Spanish Territory In North America

Beginning in the sixteenth century, Spain colonized or claimed land in North American, which at one time included Mexico and what is now Florida, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the east of the Mississippi River, and Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and California to the west. Spain also occupied Puerto Rico, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), Cuba, and Jamaica, among other islands in the Caribbean. Spain claimed possession of the Louisiana Colony (which was variously comprised of the Mississippi Basin) from 1762 to 1800, through treaties with France. By the time the U.S. and Spain were negotiating in 1818, Louisiana had been handed back to France and sold to the United States. Although most of Spain's land claims in the East had been overwhelmed by British colonies, it held on to most of Florida until 1763, when it lost possession to England in the Treaty of Paris. Florida was returned to Spain in 1781 die to a military triumph, and it remained a Spanish colony until 1819.