Mauricio de Zuniga (died 1816) was Governor of West Florida from July 1812 to April 1813, succeeding Francisco San Maxent and preceding Mateo Gonzalez Manrique, and again from March to 15 September 1816, succeeding Jose de Soto and preceding San Maxent.
Biography[]
Mauricio de Zuniga was born in El Prat de Llobregat, Catalonia, Spain, and he rose in the ranks of the Spanish Army, becoming a Lieutenant-Colonel. In July 1812, he was appointed Governor of West Florida, and he moved to Pensacola. He served until April 1813, and he returned to governing the region in March 1816. Andrew Jackson, the commander of the US Army in the American South, wrote to Zuniga and demanded that he evict the denizens of the Negro Fort, an abandoned British Army fortress that had been taken over by African-American escaped slaves and the Seminole Native Americans. Zuniga did not have enough men, and he waited for further instructions from his superiors rather than face either the Americans or the Natives on the battlefield. When the fort fired on an American supply convoy, Jackson was provoked into attacking the fort, which was obliterated in a massive gunpowder explosion. Zuniga left office in September 1816, and he died later that year.