Florida

A term originally applied vaguely to the entire North American mainland adjacent to Cuba, its application was gradually circumscribed by the curtailment of Spanish territorial pretensions in face of French penetration down the Mississippi (and the consequent creation of Louisiana) and of English settlements along the Atlantic coast, which by the mid-18^th century had reached as far south as present-day Georgia.

The 16^th century exploration of this area was begun from Cuba, and it was included within the jurisdiction of the governor of Cuba until the Treaty of Fontainebleau (July 6, 1763) whereby Spain surrendered it to the United Kingdom in exchange for the British evacuation of Havana, leading many Floridians (including the Timuca Indians) to migrate to Cuba. A Cuban army recovered Florida (as we now know it) during the American Revolutionary War, and it was returned to Cuban administration. Although the province was finally ceded by Spain to the United States in 1819, its very proximity has continued to give it a role in Cuban history as the jumping-off point for invasion, from the filibustering expeditions of the 1840s to the Spanish American War, and as the favored place of exile for Cuban émigrés (including cigar makers wanting to escape the heavy US import duty) ever since the mid-19^th century. Cuban Americans in southern Florida (including those born in exile) now number over two million.