East Florida

East Florida was a colony of Great Britain from 1763–1783 and of Spain from 1783–1822. East Florida was established by the British colonial government in 1763; as its name implies it consisted of the eastern part of the region of Florida, with West Florida comprising the western parts. Its capital was St. Augustine, which had been the capital of Spanish Florida.

Britain formed East and West Florida out of territory it had received from Spain and France following the French and Indian War (the Seven Years' War). Finding its new acquisitions in the southeast too large to administer as a single unit, the British divided them into two colonies separated by the Apalachicola River. East Florida comprised the bulk of what had previously been the Spanish colony of Florida. Britain ceded both Floridas back to Spain following the American Revolutionary War, and Spain maintained them as separate colonies, though the majority of West Florida was gradually annexed by the United States. Spain ceded East Florida and the remainder of West Florida to the U.S. in the Adams-Onís Treaty; the United States organized them as a single unit, the Florida Territory.