Driving Onto Amelia Island To Downtown Fernandina, Florida

Driving Over The Bridge Onto Amelia Island To Downtown Fernandina, Florida
Amelia Island is an island in Nassau County, Florida. One of the southernmost of the Sea Islands, a chain of barrier islands stretching along the east coast of the United States from South Carolina to Florida, it is 13 miles (21 km) long and approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) wide at its widest point. The communities of Fernandina Beach and Amelia City are both located on the island.

Named for Princess Amelia, daughter of George II of Great Britain, the island has changed hands between colonial powers a number of times. It is claimed that eight flags have flown over Amelia Island: French, Spanish, British, Patriot, Green Cross, Mexican, Confederate, and United States.
Native American bands associated with the Timucua people settled on the island, which they called Napoyca,[1] circa 1000. They would remain there until the early 18th century. In 1562, French Huguenot explorer Jean Ribault became the first recorded European visitor to Napoyca, and named the island Île de Mai. In 1565, Spanish forces led by Pedro Menendez de Aviles drove the French from northeastern Florida by attacking their stronghold at Fort Caroline on the Rivière de Mai (later called Río de San Juan by the Spanish) and then slaughtering Ribault and perhaps 350 other French colonists who had been shipwrecked further down the coast.

Spanish Franciscans established the Santa María de Sena mission in 1573 on the island they named Isla de Santa María. In the early 17th century some of the remnants of depopulated indigenous Mocama settlements were moved to Santa María de Sena.

In 1680, British raids forced the Christian Guale Indians to abandon the Santa Catalina de Guale mission on St. Catherines Island, Georgia, and relocate to the Santa María de Sena and Santa Catalina missions on Isla de Santa María. In 1702, these missions were finally abandoned when South Carolina's colonial governor, James Moore, led a joint British–American Indian invasion of Florida.

East Florida Patriot Flag
Georgia's founder and colonial governor, James Oglethorpe, renamed the island "Amelia Island" in honor of Princess Amelia (1710–1786), George II of Great Britain's daughter,[9] although the island was still a Spanish possession.[13] After ordering the garrison of Scottish Highlanders to build a fort on the northwestern edge of the island,Oglethorpe successfully negotiated with Spanish colonial officials for its transfer to British sovereignty, but the King of Spain rescinded the agreement.

Oglethorpe withdrew his troops in 1742, and the area became a buffer zone between the English and Spanish colonies until the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, when Spain traded Florida to Great Britain for control of Havana, Cuba. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 ratified Britain's victory in the Seven Years' War, ceding Florida to Britain in exchange for Havana, Cuba and nullifying all Spanish land grants in Florida.[ The Proclamation of 1763 established the St. Marys River as East Florida's northeastern boundary.

During the early period of British rule, the island was known as Egmont Isle, after Lord Egmont who had a 10,000 acre estate covering almost the entire island. The so-called “New Settlement” (present-day Old Town, on the south side of the mouth of Egan’s Creek adjoining the Amelia River, was presumably its headquarters. Egmont had only recently begun his development of the island in 1770 when Gerard de Brahm prepared his map, the "Plan of Amelia, Now Egmont Island", which depicted most of the planned development at the north end. Egmont died in December 1770, whereupon his widow, Lady Egmont, assumed control of his vast Florida estates. She persisted in development of the plantation and made Stephen Egan her agent to manage it. He was able to grow profitable indigo crops there until it was destroyed by rebel troops from Georgia in 1776.

In the late 1770s and early 1780s, British loyalists fleeing Charleston and Savannah hastily erected new buildings at the settlement, calling their impromptu town Hillsborough. When Spain regained possession of Florida in 1783, the Amelia harbor served as an embarkation point for loyalists abandoning the colony who tore down the buildings and took the lumber with them. In June 1785, former British governor Patrick Tonyn moved his command to Hillsborough town, from whence he sailed to England later that year.


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