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==History==
===British acquisition===
[[Image:West Florida Map 1767.jpg|thumb|right|British West Florida in [[1767]]]]
Great Britain came into possession of Pensacola, and the rest of Florida, as a result of the [[Wikipedia:Treaty of Paris (1763)|Treaty of Paris]] (1763), which ended the [[Wikipedia:French and Indian War|French and Indian War]], the North American component of the wider [[Wikipedia:Seven Years' War|Seven Years' War]]. Britain organized its new holdings into two territories: '''East Florida''', which comprised modern Florida east of the [[Wikipedia:Apalachicola River|Apalachicola River]], with its capital at Saint Augustine; and '''West Florida''', which comprised the portions of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida that laid south of the [[Wikipedia:31st parallel north|31st parallel]] and between the Mississippi and Apalachicola Rivers. In [[1764]], the British moved the northern boundary up to 32° 22′ north, absorbing the southern thirds of modern-day Mississippi and Alabama.
===Revolutionary War===
In the early 1770s, British colonists in North America began to rebel against Britain, eventually declaring their independence as the United States of America in 1775. Britain, determined not to lose its valuable colonies, attempted to regain them by force, initiating the [[Wikipedia:American Revolutionary War|American Revolutionary War]]. In [[1778]], hoping to undermine British world power, France entered the war on the side of the United States.
In [[1779]], France and Spain signed [[Wikipedia:Treaty of Aranjuez (1779)|Treaty of Aranjuez]]. Although Spain did not recognize the United States, it agreed under the terms of the treaty to aid France in its war against Britain.
===Spain takes Pensacola===
On [[March 9]], [[1781]], Spanish Field Marshal [[Bernardo de Gálvez]] began an amphibious siege of Pensacola. The siege lasted for two months before Gálvez took the town on [[May 8]]. Later that year, British forces under General Charles Cornwallis surrendered to American forces at [[Wikipedia:Siege of Yorktown|Yorktown]], essentially ending the land war, although British and French naval forces continued to battle at sea. The war officially ended with the [[Wikipedia:Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris]] ([[1783]]), at which time Britain ceded East and West Florida to Spain.
==Citizens==
