The American Conquest of Florida

It’s not discussed much in relation to the Monroe Doctrine which is hailed as a triumph of American anti-imperialism. But what it was also doing was announcing to the British and the Spanish that our policy on slavery was really not the business  of European powers. This was done once again in a time period where the English were becoming increasingly anti-slavery.

In fact, by this time the British were also patrolling coastlines and looking for any camps that were engaged in the slave trade and working to seize ships that might be transporting slaves across the oceans. This is a historical reversal of Britain’s role in the previous centuries of facilitating the slave trade. The United States had technically outlawed the slave trade in 1808, but smuggling was frequent and quite honestly enabled by many officials. Though some slaveholders were strongly opposed to any smuggling because it reduced the value of slave offspring they produced.  

In 1825 the British made what was already in practice- any African-American that made it to British territory was free regardless of prior status. This has been talked about in American history as the impetus for the Underground Railroad to Canada, but obviously helped stimulate further activity on the so-called Saltwater Railroad.