The 1795 rebellion in East Florida was a short lived affair, barely extending south of the St. Johns River, and resulting in the deaths of only three Spanish soldiers. Thirty-three of the sixty-seven people identified as rebels by the Spanish escaped across the St. Marys River into Georgia. The remainder were arrested and temporarily imprisoned in the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine. Though harsh sentences were handed down by a Spanish court in 1798, none were ever carried out. Almost all of those implicated in the insurrection were Anglo settlers. Some had been in East Florida since the British period of rule (1763-1784), others had entered the province after the Spanish returned in 1784, but the majority of the rebels migrated to East Florida from the United States after 1790 when Spain relaxed immigration laws for the province. This thesis proposes that there were three main causes of the 1795 rebellion. First, it resulted from the liberalization of East Florida's immigration laws in 1790 which attracted many troublesome settlers to the province. Second, it was an eruption of the settlers' pent-up frustration with Spanish rule which impeded their prosperity and infringed upon their security. Finally, the timing of the rebellion was influenced by the activities of French revolutionary agents in Georgia and South Carolina. The most important source of information on the Second Spanish Period in East Florida (1784-1821), is the East Florida Papers deposited in the Library of Congress, microfilm copies of which are located at the PK Yonge Library at the University of Florida. These papers contain the entire collection of government documents for this period. Most are written in Spanish, but many of the bundles used in this thesis also contain letters in English written by the Anglo settlers who could not speak Spanish. The word "Anglo" is used in this thesis to describe East Florida's English-speaking settlers who resided primarily in the St. Johns, Nassau, and St. Marys river valleys. Though a few of these settlers were born in Europe, the vast majority were American-born Protestants. PALMM.

Renaissance creativity and obsession with classical traditions spawned a new form of horsemanship called the manege in sixteenth-century Europe. This study deals with England's rejection of the courtly horsemanship despite the dismal state of the nation's equestrian affairs. Tudor and Stuart monarchs utilized royal influence to attempt change - from legislative refmms to the horses - but no specific monarchical effort proved immediately effective. The significance of royal influence is seen in the continued importation of quality stock and in royal support for equestrian-related sports. Both enriched equine bloodlines and promoted the development of sporting tradition in England. While, with royal encouragement, the manege and its 'dancing' horses enjoyed a brief acceptance in England, both were spurned in favor of sports and the developing Thoroughbred horse. English horsemen of the 1600s found their own voice regarding horsemanship in the written works of Blundeville, Markham, Astley, and Clifford. These English authors criticized the manege as 'violent.' Furthermore, such riding was considered futile in warfare and impractical for riding in the open English countryside. The majority of aristocratic riders became obsessed with the new riding styles made popular by racing and other histories have given attention to the emerging group of horsemanship writers in England, this thesis deals with the aristocratic rebuff of the manege and its proponents. English nobles even disregarded their own reputable horseman, William Cavendish, whose teachings reveal a diligent manege master with a competent understanding of the equine mentality. By 1620, the associated 'violence' in manege training waned as a second generation of riding masters - largely French - advocated greater humanity and patience in methodology. However, the English had already charted their own course in horsemanship and had no use for the 'frivolous' riding. English renunciation of the manege is but one expression of the country's isolationism during the period, and its focus internally is congruent with a growing nationalism that favored things 'uniquely British.'