Welcome to DNA Ancestor Communities! Here you can learn about your own ancestry as well as explore wide-ranging topics such as genetics, genealogy, and world history. We have ten DNA Ancestry forums, including several found nowhere else, such as Melungeon, Romani, and Cherokee. You may read any posts in any forum but to reply or start a new thread you must register. Please click at the top right corner to register or log in.

If you're not sure where to start, register, choose a forum, and jump in. DNA Ancestor Communities is for everyone, from novice to expert. Our experienced moderators will be happy to guide you during your search for answers and information, and of course everyone likes to hear personal stories. Come on in!

Story of West FL Rebellion

Moderators: dpyates, jakayj, suelevin1, dnacommunities, teresapy, D J Thornton

D J Thornton
Posts: 321
Joined: Sat Aug 01, 2015 3:58 am

Story of West FL Rebellion

Postby D J Thornton » Thu Nov 09, 2017 3:51 pm

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/G ... /home.html

THE STORY OF THE WEST FLORIDA REBELLION
BY
STANLEY CLISBY ARTHUR

Some of the tribes.. Tunica and .Houma and Village of Bayou Sara and landowners



P25...
When the petitioners filed out of Sam Fulton's house, July 8, they had named their five delegates to the convention called for by the planters of Feliciana. Those who were to represent the Baton Rouge district were: Philip Hicky, Thomas Lilley, John Morgan, Manuel Lopez, and Edmund Hawes.

ALCALDE SHEPHERD BROWN

The convention idea was not welcomed by everyone in West Florida. The commandant and alcalde in the Ste. Helena district, Shepherd Brown by name,4 was one of the objectors. He had been receiving rumors of the movement and the desire "for a new order of things" which included the taking over of the reins of government, therefore he was, to say the least, astounded to receive from the governor a written permit to allow the inhabitants of Ste. Helena and Chifoncté to meet and select delegates. Suspicioning that de Lassus had been forced to issue the permits because he was not strong enough to forbid such gatherings or to punish those behind the movement, Brown sent one of his trusted lieutenants, Joseph Thomas, to Baton Rouge to learn from the governor's own lips whether or not he had voluntarily issued the permits or whether they had been extorted.

If the governor was not acting on his "own free will and his course was designed to preserve intact this part of the kingdom and of our loved and worthy sovereign, Don Ferdinand VII, and to sustain his government and wise laws," and the right to meet in convention assembled "had been extorted by fear," then Shepherd Brown declared that the Ste. Helena district which he commanded did not desire a change of any kind, and, if the governor needed help, he, Brown, "could muster in a few hours more than five hundred men ready and willing to sacrifice their lives for the honour of the Spanish flag, and who would obey his word!"

The author of these bombastic words was an American-born individual who settled in the West Florida section soon after John McDonough arrived in Louisiana to begin his work of amassing a fortune in the New Orleans trade and in cypress swamps along the Iberville, Amite and Comite rivers. In this latter endeavor McDonough was ably assisted by his confidential agent in West Florida, Shepherd Brown. It was Brown who greased Spanish palms to secure these "worthless" lands for the notorious spendthrift of the Crescent City. No small wonder then that Shepherd Brown did not look with friendly eye on any move for any kind of government.

The governor reassured Brown's messenger, wrote the alcalde of Ste. Helena, that he had not been "forced" to permit the meeting, that all who had asked to hold them had done "so with proper respect", that he believed the people not only well disposed towards him but to Spain and their sovereign Ferdinand, and the "real meaning of the coming convention is merely an endeavor on the part of the inhabitants to prove p43 their loyalty to Spain." Which either means de Lassus was a fool, or that he was ready to make a corrupt bargain with the leaders, or that he was craftily playing for time to recruit a sufficiently large force to crush the revolt at one paralyzing blow. Events seem to prove the third suspicion.

Reassured that the governor was not acting under force, Brown issued the call in his district for popular gatherings to elect delegates to the greatly feared convention. As it would be impossible to secure one convenient common meeting place, he divided it into three sections (Ste. Helena at that time took in what is now that parish and Livingston, bounded on the west by the Tickfaw and on the east by the "Chifoncté"), two delegates to be chosen from one section, and one from each of the remaining two precincts. Those "elected" were Joseph Thomas, Shepherd Brown's trusted and confidential lieutenant; John W. Leonard, son of Don Gilberto de Leonardo5 (the father served under de Lassus as Ministro Interventor y Tesorero, which means he was the comptroller and treasurer, but when Don Gilberto left the Emerald Isle he was plain Gilbert Leonard and, even when he learned to speak Spanish, he spoke it with a thick Irish brogue); William Spiller and Benjamin O. Williams were the two selected from the outlying precincts of St. Helena. The Chifoncté, or Tanchipaho region sent one delegate only, he was William Cooper, a former "North Carolina Tory" now an adherent of Shepherd Brown.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/G ... FR/1*.html

D J Thornton
Posts: 321
Joined: Sat Aug 01, 2015 3:58 am

Re: Story of West FL Rebellion, William Cooper

Postby D J Thornton » Thu Nov 09, 2017 4:21 pm

Other Spanish loyalists proved more decisive. The delegate from the Chifoncte district, William Cooper, secretly wrote the Spanish governor, Vincente Folch, at Pensacola. In the letter Cooper explained that the convention was actually a front to foment rebellion engineered by a minority of planters in the Feliciana district. Cooper urged Folch to personally lead a force of troops to the district and restore the authority of the Spanish crown. He further advised that he, along with prominent planter Michael Jones and others, was rallying troops and constructing fortifications to support Folch when he arrived.
http://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/west-florida-revolt

D J Thornton
Posts: 321
Joined: Sat Aug 01, 2015 3:58 am

Re: Story of West FL Rebellion

Postby D J Thornton » Thu Nov 09, 2017 4:35 pm

More about with Maps

https://libcom.org/history/1810-west-fl ... n-scheme-0

The 1810 West Florida Annexation Scheme
Historian Adam Wasserman's account of the West Florida annexation plot of 1810, a U.S. imperialist covert operation designed to wrest control of West Florida from Spain.
........
Spanish officials absolutely refused to hand over an inch of West Florida on any terms. On the other hand, U.S. officials hoped to delay conclusive negotiations with Spain. They considered the U.S. acquisition of Florida so inevitable that it was only a matter of time. West and East Florida was necessary would complete the “rounding out of American dominions.” Yet it was the intervention of the U.S. government, not time, that caused the annexation of West Florida. On February 24, 1804, Thomas Jefferson signed the “Mobile Act,” which enacted the claim that West Florida was included in the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson backtracked when the Spanish angrily protested, hoping to avoid a costly war, but affirmed that the “voluntary action of its inhabitants” would eventually scheme possession of West Florida anyways. Jefferson had insisted: “However much we may compromise on our western limits, we neve


http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMNE ... Slidell_LA
1810 West Florida Rebellion -- Slidell LA
in Political Revolutions
Posted by:

 Benchmark Blasterz

N 30° 17.940 W 089° 42.725
16R E 239165 N 3355033
Quick Description: In 1810, Louisiana's Florida parishes rebelled against the Spanish government and declared independence, which lasted for a short 76 days.
Location: Louisiana, United States
Date Posted: 2/27/2015 8:31:51 AM
Waymark Code: WMNEBB

Governments of West FL
http://www.emersonkent.com/governments_ ... lorida.htm


Republic of West FL
http://www.emersonkent.com/governments_ ... lorida.htm

Revolt of West FL
http://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/west-florida-revolt


Return to “Native American”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 22 guests