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Deborah A. Rosen , Border Law: The First Seminole War and American Nationhood , Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press , 2015. Pp. 316. $45.00 cloth (ISBN 978-0-674-96761-8 ).
Book Reviews
In this precise legal history, Deborah A. Rosen argues that United States incursions into Florida during the 1810s set precedents of enormous significance for the future of national expansion. Under the command of General Andrew Jackson, United States troops invaded Florida multiple times in the 1810s. They occupied forts, burned towns, and captured or killed British, Spanish, Creek, Seminole, and African American people. United States aggression forced Spain to cede Florida in 1821. In seven chapters, Rosen examines American debates about Jackson's actions in Florida. Perspectives ranged widely, from defenses that Jackson acted in self-defense as a protector of national interest, to objections that the invasion of Spanish territory and the execution of two British subjects violated international law and the United States Constitution. Whereas detractors worried that his flagrant disregard for the law risked the young nation's standing in the world, supporters believed that United States aggression demonstrated American equality with European powers, as a sovereign nation within its own hemisphere of influence. Rosen shows that although Jackson's critics were persuasive and legally...