The Patriot War was an armed conflict between United States forces and Spain in the Spanish colony of East Florida, beginning in 1811 and continuing, with decreasing support on the American side, until 1814. It preceded and bled into the War of 1812.
The war's origins are with a secret act by the United States congress authorizing General George Matthews and Colonel John McKee to raise a fighting force of American citizens as well as sympathizers in East Florida, known as "Patriots", and seize and occupy the colony. The Patriots, aided by the United States Navy, took the border town of FernandinaonAmelia Island on March 17, 1812 and ceded them to the United States.
The conflict was a major disruption in Spanish-American relations and an early example of forceful American expansionism. Though the United States failed to take East Florida by force, the Patriot War destabilized Spanish control in the colony and precipitated the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty, in which the United States finally acquired both Floridas while relinquishing its claims to Spanish Texas.
