Before being elected president, how did the president who led the American occupation of Spanish West Florida during the First Seminole War gain fame?
William King (Governor of West Florida) William King (died January 1826) was an American army officer who was military governor of West Florida from May 26, 1818 to February 4, 1819. He was appointed to the position by Andrew Jackson, who led the American occupation of Spanish West Florida during the First Seminole War.
Columbus Delano Columbus Delano, (June 4, 1809 – October 23, 1896) was a lawyer, rancher, banker, statesman and a member of the prominent Delano family. Delano was elected U.S. Congressman from Ohio, serving two full terms and one partial one. Prior to the American Civil War, Delano was a National Republican and then a Whig; as a Whig he was identified with the faction of the party that opposed the spread of slavery into the Western territories, and he became a Republican when the party was founded as the major anti-slavery party after the demise of the Whigs in the 1850s. During Reconstruction Delano advocated federal protection of African-Americans civil rights, and argued that the former Confederate states should be administered by the federal government, but were not part of the United States until they met the requirements for readmission to the Union. Delano served as President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Interior during a time of rapid Westward expansionism, and contended with conflicts between Native American tribes and American settlers. He was instrumental in the establishment of America's first national park, supervising the first U.S. federally funded exploratory scientific expedition into Yellowstone in 1871, and becoming America's first national park overseer in 1872. In 1874, Delano requested that Congress protect Yellowstone through creation of a federally funded administrative agency, the first Secretary of the Interior to request such preservation of a nationally important site.