An excerpt from my new book which has been released today in Kindle, Paperback and Hardcover formats

It’s also worth noting that since the US banned the importation of new slaves in 1808, Ameila Island had become a critical cog in the smugglers network to bring new slaves from Africa or the West Indies into the United States. While the US attempts to conquer Florida were certainly about extending slavery, we cannot be sure if the efforts to secure control over Ameila Island had anything to do with the illegal slave trade flourishing there at the time. 

By this point the British Empire was finding itself consumed by public opinion that was rapidly turning against slavery. Thus British patrol boats often wandered the waters near known smuggling ports like Fernandina to prevent the slave trade from going on. 

In addition the presence of free blacks in St Augustine, often armed a legacy of past Spanish and British rule, was terrifying to the American slave holders. 

US forces plunder the East Florida hinterland

The so-called Patriots along with a regiment of regular US army troops (who could have been useful in a declared war against Britain rather than an illegal action against Spain) and Georgia militia moved south and west into the East Florida hinterland. 

Along the way they plundered settlements and plantations, stealing crops, killing livestock to feed themselves and allowing their horses to forage the countryside eating whatever grew and couldn’t be stolen. 

 The plundering of the area led to a depopulation of Northeast Florida along the St Johns River. Once the Patriots were done ravaging the area, virtually no settlements existed between Fernandina and St Augustine. 

Kingsley’s Plantations between St Augustine and Fernandina prior to the Patriots War

One of the destroyed plantations, Zephaniah Kinglsey’s Laurel Grove Plantation, turned its proprietor, a significant figure in this period of Florida’s history against the United States efforts in Florida. Kingsley is a conflicting figure, on one hand a typical white American slave trader and plantation owner but on the other someone interested in creole culture and race relations. He also tended to be more humane in his treatment of slaves (this is of course a relative term) when compared to other southerners. He also took a former slave he had purchased as a wife.