1800

1800: Florida's governor relies on black militias against an alliance of Seminole and Lower Creek attempting to create their own independent nation, raiding Florida plantations and killing and abducting slaves and settlers.

1801: Toussaint L'Ouverture successfully leads an invasion of the Spanish section of the island, Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic). He proclaims liberty for all slaves, establishes a constitution, and incurs the wrath of France, Spain and the United States.

1801: Napoleon Bonaparte dispatches an army of 34,000 to subdue the slave armies and retake the colony for France; this mission is unsuccessful. The leader of the army, Leclerc, has Toussaint L'Ouverture seized and deported to France. He dies within a year.

1802: Convention in Paris reintroduces slavery to Santo Domingo, which brings on more rebellions and massacres.

1803: Denmark abolishes the slave trade.

1804: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and his army of blacks and mulattos defeat the army sent by Napoleon Bonaparte to end the rebellion in Santo Domingo. He proclaims the first independent black republic of the world on the northern half of the island and calls it Haiti.

1805: The Tivoli Ballroom is built in Pensacola, Florida, to accommodate 200 people.

1806: Dessalines, unpopular with the mulattos, is assassinated. His death leads to civil war again between the south, under General Petion, and the north under Henry Christophe.

1807: Britain abolishes the slave trade.

1813: Andrew Jackson's troops fight against the Upper Creeks in Alabama in the Creek War of 1813-14. In the aftermath of defeat at the battle of Horseshoe Bend, many more Creek groups flee into Florida.

1817: Jackson turns his fury to Florida from 1817-1818, his troops and some highly acculturated Lower Creeks led by Chief William McIntosh mercilessly burn the crops and homes of Indians.

1817: France abolishes the slave trade.

1818: Holland abolishes the slave trade.

1820: Spain abolishes the slave trade

1820: Henry Christophe commits suicide by shooting himself with a silver bullet; a tyrannical ruler, he crowned himself "king", and built a palace and citadel at Cap Haitien at the cost of many lives. Haiti is taken over by General Boyer, and civil war ceased. Boyer obtained official Haitian independence from France at the price of 150 million French francs.

1821: The loss of Spain's American colonies and its on-going problems with the United States lead to the transfer of Florida to the United States.

1821: Florida is unified by a western boundary at the Perdido River and becomes an U.S. territory.

1821: The Sephardic father and son Moses Levy and David Levy-Yulee arrive intending to establish a plantation called New Pilgrimage, a refugee colony for Jewish families in the north central Florida interior.

1821: Episcopalians establish their American wing of the Anglican Church at St. Augustine in the year of cession from Spain

1821: Andrew Jackson Allen, one of the earliest performers in America, does a song-and-dance in blackface. He sings a "Negro dialect" song on the Pensacola stage in the drama The Battle of Champlain.

1822: A Pensacola concert in 1822 includes piano compositions by Hummel and Dussek, as well as songs from English composers Braham, Bishop, and Shield.

1824: Presbyterianism takes root at St. Augustine

1824: Sweden abolishes the slave trade.

1833: Slavery itself is finally abolished in the British colonies.

1825: Baptist ministers travel extensively in their ministry and quickly erect church buildings at Bethlehem in the Panhandle and at Newnansville.

1827: In Florida, the Jewish population numbers about forty people, less than one percent of the territorial population of 35,000.

1828: Scotch families from North Carolina introduce the Presbyterian Church to Florida at Euchee Valley in today's Walton County, where they build a log cabin church.

1829: The Episcopal Church begins worship in Pensacola when Christ Church, with a membership of twelve, is founded.

1830: Congress signs a bill for removal of all eastern Indians to the land west of the Mississippi.

1830: A painting by Seth Eastman shows the utilization of thatched roof architecture in the village of chief Arpeika.

1830: The First Presbyterian Church building is erected.

1831: Stephen Foster, writer of appealing love songs for the parlor and upbeat, foot-patting songs for minstrel shows, writes "Old Folks at Home."

1832: Some Seminole chiefs are coerced into signing the Treaty of Paynes Landing in which they agree to relocate their people to Indian Territory in a part of Arkansas that is now Oklahoma.

1833: Slavery is abolished in the West Indies.

1834: St. John's Episcopal parish church is founded as the first Episcopal Church in the New World.

1834: Slavery ends in the Bahaman Islands.

1835: On June 25, Queen Maria Cristina abolished the slave trade to Spanish colonies.

1835: The seven-year conflict known as the Second Seminole War begins

1836: Seminole leader Osceola kills General Wiley Thompson, superintendent of Seminole removal. Osceola's hatred of Thompson resulted from an incident when Thompson had Osceola put in irons and then confined.

