Fulwar Skipwith (21 February 1765 – 7 January 1839) was Governor of the Republic of West Florida from 27 October to 10 December 1810 and an American diplomat and politician.
Biography[]
Fulwar Skipwith was born in Dinwiddie County, Virginia on 21 February 1765, a distant cousin of Thomas Jefferson. He attended the College of William & Mary before enlisting in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War at the age of sixteen, serving at Yorktown in 1781. After the war's end, he entered the tobacco trade, and he became Consul to Martinique in 1790. In 1793, he left the island after a slave uprising began, and he was later sent as Consul-General to France. In 1809, he moved to West Florida, which was disputed between Spain and the United States after the Louisiana Purchase. In 1810, as a member of the local judiciary, he became a leader of the rebellion against Spain and became President of the Republic of West Florida. In December 1810, he fled to Baton Rouge, where he was forced to surrender to the invading US Army, which peacefully annexed the region. He was later elected to the Louisiana State Senate and helped with granting amnesty to Jean Lafitte and other privateers. He died in 1839 at the age of 73.