Florida War (Napoleonic Age)

The Florida War, also known as the First Spanish-American War and the Invasion of Florida, was a major conflict fought between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain from 1819 to 1820. The war was fought primarily in the Spanish colonial dominion of East Florida, though combats also occurred in Spanish Cuba, the State of Georgia, and across the Atlantic Ocean. Excluding the American Revolutionary War, it was the United States' first military victory against a foreign power.

The war had its roots in conflicting American and Spanish claims over the control of Florida. In the wake of the status quo agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States in the wake of the War of 1812, American citizens were eager to avoid open hostilities against the Spanish. However, these wishes were directly challenged after a Spanish frigate attacked and later sank a United States Navy schooner, killing most of its crew and eventually selling all but two survivors into slavery in Morocco. President Monroe immediately asked Congress to declare war. Early American victories were counteracted by the arrival of a Spanish expedition force in the autumn of 1819; further pitched battles between the US Army and Royal Army in both Florida and, by the end of the war, Cuba, coupled with various naval engagements and merchant-hunting campaigns across the Atlantic, forced Spain to the negotiating table to end an increasingly protracted, expensive, and bloody conflict.