Historic Mobile Preservation Society: Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America’s Revolutionary Era with author Mike Bunn
Date/Time
Date(s) - June 9, 2022
6:00 pm
Location
Historical Mobile Preservation Society
Categories
Thursday June 9, 2022
6pm Historic Oakleigh House Museum
Tickets: $10, free for members
Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America’s Revolutionary Era with author Mike Bunn
The British colony of West Florida—which once stretched from the mighty Mississippi to the shallow bends of the Apalachicola and portions of what are now the states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana—is the forgotten fourteenth colony of America’s Revolutionary era. The colony’s eventful years as a part of the British Empire form an important and compelling interlude in Gulf Coast history that has for too long been overlooked. For a host of reasons, including the fact that West Florida did not rebel against the British government, the colony has long been dismissed as a loyal but inconsequential fringe outpost, if considered at all. But the colony’s history showcases a tumultuous political scene featuring a halting attempt at instituting representative government; a host of bold and colorful characters; a compelling saga of struggle and perseverance in the pursuit of financial stability; and a dramatic series of battles on land and water which brought about the end of its days under the Union Jack. In Fourteenth Colony, historian Mike Bunn offers the first comprehensive history of the colony, introducing readers to the Gulf Coast’s remarkable British period and putting West Florida back in its rightful place on the map of colonial America.
About the author: Mike Bunn currently serves as Director of Historic Blakeley State Park in Spanish Fort, Alabama. Previously, he directed the Historic Chattahoochee Commission (a bi-state agency operating in southeastern Alabama and southwestern Georgia), and worked as a curator with the Columbus (Georgia) Museum and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s Museum of Mississippi. He has also worked with the Birmingham Historical Society and the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society.