1837: Osceola is captured under a white flag of truce and imprisoned at Ft. Moultrie in Charleston, S. Carolina.

1838: George Catlin paints the now famous portrait of Osceola in his finest attire shortly before he dies.

1842: The Second Seminole War ends without a treaty. Many Indian people are sent to Oklahoma along with their black friends and families.

1843: The townspeople of St. Joseph, on the Gulf coast, tired of hurricanes and yellow fever, and certain that God was punishing them for misbehaving, leave Florida for Texas.

1845: Florida enters the Union as the twenty-seventh state.

1848: Slavery is abolished in the French colonies.

1851: Steven Foster's song, "Old Folks at Home," is adopted as the official state song by the Florida state legislature.

1855: Florida physician, Dr. John Gorrie, the inventor of the first practical ice-making machine, dies.

1855: The Third Seminole War begins when Indians attack a survey party after some of the men steal bananas from Chief Bowlegs' camp.

1858: Bowlegs and most of the remaining people, weary of war, relent and are ultimately sent to Oklahoma.

1861: The Civil War begins.

1861: The new Florida Christian denominations, joined by the few surviving members of the Roman Catholic Church, try to justify the enslavement of the Florida's 60,000 African-Americans. The slavery issue, together with other regional claims, ends tragically on January 10. The independent "nation of Florida" withdraws from the American Union.

1861: In Pensacola the Army of the Confederate States of America takes Ft. Pickens.

1861: Company K of the Seventh Florida Infantry Regiment is composed of "Yankees, Crackers, Conchs, Englishmen, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Italians, Poles, Irishmen, Swedes, Chinese, Portuguese, and Brazilians... All [were] good Southern men

1863: African-Americans in Union-occupied areas became free citizens on New Year's Day with the Emancipation Proclamation.

1863: Slavery is abolished in the Dutch colonies.

1867: Puerto Rico has a population recorded as 346,437 whites and 309,891 "of color" (this category included blacks, mulattos and mestizos). The majority of Puerto Ricans lived in extreme poverty.

1868: On September 23, several hundred women and men revolted against Spain for Puerto Rican independence, the event took place in Lares and is better known as the Cry of Lares ("Grito de Lares").

1870: Josiah T. Walls serves as a state representative and senator and is Florida's first African-American in the U.S. House of Representatives. Jonathan Gibbs fills the office of secretary of state while fellow African-Americans throughout the state serve as member of city councils.

1873: Slavery is abolished in the Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico.

1874: The first synagogue is founded, Temple Beth-El at Pensacola.

1875: One observer places the number of tourists in the Sunshine State during the winter season at 33,000, and estimates their expenditures at $3 million.

1875: In Florida, forty-five factories employ 1,400 workers who roll about 15 million cigars each year.

1876: A School for African Americans is built in Tallahassee.

1877: Reconstruction ends and removal of federal troops begins the curtailment of the rights and freedoms exercised by African-Americans.

1880: Florida begins an accelerating flurry of railroad building.

1880: Slavery is abolished in Cuba.

1882: Temple Ahavath Chesed is founded at Jacksonville.

1882: The cigar industry in Tampa, Florida creates a unique, multicultural, multiracial urban area. Afro-Cubans, Cuban-born whites and white political exiles from Spain immigrate to work in the cigar factories.

1887: Eatonville is the first black incorporated municipality in Florida.

1890: Blacks from the Bahamas arrive on Florida's lower East Coast as an early migrant labor force for seasonal agricultural work.

1891: The railroad in Puerto Rico is inaugurated.

1892: Bahamians comprise a third of Key West, Florida's population.

1895: The Puerto Rican flag is first used on 22 December and adopted as a national symbol.

1896: Miami is chartered as a city.

1897: The Autonomic Charter ("Carta Autonomica") is approved in which Spain concedes political and administrative autonomy to Puerto Rico.

1898: U.S.S. Maine blows up in Havana Harbor. In February, 229 U.S. sailors die in a mysterious explosion that becomes the major pretext for war against Spain.

1898: U.S. declares war on Spain and U.S. forces defeat the Spanish in both the Caribbean and Pacific. Spain relinquishes control of Cuba, which becomes a de facto colony of the United States.

1899: On August 8, Hurricane Saint Ciriaco strikes Puerto Rico. It rains for 28 days straight with winds reaching speeds of 100 miles per hour. Approximately 3,400 people die in floods and thousands are left without shelter, food, or work. The sugar and coffee industry is devastated.