Editing Florida Territory (section)

==Background==

The first European known to have encountered Florida was [[Juan Ponce de León]], who claimed the land as a possession of Spain in 1513. [[St. Augustine, Florida|St. Augustine]], the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in the continental U.S., was founded on the northeast coast of Florida in 1565. Florida continued to remain a Spanish possession until the end of the [[Seven Years' War]], when Spain ceded it to the [[Kingdom of Great Britain]] in exchange for the release of [[Havana]]. In 1783, after the [[American Revolution]], Great Britain ceded Florida back to Spain under the provisions of the [[Peace of Paris (1783)|Peace of Paris]].<ref name="Fuller1964">{{cite book|author=Hubert Bruce Fuller|title=The purchase of Florida, its history and diplomacy (reprint)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HC0rAQAAIAAJ|access-date=March 29, 2011|year=1964|publisher=University of Florida Press|isbn=9780722201855}}</ref>{{rp|xvii}}

The second term of Spanish rule was influenced by the nearby United States. There were border disputes along the boundary with the state of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] and issues of American use of the [[Mississippi River]]. These disputes were ostensibly solved in 1795 by the [[Treaty of San Lorenzo]], which, among other things, solidified the boundary of Florida and Georgia along the 31st parallel. However, as [[Thomas Jefferson]] once predicted, the U.S. could not keep its hands off Florida.<ref name="Fuller1964"/>{{rp|xviii–xix}}