As our nation celebrates its 250th birthday, let us take a look back at the part Florida played in the Revolution. Spoiler Alert: We were on the wrong side.
Florida became part of the British Empire in 1763 as a result of the First Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years War. That war, which we called the French and Indian War, was a global war that Winston Churchill famously referred to “the first world war” because it was fought by almost every European nation on almost every continent.
Most of the Spanish living in the area left for Cuba. They were replaced by British settlers. James Grant was named as the first Colonial Governor of East Florida. Grant was known to the Colonials. He and George Washington had served in a British expedition to capture Pittsburgh. Grant was captured. Washington and others came to his rescue.
Gov. Grant built an indigo plantation in what is now Guana. Grant was replaced as governor in 1771, but maintained his plantation. Later, during the Revolution, a second plantation, Mount Pleasant, was built at the northern end of the property along Neck Road, that grew rice to feed British troops.
The ink was barely dry on the Declaration of Independence when General James Grant returned with William Howe to attack New York. At the Battle of Long Island, Grant launched a frontal attack while the rest of the British Army under the command of Clinton and Cornwallis swept around Washington’s flank to attack the Continentals from the rear. The battle was a disaster for our side. Only Providence and a regiment of fishermen from Marblehead, Massachusetts, averted a complete disaster.
Florida would remain staunchly loyal to the Crown throughout the revolution. Residents of the city burned effigies of Sam Adams and John Hancock in the same town square where we now hang Christmas lights. The population swelled. It became a haven for Loyalists fleeing Georgia and the Carolinas. In 1777, hundreds of indentured Minorcans rebelled in New Smyrna and headed North to St. Augustine.
The Castillo, now renamed Fort St. Mark, was an important garrison and supply base for the British. They also used it as a prison, a prison that held hundreds of captured revolutionaries, including three signers of the Declaration of Independence: Thomas Heyward, Jr., Arthur Middleton and Edward Rutledge. South Carolina Lt. Gov. Christopher Gadsden was held in solitary confinement for 42 weeks. Gadsden designed the “Gadsden Flag” with its famous motto “Don’t Tread on Me.” You still see them displayed today.
Initially, the Thirteen Colonies had reached out to Florida to invite it to join as the 14th colony in rebellion. Florida refused. St. Augustine raised a loyalist regiment during the war called the East Florida Rangers, commanded by a man named Thomas Brown. The 130 men were paid one shilling a day for their service but had to provide their own horses. George Washington coveted Florida and authorized five attempts to capture St. Augustine. Only three were actually attempted.
The first, in August of 1776, under the command of General Charles Lee and General Robert Howe marched south from Savannah. The 2,500-man invasion force dissolved as a result of desertion and lack of food due to poor planning. Before they even got to the Florida border, Charles Lee was recalled by Washington to join the Army in New York. He was captured along the way by the British at Mrs. White’s Tavern in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, and held for 16 months.
Robert Howe became commander of the Department of the South and would later serve as the senior officer at the trial of Major John Andre for his part in Benedict Arnold’s plot to betray West Point to the British. Andre was sentenced to death and hanged. That hanging was partially a reprisal for the earlier hanging of Continental spy Nathan Hale, who famously declared that his only regret was he had “but one life to lose for my country.”
By 1777, the East Florida Rangers led by Thomas Brown were raiding southern Georgia on a regular basis, stealing cattle and horses. Robert Howe sent a second expedition south to capture St. Augustine and secure our fledgling nation’s southern border. This expedition made it across the St. Mary’s River only to be ambushed by the East Florida Rangers and their native American allies at the Battle of Thomas Creek, also called the “Massacre at Thomas Creek.” That battle was fought in Duval County, southeast of present-day Callahan.
Despite that setback, General Howe planned another attack in early 1778. Brown and his East Florida Rangers got wind of the plan and executed a surprise attack on the opposing troops as they gathered at Fort Barrington on the Altamaha River in Georgia leading to their surrender and ending the invasion before it could begin.
That summer, the continentals launched their final and most serious effort to capture St. Augustine. On June 30, 1778, the two forces collided near Callahan at the Battle of Alligator Creek Bridge. It was the biggest battle of the war fought in our state and the most appropriately named. Initially, the Continentals drove the East Florida Rangers back into a large unit of British regulars. Surviving Americans escaped into the swamps.
Thomas Brown, who caused our side so much trouble, was a refugee from Georgia who had good reason to hate the rebel patriots. His lands in Georgia had been seized. He had been tied to a tree and beaten by local Sons of Liberty. They fractured his skull with a rifle butt, partially scalped him, covered him in boiling hot tar and feathers and paraded him through Augusta. He lost two toes as a result of the tar and suffered from lifelong headaches. It is amazing he survived at all.
After the British captured Savannah in 1779 there were no more rebels for Brown to fight. He relocated to North Carolina to form a new Regiment, the Kings (Carolina) Rangers so that he could continue to wage war on the Patriots who had taken his land and tortured him. He was captured in 1781 and paroled to St. Augustine.
After the war, Florida was returned to the Spanish as part of a different Treaty of Paris, one that remains unnumbered. This 1783 treaty ended the revolution. France and Spain had entered the war on our side. As always land changed hands. Spain got Florida. Britain got the Bahamas. Most of the British settlers, who had staunchly supported the crown, left for the Bahamas. Thomas Brown went with them.
Scott A. Grant is a local author and historian. He welcomes your comments at scottg@standfastic.com
