[3] Tensions had been growing between the Spanish and the British after James Moore, the governor of Carolina, invaded La Florida in 1704 and 1706.

Governor Montiano wrote that forts Picalata [sic] and Pupo "were constructed solely for the purpose of defending and sheltering from the continual attacks of Indian allies of the English, the mails that go to and come from Apalachee.

"[7] When the British acquired Florida after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, they soon recognized the value of Fort Picolata as part of the defenses of St. Augustine, and continued to maintain a garrison there as the Spanish had done.

[8] The first Picolata Conference, held November 15–18, 1765, between British officials and a delegation of Lower Creek and Seminole leaders, was organized by John Stuart, Indian superintendent of the Southern Department,[9] and summoned by Governor James Grant, to negotiate the boundaries between Indian and British lands.

[10][11][12] A treaty was signed at the congress, by which the Indians ceded over two million acres of land in northeast Florida to the British, stretching thirty-five miles from the coast westward past the St. Johns, and including all the tidewater land on the rest of the peninsula, extending up to ten miles inland from the coast.