Florida became an organized territory of the United States on March 30, 1822. The Americans merged East Florida and West Florida (although the majority of West Florida was annexed to Territory of Orleans and Mississippi Territory), and established a new capital in Tallahassee, conveniently located halfway between the East Florida capital of St. Augustine and the West Florida capital of Pensacola. The boundaries of Florida's first two counties, Escambia and St. Johns, approximately coincided with the boundaries of West and East Florida respectively.
As settlement increased, pressure grew on the United States government to remove the Indians from their lands in Florida. Many settlers in Florida developed plantation agriculture, similar to other areas of the Deep South. To the consternation of new landowners, the Seminoles harbored and integrated runaway blacks, and clashes between whites and Indians grew with the influx of new settlers. In 1832, the United States government signed the Treaty of Payne's Landing with some of the Seminole chiefs, promising them lands west of the Mississippi River if they agreed to leave Florida voluntarily. Many Seminoles left then, while those who remained prepared to defend their claims to the land. White settlers pressured the government to remove all of the Indians, by force if necessary, and in 1835, the U.S. Army arrived to enforce the treaty.
The Second Seminole War began at the end of 1835 with the Dade Massacre, when Seminoles ambushed Army troops marching from Fort Brooke (Tampa) to reinforce Fort King (Ocala). They killed or mortally wounded all but one of the 108 troops. Between 900 and 1,500 Seminole Indian warriors effectively employed guerrilla tactics against United States Army troops for seven years. Osceola, a charismatic young war leader, came to symbolize the war and the Seminoles after he was arrested by deception while attending truce negotiations in 1837. First imprisoned at Fort Marion, he died of malaria at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina less than 3 months after his capture. The war dragged on until 1842. The U.S. government is estimated to have spent between US$20 million and US$40 million on the war, at the time an astronomical sum. Almost all of the Seminoles were forcibly exiled to Creek lands west of the Mississippi; about 300 were allowed to remain in the Everglades.
On March 3, 1845, Florida became the 27th state of the United States of America. Its first governor was William Dunn Moseley, a descendant of English immigrants William and Susannah Moseley, who settled in Lower Norfolk County, Virginia, in 1649. Generations of Moseleys had gradually migrated down the Southeastern coast.
The brick Capitol built in 1845
Almost half the state's population were enslaved African Americans working on large cotton and sugar plantations. Like the people who held them, many slaves had come from the coastal areas of Georgia and the Carolinas, and were part of the Gullah-Gee Chee culture of the Low Country. Others were enslaved African Americans from the Upper South who had been sold to traders taking slaves to the Deep South. In Florida all the peoples created a new creole culture.
In the 1850s white settlers were again encroaching on lands used by Seminoles. The United States government decided to make another attempt to move the remaining Seminoles to the West. Increased Army patrols led to hostilities. The Third Seminole War lasted from 1855 to 1858. At its end, US forces estimated only 100 Seminoles were left in Florida. In 1859, 75 Seminoles surrendered and were sent to the West, but some Seminoles continued to live in the Everglades.
On the eve of the Civil War, Florida had the least population of the Southern states. It was invested in plantation agriculture. By 1860 Florida had only 140,424 people, of whom 44% were enslaved. There were fewer than 1000 free people of color before the Civil War.[9]
During the late 19th century, Florida became a popular tourist destination as railroads expanded into the area. Railroad magnate Henry Plant built at Tampa the luxurious Tampa Bay Hotel, which later became the campus for the University of Tampa. Henry Flagler built the Florida East Coast Railway from Jacksonville to Key West. Along the route he provided for his passengers grand accommodations, including The Ponce de León Hotel in St. Augustine, The Ormond Hotel in Ormond Beach, The Royal Poinciana Hotel and The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, and The Royal Palm Hotel in Miami.
In February 1888, Florida had a special tourist: President Grover Cleveland, the first lady and his party visited Florida for a couple of days. He visited the Subtropical Exposition in Jacksonville where he made a speech supporting tourism to the state; then, he took a train to St. Augustine, meeting Henry Flagler; and then a train to Titusville, where he boarded a steamboat and visited Rockledge. On his return trip, he visited Sanford and Winter Park.[citation needed]
After WWI there was a rise in lynchings and other racial violence directed by whites against blacks in the state, as well as across the South and in northern cities. It was due in part from strains of rapid social and economic changes, as well as competition for jobs. Whites continued to resort to lynchings to keep dominance, and tensions rose. White mobs committed murders, accompanied by wholesale destruction of black houses, churches and schools, in the small communities of Ocoee, November 1920; Perry in December 1922; and Rosewood in January 1923. The governor appointed a special grand jury and special prosecuting attorney to investigate Rosewood and Levy County, but the jury did not find sufficient evidence to prosecute. Rosewood was never resettled.
To escape segregation, lynchings, and civil right suppression, forty thousand African Americans migrated from Florida to northern cities in the Great Migration from 1910-1940. That was one-fifth of their population in 1900. They sought better lives, including decent-paying jobs, better education for their children, and the chance to vote and participate in political life. Many were recruited for jobs with the Pennsylvania Railroad.[11]
The 1920s were a prosperous time for much of the nation. Florida's new railroads opened up large areas to development, spurring the Florida land boom of the 1920s. Investors of all kinds, mostly from outside Florida, raced to buy and sell rapidly appreciating land in newly platted communities such as Miami and Palm Beach. A majority of the people who bought land in Florida were able to do so without stepping foot in the state, by hiring people to speculate and buy the land for them. By 1925, the market ran out of buyers to pay the high prices and soon the boom became a bust. The 1926 Miami Hurricane further depressed the real estate market. The Great Depression arrived in 1929; however, by that time, economic decay already consumed much of Florida from the land boom that collapsed four years earlier.[citation needed]
Shamu, a SeaWorld attraction
Florida's first theme parks emerged in the 1930s and included Cypress Gardens (1936) near Winter Haven and Marineland (1938) near St. Augustine. In the 1960s Walt Disney chose Central Florida as the site of his planned Walt Disney World Resort and began purchasing land. To avoid generating land speculation, he used dummy corporations and willing associates to acquire 27,400 acres (110 km², 43 mi²). In 1971, the Magic Kingdom, the first component of the resort, opened and began the dramatic transformation of the Orlando area into an international resort destination with a wide variety of themed parks. The Orlando area features theme parks including Universal Orlando Resort, SeaWorld, and Wet 'n Wild.
Hope this helps with your trip, have a great time.
One thing for sure..Debbie know's her stuff! Can't go wrong with any of her recommendations. I just wanted to add that if you choose to visit this area, I'd also recommend the Holiday Cove RV Resort. It's right before the Cortez Bridge. You may be able to book a site on the canal. 
