In September 1810, the English-speaking planters living under a Spanish flag they resented had endured enough. They declared independence, and for seventy-four days St. Francisville served as the capital of the Republic of West Florida — what historians call the second successful American revolution. Then President Madison annexed the territory, and the republic dissolved into the United States before most people knew it existed. The Spanish name for the region translates to "happy land." The town that briefly held that capital is two miles long and two blocks wide, one of the narrowest incorporated towns in America. Walk Ferdinand Street end to end in forty-five minutes and you've covered the full spine of a place that was once its own country — not a monument to the fact, just the fact itself, still standing on a narrow ridge, still going about its business.
