The Papers of East Florida span the period 1737-1858, with the bulk of the material dating from 1783 to 1821. With the exception of documents relating to the ownership of land and of items transferred from St. Augustine to Cuba or Spain in 1819-1821, the papers in the Library of Congress comprise the archives of the Spanish government of East Florida between 1783, when Britain retroceded the area to Spain, and 1821, when American authorities took possession.

In October 1821, after the Adams-Onís Treaty transferred East Florida to the United States, the records of the former Spanish government at St. Augustine were seized to prevent their shipment to Cuba. They were organized into numbered bundles or legajos, apparently retaining the organization established by the Spanish regime and made available to both the American national and Florida territorial governments and to the authorities appointed to adjudicate land claims. In 1849 the records were placed under the control of the Florida surveyor-general of the General Land Office, Department of the Interior, where they remained, with an interruption during the Civil War, until 1905. During these years some rearrangement of the original bundles was made, new bundles and bundle numbers were added, and documents now in Bundle 410 selected from various bundles and sent to the secretary of state in Washington in 1823 were returned to the collection. In 1905 the Library of Congress received 381 bundles, numbered from 1A through 489, comprising all of the files except records relating to land grants, which were left in Tallahassee. Certain materials, notably the copies of the Montiano letters (Bundle 37) and the Index of Royal Decrees, 1595-1762 (Bundle 489), relate to the earlier period of Spanish control, and several items in bundles 385 and 488 date from after 1821.

The papers concern most aspects of Florida history during the last generation of Spanish control. The larger features of Spanish policy are revealed in such files as the governors' correspondence with authorities in Mexico and the United States. Other files, such as correspondence with the intendant and with the accountant of the exchequer, relate to the finances of government, while records of the firm of Panton, Leslie & Company and the many records of vessels' entries and clearances include commercial information. Defense, legal matters, and relations with native Americans are also noted in the records. Individuals represented include José Maria Coppinger; Bernardo de Gálvez; José de Gálvez; Alexander McGillivray; Manuel de Montiano; Antonio Porlier, marqués de Bajamar; and Vincente Manuel de Zéspedes y Velasco.

Since the current organization and bundle-numbering system is in accordance with the nineteenth century filing scheme, some records are out of sequence. The records are now contained in bound volumes and manuscript containers rather than bundles tied or folded together. Material unidentified by bundle number has been listed at the end of the container listing. Oversize material has been filed at the end of the collection.

A history of these papers is in Irene A. Wright, “The Odyssey of the Spanish Archives of Florida” in Hispanic American Essays , A. Curtis Wilgus, ed. (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1942). Some of the papers have been published in English in Joseph B. Lockey, compiler, East Florida, 1783-1785 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1949), and in John W. Caughey, McGillivray of the Creeks (Norman, Okla., 1938).