When the British evacuated Florida, Spanish colonists as well as
settlers from the newly formed United States came pouring in.
Many of the new residents were lured by favorable Spanish terms
for acquiring property, called land grants. Others who came were
escaped slaves, trying to reach a place where their U.S. masters
had no authority and effectively could not reach them. Instead
of becoming more Spanish, Florida increasingly became more
"American." Finally, after several official and unofficial U.S.
military expeditions into the territory, Spain formally ceded
Florida to the United States in 1821, according to terms of the
Adams-On's On one of those military operations, in 1818, General
Andrew Jackson made a foray into Florida. Jackson's battles with
Florida's Indian people later would be called the First Seminole
War. Andrew Jackson returned to Florida in 1821 to establish a
new territorial government on behalf of the United States. What
the U.S. inherited was a wilderness sparsely dotted with
settlements