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Spain. The deal was announced in October of 1764, under the Treaty of Fountainbleau, which had been secretly signed in 1762 (Huber 1971; see Connaway?s Provincial Archives, vol. V, document 75, page 281 for the Act of Acceptance of Louisiana by Charles III of Spain November
13,	1762).
In 1762, British and American colonial forces had captured Spanish Havana. Since this city formed the core of Spanish colonial power in North America, Spain immediately ceded a portion of her newly acquired colonies to Great Britain to regain Cuba. Spain retained the Isle d?Orleans and the Louisiana territories west of the East Pearl River".
British Settlements along the East Pearl River
On October 7, 1763, the King of England issued a royal proclamation that designated the boundaries of British Florida and divided the newly acquired southern territory into two provinces: East and West Florida (cf. Ware and Rhea 1982: xvi). The western boundary of British West Florida was set along the East Pearl River separating it from Spanish Louisiana. Thus began the role of the East Pearl as an International colonial boundary.
As soon as the British had received West Florida, they made the settlement, exploration and mapping of the area a military priority. The first British governor of West Florida, George Johnston, granted free tracts of land in West Florida to military officers and soldiers, as a reward for their service. British officers received 5,000 acres; captains 3,000 acres and soldiers 300 acres. At this time, the British government changed many of the Spanish and French names on the grants. Peter Chester, provincial British governor in 1773, pointed out,:
Those tracts which have been applied for since my arrival in the Province, have only been Granted to such persons as gave me the strongest assurances, in Council, of their intentions to Cultivate and Improve them, excepting such as have been granted in consequence of His Majesty?s Orders inn [sic] Council, and in consequence of His Proclamation of 1763, to reduced Officers who had served during the late War in North America. ? (Ware and Rea 1982:192).
Mapping the newly acquired territories was assigned primarily to George Gauld, the Surveyor for the British Government in West Florida (Ware and Rhea, 1982). When Gauld began
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