The Patriot War of 1812 was an attempt to foment a rebellion in Spanish East Florida with the intent of annexing the province to the United States. General George Mathews, commissioned by President James Madison, had been tasked with accepting any offer from local authorities to deliver any part of the Floridas to the United States and to prevent the reoccupation of the Floridas by Great Britain. The invasion and occupation of parts of East Florida had elements of filibustering but was also supported by units of the United States Army, Navy, and Marines and by militia from Georgia and Tennessee.
The rebellion was supported by the Patriot Army, which consisted primarily of citizens of Georgia. With the aid of U.S. Navy gunboats, the Patriot Army was able to occupy Fernandina and parts of northeast Florida. However, the Patriots never gathered enough strength to attack St. Augustine, the principal Spanish stronghold. United States Army troops and Marines were stationed in Florida in support of the Patriots during the conflict.
The occupation of parts of Florida lasted over a year, but ultimately proved unsuccessful. After United States military units were withdrawn and Seminoles entered the conflict, the Patriots dissolved. The effort to annex East Florida to the United States through this military action failed to achieve its objectives.
The early republic period saw the United States move from the weak Articles of Confederation to the federal Constitution ratified in 1788, with the Bill of Rights added in 1791. George Washington served two terms as president (1789–1797), establishing precedents for executive authority, and the federal capital moved permanently to Washington D.C. in 1800. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) doubled the nation's territory for roughly $15 million, opening vast trans-Mississippi lands to American expansion. The War of 1812 against Britain ended inconclusively but produced a surge of American national identity and eliminated most British support for Indigenous resistance east of the Mississippi. The Northwest Indian Wars (1785–1795) and the Creek War (1813–1814) broke Indigenous confederacies that had resisted US expansion. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 temporarily balanced slave and free states as the nation expanded westward, but embedded the contradiction of slavery in every subsequent territorial debate.
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