George Washington's West Florida Dream: When British Policy Got Personal
When we picture George Washington before the American Revolution, we may imagine the Virginia planter, surveyor, veteran of the French and Indian War, or future commander of the Continental Army.
There is another Washington worth knowing.
George Washington was a land speculator.
Land represented wealth, opportunity, status, and investment in eighteenth-century America, and Washington spent much of his adult life acquiring it. By the years immediately preceding the Revolution, his ambitions had carried his attention surprisingly close to home for residents of Northwest Florida.
In 1773, Washington wanted land in British West Florida.
Not a small parcel, either.
He initially contemplated acquiring approximately 10,000 acres. If particularly desirable land could be obtained, Washington authorized his agent to increase that amount—to 15,000, 20,000, or even 25,000 acres. He especially wanted valuable land associated with the Mississippi River. Emerging Revolutionary War Era
It was an ambitious investment.
And it failed.
What makes the episode particularly interesting for the story of the American Revolution is Washington's reaction. The British official he blamed for obstructing his plans was Lord Hillsborough, a powerful figure in Britain's administration of its American colonies.
Washington's private frustration became remarkably personal.
A Soldier's Expectation of Land
Washington's interest in western land did not begin with West Florida.
During the French and Indian War, land had been used as an incentive for military service. Virginia Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie promised 200,000 acres to officers and soldiers who served in the Virginia Regiment.
Then came the Royal Proclamation of 1763.
Following Britain's victory over France, the Crown attempted to restrict colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains, partly to reduce conflict with Native nations. For colonists and investors who saw western land as their future, the policy created enormous frustration. Library of Congress
Washington was among them.
He did not regard the restriction as permanent.
Writing privately to surveyor William Crawford in 1767, Washington said he considered the proclamation merely a temporary measure intended to quiet Native resistance. He encouraged Crawford to search discreetly for desirable western lands so that Washington could position himself to claim them when circumstances changed.
His purpose was not particularly subtle.
Washington wrote that his plan was "to secure a good deal of Land." Library of Congress
That was precisely what he proceeded to do.
Washington eventually acquired tens of thousands of acres of western land. A Library of Congress history of his land speculation notes that of 64,071 acres apportioned on one 1774 map of Virginia Regiment bounty lands, 19,383 acres—about 30 percent—were patented in Washington's name. Library of Congress
Land speculation was not a side interest.
It was serious business.
Looking South to West Florida
Washington's better-known land ventures focused on the Ohio and Kanawha valleys, but in 1773 his attention also turned south.
At the time, West Florida was British territory.
Britain had acquired Florida from Spain following the Seven Years' War in 1763 and divided the territory into East and West Florida. British West Florida included Pensacola and stretched westward toward the Mississippi River.
That made it potentially attractive to investors.
On March 13, 1773, Washington wrote to James Wood, who was traveling to West Florida. Washington wanted Wood to investigate whether military land rights could be used there.
Washington was selective.
He wasn't interested in obtaining acreage simply for the sake of owning it. He wanted valuable land, preferably associated with the Mississippi River.
Initially, he contemplated approximately 10,000 acres.
Then his appetite grew.
On March 30, Washington instructed Wood that if exceptionally promising land were available, he could increase Washington's proposed acquisition to 15,000, 20,000 or even 25,000 acres. Emerging Revolutionary War Era
Washington was thinking like an investor.
He wanted land that might increase substantially in value as settlement expanded.
Then Came the Bad News
Wood traveled to West Florida and investigated the possibilities.
What he learned was not what Washington wanted to hear.
Peter Chester, the British governor of West Florida, informed Wood of an interpretation attributed to Lord Hillsborough: provincial officers who had served during the French and Indian War were not included among those entitled to receive the military land grants Washington hoped to claim in West Florida.
That distinction mattered enormously.
Washington had served as an officer of the Virginia Regiment, not as a regular officer in the British Army.
Under the interpretation conveyed to Wood, his service did not give him the right to the West Florida grant he was seeking.
The prospective investment collapsed. Emerging Revolutionary War Era
Washington was furious.
"Malignant Disposition to Americans"
Washington's reaction gives us an unusually personal glimpse into the growing divide between Britain and some of its American colonists.
