Pioneer Florida: The Beginning of Tampa

General Andrew Jackson was responsible for the failure of the first purposed community settlement of whites in the Tampa region. It came about in this way: General Gregor MacGregor, a Scotchman, who had been associated with Bolivar in the South American revolutions, conceived the idea of also liberating the Floridas from Spanish rule. In 1817, he collected a force recruited largely from adventurers hanging loose upon the society of the United States, made a descent upon the island of Amelia in northeast Florida and captured it in June, 1817. He held on for several months, when, his situation becoming precarious and foreseeing disaster, he abandoned the enterprise and decamped, to try again from another point