Expeditionary
Spanish Florida Operations 1817-1818
The American response to two filibusters that turned Spanish Amelia Island into a pirate haven.
In 1817 the adventurer Gregor MacGregor seized Fernandina on Amelia Island, claiming to act for the South American revolutions; when he left, the privateer Luis Aury took over and ran the island as a base for piracy and smuggling on the very doorstep of the United States. President Monroe, citing the American interest in suppressing buccaneers operating from Spanish soil, authorized a joint Army-Navy intervention. The USS Saranac, carrying a Marine detachment, arrived off Amelia in September 1817 to watch Aury's regime, and in December a six-ship expedition under Commodore John D. Henley forced the island's surrender, the Marines taking part in the landing parties that occupied the fortifications. The bloodless operation removed a dangerous nest of pirates and foreshadowed the 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty that gave all of Florida to the United States.
Record no. 262