1832 Andrew Jackson - The Arredondo Grant

In Andrew Jackson's 1832 State of the Union Address, he reported to Congress that his request that the "archives of Florida" that had been carried to Cuba were to be produced and delivered to the United States.  What were in those archives?   That took a little digging.  What I found is that in the years before Spain ceded Florida to the United States, King Ferdinand of Spain gave away a significant portion of Florida land to his family.   These contracts which many argued should have been null and void according to past treaties were stored somewhere in Havana, Cuba.   Without the original copies, there was significant confusion over the boundaries, landmarks and stipulations, and to make matters worse, the U.S. government accused Ferdinand's descendants of forging the documents to get them validated in U.S. Courts. 

In 1819, under President James Monroe, the United States negotiated the Adams-Onís treaty allowing the United States to purchase all of the Florida's from Spain.  Much like the Louisiana purchase, the United States government felt bound to honor prior titles and grants.   Many of these were small farms, but some tracts of land included hundreds of thousands of acres.   Because of much prior confusion and fraud, Congress declared in 1804 that any grants made after 1800 were null and void.   After Florida was purchased, Congress in 1828 extended authority to Florida persons the right to request adjudication of all private lands involving grants of over 3,500 acres.   Under this act, a case could be brought before the District Courts in Florida.  130 such claims were eventually filed in East Florida covering almost 4 million acres of land.   One of these claims was for what is known as the Arredondo grant consisting of 289,645 acres.

The Arredondo grant was a massive land grant given by Ferdinand the King of Spain to Don Fernando de la Maza Arredondo.    In 1817 and 1818, he granted most of East Florida to two members of his court, the Duke of Alagon and the Count de Punonrostro and an additional grant of Florida to Don Pedro de Vargas making sure that Florida was now in private hands.  At the time, Monroe did not know the exact dates of the land grants, but he knew that they were made after the clause was added to the eighth article of the treaty which would make them "altogether nugatory".  Nevertheless, Fernando de la Maza Arredondo and son along with other grantees, filed a petition in the Superior Court of the Eastern District of Florida against the United State.   They claimed that their grant was valid and in accordance with the sixth section of an act passed by Congress in 1828 regarding the settlement and confirmation of private land claims in Florida.  Arredando and his son petitioned the United States for a tract of land consisting of 289,645 acres situated in the County of Alachua,   about 52 miles west of St. Augustine. miles west of the City of St. Augustine.  Richard K. Call represented the United States arguing that Arredondo and son did not meet the conditions of the grant which specified that 200 Spanish families had to be settled on the land within a period of three years. 

The case was difficult because it had to be based on copies of the original contracts that were written in Spanish.  There original grant was executed at Havana, Cuba in 1817.   In January of 1832, the court upheld the validity of the grant based on the stipulations of the treaty of 1819 and the laws of nations.  Even with the validity of the claim being accepted by the courts, resolving the actual grant of land was difficult because the underlying contracts was only a copy and was in Spanish.   There was significant argument over the many terms and locations within the grant.  Furthermore, the Jackson administration consented to the argument that the documents used as the basis of the court's decision were forged and appointed Brigaidier-General Richard K. Call to go to Havana Cuba to obtain the originals.  Richard Call, despite being assisted by Spanish officials was unable to find the originals in Havana.  This case and many others in Florida remained unresolved for years.  It wasn’t until 1900 that the Arredondo grant was finally resolved.   This was just one of 869 confirmed private land claims representing over 2.7 million acres of land. 

In Andrew Jackson's 1832 State of the Union Address, he reported to Congress that his request that the "archives of Florida" that had been carried to Cuba were to be produced and delivered to the United States was approved by royal order and execution was to begin.  Unfortunately, history proved that it wasn't going to be as easy as that.

"I have the satisfaction to inform you that the application I directed to be made for the delivery of a part of the archives of Florida, which had been carried to The Havannah, has produced a royal order for their delivery, and that measures have been taken to procure its execution."

In 1833, Jackson had to inform Congress that once again the papers were being delayed. This time due to a breakout of cholera at Havana. 

"The selection and preparation of the Florida archives for the purpose of being delivered over to the United States, in conformity with the royal order as mentioned in my last annual message, though in progress, has not yet been completed. This delay has been produced partly by causes which were unavoidable, particularly the prevalence of the cholera at Havana; but measures have been taken which it is believed will expedite the delivery of those important records."

References

Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2019). Fourth Annual Message | The American Presidency Project. [online] Available at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fourth-annual-message-3 [Accessed 8 Sep. 2019].

Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2019). FifthAnnual Message | The American Presidency Project. [online] Available at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fifth-annual-message-2 [Accessed 22 Jan. 2020].

Keuchel, Edward F., and Joe Knetsch. “Settlers, Bureaucrats, and Private Land Claims: The ‘Little Arredondo Grant.’” The Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 68, no. 2, 1989, pp. 201–217. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30148066.. [online] Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30148066 [Accessed 8 Sep. 2019].

Findlaw. (2019). FindLaw's United States Supreme Court case and opinions.. [online] Available at: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/31/691.html [Accessed 8 Sep. 2019].

Justia Law. (2019). United States v. Arredondo, 31 U.S. 691 (1832). [online] Available at: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/31/691/ [Accessed 8 Sep. 2019].