Abstract
It was a stifling hot day in July of 1821 but the inhabitants of Pensacola, Florida, and hundreds of recently arrived newcomers were all jammed into the town’s central plaza. This was to be an important day in the lives of the people of Florida, for at ten o’clock in the morning the gaunt gray figure of Andrew Jackson would stalk from the governor’s residence and cross the plaza to the government house where the ceremonies marking the transfer of the Floridas from Spain to the United States would be completed. As he sat in the governor’s residence eating breakfast with his wife Rachel and the members of his staff, the old soldier may well have thought back to other days in Pensacola - for this was not the first time he had entered the ancient city. Twice in the previous seven years Jackson had led conquering armies into Spain’s feeble North American outpost. Yet each of those earlier visits had been followed by the restoration of Spanish sovereignty, and this time Jackson was present for the purpose of terminating that sovereignty.
Recommended Citation
Doherty, Jr., Herbert J.
(1954)
"The Governorship of Andrew Jackson,"
Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 33:
No.
1, Article 4.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol33/iss1/4
