Immigration laws and the Florida - Georgia border

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  • Concordia...41
    Grateful Member
    • Apr 2006
    • 6404

    Immigration laws and the Florida - Georgia border

    A local historian, Dr. Susan Parker, writes for the local paper, and IMHO she does a wonderful job of tying the past to the present.

    Today's piece is on Florida's tough immigration laws in the 1780's, which were designed to keep the pesky British Loyalists out of Spanish Florida, unless, of course, they wished to convert to Catholicism.

    By SUSAN R. PARKER

    Current problems and concerns about immigration are another chapter in centuries of the issue. In the late 1700s, Spain needed to attract immigrants into its American colonies -- including East Florida. The colony was thinly populated and residents were needed to farm and to protect the province.

    Spain had regained East Florida from Great Britain in 1784 at the end of the American Revolution. During the American Revolution persons who remained loyal to the British king evacuated from South Carolina and Georgia into then-British Florida. Many British loyalists departed East Florida as the Spanish returned.

    However, quite a few of these loyalists stayed on in Florida when the Spanish took over. The British loyalists expected that the newly organized United States would not survive as a nation. The loyalists wanted to be literally right on hand to take advantage when the new nation fell apart and Great Britain took back the former rebellious colonies.

    The loyalists living in Spanish Florida came up with plots to cause instability in the new states to speed up the reversion of the new states to Great Britain. The Spanish officials in Florida did not need troublemakers who might cause international incidents.
    In addition to the restive loyalists, Florida's Spanish officials were wary of non-Spanish who wanted to immigrate into Florida.

    Officials wanted families, not single people as new residents, and they had to be Roman Catholics. Permission to immigrate came from the governor of East Florida in St. Augustine. The governor had reasons to be cautious about who crossed the St. Mary's River, the international boundary between Spanish Florida and American Georgia.

    Those who wanted to move into Florida got around the restrictive immigration rules by appearing at the crossing point on the Florida-Georgia border with fabricated stories about fear of death at the hand of Creek Indians in Georgia. They asked for refuge in the Spanish Florida. After initial permission to enter the colony, the border official sent them to St. Augustine to report to the governor in Government House to request asylum. But many took advantage of the miles of woods between the St. Marys and St. Augustine, never reported to the governor, "melted into the countryside" and became illegal immigrants.

    Patrols and posses charged with routing out the illegal immigrants caused as much tumult and violence as the scofflaws did.

    Then, in 1790, the Spanish government eased immigration restrictions for many colonies, including East Florida. Homestead grants became available, which encouraged the arrival of new families into Florida. Immigrants were no longer required to be Catholics.

    There were fewer illegal immigrants because the laws had changed, but there were not fewer problems.
    Last edited by Concordia...41; 06-06-2010, 09:10 AM.
  • Captain Blight
    Banned
    • May 2008
    • 7648

    #2
    Re: Immigration laws and the Florida - Georgia border

    Thanks Margo, this should add some perspective.

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