History of Florida

The history of Florida spans Indigenous societies, European colonization, U.S. territorial rule, statehood, and the region’s continuing social and economic transformation.

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Calusa: A powerful Indigenous society that inhabited southwestern Florida before and during early Spanish colonization. The Calusa built a complex coastal society before Spanish rule reshaped the peninsula.
First Seminole War: A conflict from 1817 to 1818 in which U.S. forces invaded Spanish Florida and fought Seminole and Black communities. The invasion accelerated Spain’s decision to transfer Florida to the United States.
Florida Territory: A U.S. organized territory that existed from 1822 until Florida became a state in 1845. Territorial government laid the political foundations for statehood.
St. Augustine, Florida: A city founded by Spain in 1565, widely recognized as the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in the contiguous United States. Its founding established a lasting Spanish presence in Florida.
Timucua: An Indigenous people who lived across much of northern Florida and southeastern Georgia at European contact. Timucua communities faced Spanish missions, disease, and colonial violence.
Indian Removal Act: A 1830 U.S. law that authorized the negotiation of Indigenous removal treaties from lands east of the Mississippi River. Federal removal policy drove the campaigns to expel Seminoles from Florida.
Florida in the American Civil War: Florida’s experience as a Confederate state from 1861 to 1865 and during the Union blockade and military campaigns. Secession and wartime disruption reshaped the state’s economy and political order.
Pensacola: A city on Florida’s Gulf Coast whose colonial history includes Spanish, French, British, and U.S. rule. Pensacola illustrates how imperial control varied across the peninsula.
Spanish Florida: The Spanish colonial territory in the southeastern part of North America, centered on Florida, from the sixteenth century onward. Spanish rule began in the sixteenth century and endured, with interruptions, for centuries.
Second Seminole War: A war from 1835 to 1842 between the United States and Seminole people resisting removal from Florida. This prolonged conflict was the central military struggle of territorial Florida.