signed before His Excellency the
Governor on the 20th day of August in the year
of our Lord 1770.
Pet. Chester151
*
A Company of over 20 men from North
Carolina, and from Rockbridge county, and the
valley of New river in Virginia - John Rains,
Kasper Mansco, Abraham Bledsoe, John Baker,
Joseph Drake, Obadiah Terrell, Uriah Stone,
Henry Smith, Edward Cowan, Thomas Gordon,
Humphrey Hogan, Cassius Brooks, Robert Crockett,
and others - each with one or more horses, left
Reedy creek, a branch of New river, in June,
1769, coming by what is now Abingdon and
Powell's valley to Cumberland Gap; thence to
Flat Lick, 6 miles from Cumberland River, down
which they traveled.... Some of the company
returned home on June 6, 1770 while ten of them
- including Mansco, Stone, Baker, Gordon, Hogan,
and Brooks - built two boats and two trapping
canoes, laded them with furs and bear meat, and
started down the Cumberland and Mississippi
rivers to the French Fort Natchez, and thence
home. . . .152
*
London 26th November 1771
My Lord,
I have the Honour to inclose Your Lordship a
Narrative of my Journey to Natchez and through
the Chacta [or Choctaw] Nation. . . .
I have the Honour to be. . .
Edward Mease.
[Endorsed] London, 26 Novr. 1771.
[To the Earl of Hillsborough]
Narrative
of a journey
through several parts of the province of west
florida in the years 1770 and 1771.
by Edward Mease.
. . . . Sunday 16th Decr. [1770]. Having
obtained a Pass from the Governor [of West
Florida] & presented it at the Fort at the
Mouth of the Bayouc de St. Jean to the Serjeant
of the Guard, we went on board a small Schooner
laden with Cotton for Panzacola in order to get
a Tow to the River of Pearls. . . .
Saty 23d Feby. [1771]. I went to
several of hte Settlers Houses who are situated
on both sides of the River St. Catherine & at
the Distance of Three Miles from the Fort [Panmure].
Their Names are as follows. -
Henry LeFluer, Ind. Intr. [Indian
interpreter] his Wife, two Children and two
Servants.
Richard Thomson, his Wife and three
Children.
Samuel Ferguson, his Wife & three Children.
Samuel Wells (a Tanner) his Wife & three
Children.
Daniel Perry, his Wife & five Children.
Michael Prudhomme, a Blacksmith, Wife &
Child.
----- Wively, his Wife & five Children.
Jacob Miller, his Wife and five Children,
Michael Hooder, his Wife and five Children &
Assistant.
Alexander, (a Shoemaker), his Wife, two Sons
grown up and a little Girl
Trifot, who has lived here two Years.
Nicholas Huyt
Daniel
Connor
William German & his Associate
These People are mostly from Maryland and
Carolina, they came down the Cherokee
[Tennessee] River with some others settled
near Conways below the Pointe Coupee and are in
general very laborious good Settlers. . . .153
REPORT OF CONGRESS
WITH THE CREEK INDIANS
West Florida
At a Congress of the Principal Chiefs and
Warriors of the upper Creeks Nation, held at
Pensacola in the Province of West Florida. By
John Stuart Esquire his Majesty's Sole Agent for
and Superintendt [sic] of Indian Affairs in the
Southern District of North America.
October 29th 1771.
. . . .Emistisogio: [Indian Chief]
Besides Mr. Galphin who was the First
That drove Cattle, thro' our Nation, there are
many other driving Cattle and Settling Cowpens
on our Land without our Consent (Vizy.)
Robert Anderson has drove Cattle to the
Kaialeagies.
William Cousins to the Abekoutchies.
Nicholas Black to the Oakchoys.
Thomas Graham to the Wakekoys.
Thomas Grierson to the Eufallies.
Richard Ballie to the Otassies.
Thomas Scott to the Hillabies.
and James M'Quin has in opposition to our talks
not only brought Cattle but also Negroes, and
has made a Settlement near the great Tallassus.
. . . There are many white men in our nation who
follow no other business but that of Hunting,
such as Mcfall and Humphry Hubbard, John Snipes
and Adam Tapley. . . .
The Superintendt. Speaks. -
Governor Johnstone and I at the last
Congress held here, asked the Liberty of driving
Cattle thro' your nation provided it should be
found necessary for the good of the Colony, you
objected to it and. . . said it might probably
be the means of Involving your Nation in a
dispute with the white People, that if such a
permission was given it would be a president for
making Your Nation a thoroughfare for all Sorts
of People, it was at last agreed upon, That
no person should be allowed to drive Cattle
thro' Your Nation without a pass from the
Governor of a Province or the Superintendt.,
no person ever applied to me for such a pass & I
never gave any. . . .154
*
"Journal of the Committee
of Safety of Virginia"
Friday - 22nd March 1776
Williamsburg
Ordered a Pass to William Penn to go thro,
the sd Colonies to West Florida.155
May [1802, Creek Agency]
. . . . Tom Miller, a citizen of the
United States, who for the present is at the
residence of his late brother Jack Miller, on
the east side of Koonecuh, in West Florida . . .
.
[Benjamin Hawkins. . . .]156
*
STATEMENT
[December 1810]
A few days ago, at the Bayou St. John,
Joseph Rabie, master of a schooner just arrived
from Pascagoula, informed me that a few days
before he left, he was forced to obtain a
passport from one Pierre Nicolet, acting
commander under the Florida Convention. . . .
That on his way here he, (the said Rabie),
passed the Bay St. Louis and the Pass of
Christian. . . .
[Joseph Collins]
[To Governor Claiborne, Governor of the
Mississippi Territory.]157 |
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Copyright
FLGenWeb Project Team |
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