He directed much of his anger toward Hillsborough.
In one letter, Washington accused him of possessing a "Malignant disposition to American's" and of acting with unjustifiable partiality. Emerging Revolutionary War Era
That language is striking.
This was not yet General Washington commanding an army against Britain.
This was George Washington the Virginia planter, veteran, businessman, and land investor confronting a British imperial system that he believed was treating Americans unfairly.
And this wasn't Washington's first disappointment involving British land policy.
He had already watched the Crown restrict western settlement through the Proclamation of 1763. He had struggled for years to secure land promised to Virginia veterans. He had participated in the Mississippi Land Company, which sought an enormous British grant in the Mississippi and Ohio country but never received it. Mount Vernon's historians describe that unsuccessful enterprise as contributing to Washington's growing hostility toward the British government as the imperial crisis deepened. Mount Vernon
Now West Florida had presented another opportunity.
And another British policy stood in his way.
Was This Why Washington Became a Revolutionary?
It would make a wonderful story:
Britain denied George Washington thousands of acres in West Florida, Washington became angry, and a future revolutionary was born.
History is rarely that simple.
There is no good evidence that the failed West Florida venture by itself transformed Washington into an opponent of British rule.
By the early 1770s, the relationship between Britain and its American colonies was deteriorating for many reasons—taxation, representation, parliamentary authority, trade restrictions, western settlement and questions over the constitutional rights of colonists among them.
Washington's political thinking developed within that much larger crisis.
But land should not be left out of the story.
The Library of Congress describes Washington as pursuing western lands vigorously and sometimes aggressively. Mount Vernon identifies his unsuccessful speculative ventures and British restrictions on western expansion as part of the environment in which his hostility toward British policy grew. Library of Congress
And Washington's own words demonstrate that the issue was personal.
British policy wasn't merely something being debated in Parliament.
It affected his pocketbook.
It interfered with investments he believed he had earned the right to make.
And it restricted something Washington valued enormously: land.
Whose Land Was It?
There is another side of this story that deserves attention.
The lands coveted by Washington and other colonial speculators were not simply empty wilderness waiting for Europeans to claim them.
Native peoples already lived throughout these regions.
Washington's own correspondence reveals the assumptions underlying colonial expansion. He regarded the restrictions imposed by the Proclamation of 1763 as temporary and anticipated that Native-held western lands would eventually become available for colonial settlement. Library of Congress
The Mississippi Land Company, in which Washington participated, sought an extraordinary 2.5-million-acre grant. Its investors proposed establishing hundreds of families on the land and building forts to protect the settlement. Mount Vernon
From the investors' perspective, this represented opportunity and expansion.
From the perspective of Native nations already occupying those lands, it meant something very different.
That tension would not disappear with American independence.
It would intensify.
A Different Road to Revolution
Washington never obtained the West Florida estate he envisioned.
Within two years, however, land speculation would become the least of his concerns.
In June 1775, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington commander in chief of the Continental Army.
The Virginia planter who had once served the British Crown was preparing to lead an army against it.
His failed West Florida investment did not cause the American Revolution.
Nor can we say that it alone caused Washington to embrace independence.
But it reveals something important about the Road to Revolution.
Revolutions are not experienced only through great political principles.
They are experienced personally.
For Washington, disputes with British authority involved constitutional rights and political power—but they also touched his military service, his expectations, his ambitions, and his economic future.
And for a brief period on the eve of the American Revolution, part of that future was supposed to lie in British West Florida.
It never did.
Sources and Further Reading
The Library of Congress provides an excellent overview of George Washington as a land speculator, including his pursuit of military bounty lands and his private correspondence with William Crawford. Library of Congress
George Washington's Mount Vernon documents both the Mississippi Land Company and Washington's broader involvement in western land speculation. Mount Vernon
The West Florida episode and Washington's surviving correspondence with James Wood are examined in George Washington's Land Interest in British West Florida, 1773–1774. Because that article advances an interpretation about the episode's contribution to Washington's revolutionary outlook, I have treated that conclusion as an interpretation rather than an established cause of Washington's political transformation.