e parishes east of the Mississippi, was part of West Florida, and
was almost entirely settled by Americans when a Spanish province. Baton
Rouge, which takes its name from the flagstaff which stood in the
Spanish fort, and which was painted red, (_baton_ meaning stick, and
_rouge_, red, to Anglicize the name would make it red stick,) was the
seat of power for that part or portion of the province. Here was a
small Spanish garrison: on the opposite bank was Louisiana; New Orleans
was the natural market and outlet for the productions of these Florida
settlements.

When the cession of Louisiana to the United States occurred, these
American settlers, desirous of returning to American rule, were
restless, and united in their dissatisfaction with Spanish control.
They could devise no plan by which this could be effected. Their people
reached back from the river, along the thirty-first degree of north
latitude, far into the interior, and extended thence to the lake
border. On three sides they were encompassed by an American population
and an American government. They had carried with them into this
country all their American habits, and all their love for American laws
and American freedom; to the east they were separated by an immense
stretch of barren pine-woods from any other settlements upon Spanish
soil. Pensacola was the seat of governmental authority, and this was
too far away to extend the feeble arm of Spanish rule over these
people. They were pretty much without legal government, save such laws
and rule as had been by common consent established. These were all
American in character, and, to all intents, this was an American
settlement, almost in the midst of an American government, and yet
without the protection of that or any other government. It was evident
that at no distant day the Floridas must fall into the hands of the
American Government. But there was to these people an immediate
necessity for their doing so at once. They could not wait. But, what
could they do? Among these people were many adventurous and determined
men: they had mostly emigrated from the West--Tennessee, Kentucky,
Western Pennsylvania, and Virginia; and some were the descendants of
those who had gone to the country from the South, in 1777 and '8, to
avoid the consequences of the Revolutionary War. This class of men met
in council, and secretly determined to revolutionize the country, take
possession of the Spanish fort, and ask American prot