The Other War of 1812: The Patriot War and the American Invasion of Spanish East Florida (review)

Historians have long treated the postrevolutionary Florida borderlands as a region characterized by uncertain boundaries, ongoing conflict, and flamboyant individuals. Standard accounts of this frontier, such as Frank L. Owsley, Jr.'s The Struggle for the Gulf Borderlands: The Creek War and the Battle of New Orleans, 1812-1815 (1981) and Rembert Patrick's Florida Fiasco: Rampant Rebels on the Georgia-Florida Border, 1810-1815 (1954), have highlighted the daring exploits of rugged individuals, ambitious soldiers, entrepreneurial provocateurs, and the occasional noble savage. Narrative in presentation and unequivocal in their approach, these accounts have depicted the setting, its peoples, and conflicts largely through a romantic or nationalistic lens; anarchy reigned until inept Spanish occupation gave way to U.S. hegemony in 1819.

The Other War of 1812: The Patriot War and the American Invasion of Spanish East Florida by James G. Cusick both replicates traditional approaches and incorporates more recent interpretive paradigms. From the outset, the author states that "much of the book is dedicated to narrative history" (8) and asserts that political, military, and diplomatic considerations are the focus of his work. Specifically, Cusick intends to retell and reevaluate the attempted seizure of Spanish East Florida between 1811 and 1814 by a motley band of local "Patriots." As the United States became entwined in warfare with its old rival, Great Britain, these predominantly Anglo-American Floridians enlisted the help of Georgia statesmen and militia as well as U.S. governmental officials and soldiers to expel Spaniards, Seminoles, and free blacks from St. Augustine and its hinterlands. Their expected and preferred end result would have been annexation of East, and perhaps West, Florida to the United States. The factors contributing to the failure of this plan compose the bulk of Cusick's account.

To his credit, the author attempts to situate the "Patriot War" in both a U.S. and global context without sacrificing the detailed, day-to-day concerns of local historians. Chapters on Madison's foreign policy, British-U.S. disputes, and congressional legislation are interspersed with evaluations of national and ethnic loyalties along the Georgia-Florida boundary, the existence and impact of free black communities in the region, and nuanced descriptions of dynamic, intercultural meeting places such as Fernandina. Policy decisions, legal questions, and diplomatic wrangling receive extensive treatment, as do troop movements, plantation economies, and personal altercations among and between the different groups and individuals vying for control. The book concludes with a chapter titled "The Patriot War and American History" that analyzes the consequences of the conflict on later Florida and U.S. development while offering insights that should prompt historians to reevaluate the region and traditional perspectives on its relevance to U.S. history as a whole.

Unlike previous evaluators of the region and conflict, Cusick attempts to incorporate the perspectives of nonelites to better validate his interpretations. Hardships endured by the long-suffering Minorcan population of East Florida are addressed along with perceptions of the standoff by eleven-year-old Paul Maestre and his sixteen-year-old brother Antonio, both of whom resided on a plantation north of St. Augustine. Cusick also addresses female participation, making it clear that on numerous occasions women stymied "Patriot" progress and proved instrumental in the insurgents' ultimate defeat. More fascinating, considering the relatively small amount of surviving sources pertaining to the event, are passages referring to Tony Proctor, a slave belonging to the local Panton-Leslie trading outfit. Widely known in the region for his ability to speak English, Spanish, Muskogee, and Mikasuki, Proctor used his skills as a translator to betray the "Patriots" and inform local Seminoles and Spanish officials of impending hostilities, later gaining his freedom as a result.

Other aspects of the work generate more questions than answers. On occasion, Cusick offers conclusions or assessments with little...