Taking Over Florida
Forging ahead with his plan to take over the territory, General Jackson set out in March of 1818 with some 2,000 men. It only took a few weeks, and Jackson was able to claim possession of the entire western region of Florida.
However, the political impact that would result would be far more intense. President Monroe, along with his Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, decided to blame the Spanish for the incident, citing the fact that they had violated the Pinckney Treaty by allowing the Seminoles to continue their attacks. The United States furthered pressed the issue by threatening to recognize and support the new nations forming in South America, the same nations that had been rebelling against the Spanish government. The Spanish government was truly in a bind, but wanted to see if it could get some sort of deal from the predicament. The Spanish representative in Washington at the time, Don Luis de Onis y Gonzalez, spent weeks trying to rectify the situation. The end result would be the Adams-Onis Treaty in 1819.