Editing Florida Territory (section)

==Territorial Florida period==
{{main|Seminole Wars}}
President [[James Monroe]] was authorized on March 3, 1821, to take possession of [[East Florida]] and [[West Florida]] for the United States and provide for initial governance.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=003%2Fllsl003.db&recNum=678 |title="An Act for carrying into execution the treaty between the United States and Spain, concluded at Washington on the twenty-second day of February, one thousand eight hundred and nineteen" |access-date=March 30, 2021 |archive-date=January 24, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160124222705/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=003%2Fllsl003.db&recNum=678 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Andrew Jackson]] served as the federal military commissioner with the powers of governor of the newly acquired territory, from March 10 through December 1821. On March 30, 1822, the United States merged [[East Florida]] and part of what formerly constituted [[West Florida]] into the Florida Territory.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=003%2Fllsl003.db&recNum=695 |title="An Act for the establishment of a territorial government in Florida" |access-date=March 30, 2021 |archive-date=January 24, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160124222705/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=003%2Fllsl003.db&recNum=695 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[William Pope Duval]] became the first official governor of the Florida Territory and soon afterward the capital was established at [[Tallahassee]], but only after removing a Seminole tribe from the land.<ref name="Peters1979"/>{{rp|63–74}} The new capital of Tallahassee was located approximately halfway between the old colonial capitals of Pensacola and St. Augustine. Duval's "government palace for a time was a mere log house, and he lived on hunters' fare."<ref>{{cite book
|first=Washington
|last=Irving
|chapter=The Conspiracy of Neamathla
|title=The Crayon Papers
|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Crayon_Papers/The_Conspiracy_of_Neamathla
|year=1820
|access-date=March 23, 2018
|archive-date=April 9, 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180409233822/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Crayon_Papers/The_Conspiracy_of_Neamathla
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

The central conflict of Territorial Florida originated from attempts to displace the Seminole people. The federal government and most white settlers desired all Florida Indians to migrate to the West voluntarily. On May 28, 1830, Congress passed the [[Indian Removal Act]] requiring all Native Americans to move west of the [[Mississippi River]].<ref name="Peters1979"/>{{rp|87}} The Act itself did not mean much to Florida, but it laid the framework for the [[Treaty of Payne's Landing]], which was signed by a council of Seminole chiefs on May 9, 1832, and ratified in 1834. This treaty stated that the Seminoles could organize an exploratory party that would travel to the Indian Territory and survey the assigned lands before they had to agree to relocation,<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.floridamemory.com/onlineclassroom/seminoles/lessonplans/set-treaties.php|title=Florida Seminoles – Teacher Resources.|last=Florida|first=State Library and Archives of|website=Florida Memory|language=en|access-date=2019-06-24|archive-date=June 24, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190624145357/https://www.floridamemory.com/onlineclassroom/seminoles/lessonplans/set-treaties.php|url-status=live}}</ref> though inhabitants of Florida were expected to relocate by 1835. It was at this meeting that the famous [[Osceola]] first voiced his decision to fight.<ref name="Peters1979"/>{{rp|89–95}} At the [[Treaty of Fort Gibson]], held in Arkansas Territory between the group of Seminoles sent to explore the new territory and the federal government, Americans led the Seminole into agreeing to the terms of relocation, although Seminoles would later claim to having been tricked into this agreement.<ref name=":0" />

Beginning in late 1835, Osceola and the Seminole allies began a [[Guerrilla warfare|guerrilla war]] against the U.S. forces.<ref name="Peters1979"/>{{rp|105–110}} Numerous generals fought and failed, succumbing to the heat and disease as well as lack of knowledge of the land. It was not until General [[Thomas Jesup]] captured many of the key Seminole chiefs, including Osceola who died in captivity of illness, that the battles began to die down.<ref name="Peters1979"/>{{rp|137–160}} The Seminoles were eventually forced to migrate. Florida joined the Union as the 27th state on March 3, 1845.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=005%2Fllsl005.db&recNum=779 |title="An Act for the admission of the States of Iowa and Florida into the Union" |access-date=March 30, 2021 |archive-date=June 19, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150619031820/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=005%2Fllsl005.db&recNum=779 |url-status=live }}</ref> By this time, almost all of the Seminoles were gone, except for a small group living in the [[Everglades]].

A referendum was held in 1837 about statehood with a majority voting in favor of it.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Moussalli |first=Stephanie D. |date=1995 |title=Florida Florida's Frontier Constitution: The Statehood, Banking & Slavery Controversies |url=https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4117&context=fhq |journal=Florida Historical Quarterly |type=PDF |volume=74 |issue=4 |access-date= |via=STARS @ UCF}}</ref>

=== Proposed boundary modifications ===
During the territorial period of Florida, it was proposed several times that the territory be either split or that parts of the territory be added to Alabama. Even after Tallahassee was chosen to be the capital because it was halfway between Pensacola and St. Augustine, there was still a feeling of disconnection between East and West Florida because those two cities, which were the two largest settlements when the United States acquired Florida, were {{Convert|400|mi|km}} by land and {{Convert|1,000|mi|km}} by water from each other.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Martin |first=Walter |date=1941 |title=The Proposed Division of the Territory of Florida |url=https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2066&context=fhq |journal=Florida Historical Quarterly |type=PDF |volume=20 |issue=3 |access-date= |via=STARS @ UCF}}</ref> 

On December 18, 1821, the Alabama state legislature passed a resolution asking the U.S. Congress to annex the portion of Florida west of the [[Apalachicola River]], but nothing materialized from the proposal. Florida's territorial delegate, [[Joseph Marion Hernández]], introduced a resolution on January 28, 1823, that Florida be split into two separate territories, but the resolution was defeated.<ref name=":2" /> 

In the late 1830s, the proposal to divide the territory picked up traction once again. In January 1839, a committee for the constitutional convention urged the U.S. Congress to consider the idea of Florida statehood, and later that month, a letter was received by Congress from Florida petitioning the Florida Territory be split, which confused Congress. On April 22, 1840, Congress received a petition from several hundred backers in St. Augustine asking to split the territory in two, with the Suwanee River being the dividing line between East and West Florida. Another proposal came from Pensacola that year proposing the Florida Territory west of the Suwannee River be annexed by Alabama. In the spring of 1840, a bill was introduced in Congress to divide the Florida Territory along the Suwannee River but was defeated. The failure of these attempts to split the territory helped lead to the conclusion among those wanting statehood that Florida must be admitted as a whole as a state or stay as a territory. A bill was introduced in 1845 in the US House to give statehood to East and West Florida but was later struck down by a vote of 123-77; instead Florida would be admitted as one state and the bill ended up passing in the end by a vote of 145-34.<ref name=":2" />