Amelia Island affair

The Embargo Act (1807) and the abolition of the American slave trade (1808) made Amelia Island, on the coast of northeastern Florida under Spanish rule, a resort for smugglers with sometimes as many as 150 ships in its harbor.

[1] In June, 1817, Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish adventurer styling himself the "Brigadier General of the United Provinces of New Granada and Venezuela, and General-in-Chief of the Armies of the Two Floridas",[2][3] came to Amelia Island.

A peripatetic military adventurer, MacGregor, purportedly commissioned by Simón Bolívar,[citation needed] had raised funds and troops for a full-scale invasion of Florida, but squandered much of the money on luxuries.

As word of his conduct in the South American independence wars reached the United States, many of the recruits in his invasion force deserted.

His followers were soon joined by Louis-Michel Aury, formerly associated with MacGregor in South American adventures,[4] and previously one of the leaders of a group of buccaneers on Galveston Island, Texas.