Standing Up to the English, the Spanish, and the French

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The state of Florida, in which I presently reside, became the 27th U.S. state on March 3. 1845. However, first, it had several different countries claiming it as their own. In 1513 Juan Ponce de Leon claimed Florida for Spain. Then came the French who build Fort Caroline near the mouth of the St. Johns River in 1564. Of course, the Spanish were not pleased and they destroyed this fort a year later. Then Leon founded what is today known as the oldest continuously settled city in the U.S. – St. Augustine. Along came the English and once they got to Florida in the 1700s they attacked St. Augustine. So the result was that suddenly the English, the Spanish, and the French were fighting with each other in different parts of the world to gain more territory in their colonies. It became known as both the Seven Years War and the French and Indian War. The Treaty of Paris was signed by the English, French, and Spanish in 1763 and England gained the Florida Territory. Later on, this territory was returned to Spain and it had no definite boundaries. When the newly forming U.S. made the Louisiana Purchase from France Florida was still a territory with no boundaries. This began boundary disputes and American settlers chose to take matters in their own hands and fight the Spanish. In 1819 Spain finally agreed to give up the Florida Territory and signed the Adams-Onis Treaty. Now that Florida could be admitted to the Union more settlers arrived and established Tallahassee as the capital. However, I feel that there have been setbacks lately. Quite often I have to call institutions or companies or they call me for certain reasons and I am trying to understand heavily accented Spanish. In fact, since Hola is the word for hello in Spanish I find myself answering the phone with this word just hoping the person on the other end can speak English. I know some of you also live in Florida so who lives in Florida or who has visited this state?