Amelia Island is a part of the Sea Islands chain that stretches along the East Coast of the United States from South Carolina to Florida; it is the southernmost of the Sea Islands, and the northernmost of the barrier islands on Florida's Atlantic coast. Lying in Nassau County, Florida, it is long and approximately wide at its widest point. The communities of Fernandina Beach, Amelia City, and American Beach are located on the island.
Geography
The Amelia Island Trail is a part of the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000 mile-long system of trails connecting Maine to Florida.
Airport
Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport (KFHB), a general aviation airport and former military airbase that is also now used at times by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Florida Air National Guard, is located on the island.
History
The island was named for Princess Amelia, daughter of George II of Great Britain, and changed hands between colonial powers a number of times. It is claimed that eight flags have flown over Amelia Island: French, Spanish, British, Floridian/Patriot, Green Cross, Mexican, Confederate, and United States.
Early European settlement
American Indian bands associated with the Timucua people settled on the island around 1000, which they called Napoyca. They remained there until the early 18th century. In 1562, French Huguenot explorer Jean Ribault became the first recorded European visitor to Napoyca, and he 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 later the St. Johns River in English). They killed Ribault and perhaps 350 other French colonists who had been shipwrecked further down the coast.
Spanish rule
In 1573 Spanish Franciscans established the Santa María de Sena mission on the island, which they named Isla de Santa María. In the early 17th century, the Spanish relocated the Mocama people from their former settlements to Santa María de Sena.
In 1680, British raids on St. Catherines Island, Georgia resulted in the Christian Guale Indians abandoning the Santa Catalina de Guale mission and relocating to Spanish missions on Isla de Santa María. In 1702, the Spanish abandoned these missions after South Carolina's colonial governor James Moore led an invasion of Florida with British colonists and their Native American allies.
Georgia's founder and colonial governor James Oglethorpe renamed this island as "Amelia Island" in honor of Princess Amelia (1710–1786), daughter of George II of Great Britain, although it was still a Spanish possession. Oglethorpe successfully negotiated with Spanish colonial officials for the island to be transferred to British sovereignty after ordering the garrison of Scottish Highlanders to build a fort on the northwestern edge of the island. Philip V, the King of Spain, rescinded the agreement.
British rule
Oglethorpe withdrew his troops in 1742. The area became a buffer zone between the English and Spanish colonies until the Treaty of Paris (1763) settling the Seven Years' War, in which Britain defeated France. Under the treaty, Spain traded Florida to Great Britain in order to regain control of Havana, Cuba; the treaty nullified 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 plantation covering almost the entire island. Its headquarters were presumably the so-called "New Settlement" on the south side of the mouth of Egan's Creek adjoining the Amelia River, the site of the present-day Old Town. 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". This 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 continued to develop the plantation and appointed Stephen Egan as her agent to manage it. With the forced labor of enslaved African Americans, he produced profitable indigo crops there. until it was destroyed by American troops from Georgia in 1776.