America's Forgotten 14th Colony

June 5, 2021 8:46am

Podcast link: www.TheMikeBatesShow.com/podcasts/210605

During the Revolutionary War, how many British colonies were in what is now the United States? Thirteen? No!

On today's radio program, I interviewed Mike Bunn, the author of "Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America's Revolutionary Era."

His book describes the role of Florida's Gulf Coast during the American Revolution. And that colony of British West Florida, with its capitol in Pensacola, extended from the Apalachicola River all the way to the Mississippi River. So it included parts of what are now four states: Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Its northern boundary was well north of Florida's modern-day border. It extended up the Chattahoochee as far as what is now the Alabama side of Fort Benning (just south of Columbus, Georgia) and up the Mississippi as far as what is now Vicksburg. It included what are now Baton Rouge (LA), Jackson (MS), and Montgomery (AL).

That's a lot of land! Yet almost nobody knows about it (including me until I read the book). How could the history of such vast real estate go unknown among most Americans for so long?

Mike Bunn shared that fascinating history on The Mike Bates Show today. That episode is now available online as a podcast at www.TheMikeBatesShow.com/podcasts/210605