The pretexts used to justify intervention that the U.S. “These Florida incidents furnish the first instances of the enunciation of certain peculiar arguments to justify the United States in possessing itself of choice bits of territory here and there, arguments which have been used with great and continued effect in relation to Texas, Mexico, Hawaii, and Cuba.” 2 expansionist record, setting forth arguments, ideas, and procedure for over two centuries of covert interventionist policy. These filibustering operations were some of the first on the U.S. covert operations to illegally seize West and East Florida from Spain. They ignore that the debate began with an unsubstantiated interpretation of the Louisiana Purchase, proceeded along with bribery, coercion, and threat, and was concluded with aggressive force. and Spain regarding ownership of the territory following the Louisiana Purchase. By mere omission, historians and cartographers generally ignore the heated debate between the U.S. In fact, most maps of the Louisiana Purchase unquestionably include West Florida as if there was never even serious controversy over its ownership. This is because most traditional historians have accepted the argument put forth by powerful men - Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and Robert Livingston – that West Florida was included in the territory that France ceded to the U.S. While most of us learn about the Louisiana Purchase in grade school, very few Americans are even aware of the West Florida annexation scheme. attempts to annex East and West Florida in the first two decades of the 19th century. “The persistent desire of the United States to possess the Floridas, between 18, amounted almost to a disease, corrupting the moral sense of each succeeding administration.” 1
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