Cooley later moved to Alligator Pond (near present-day Lake City), where he set up a farm and traded with the local Seminole tribe led by Chief Micanopy. The territory of East Florida was formally transferred from Spain to the United States in 1821, under the terms of the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty. In 1820, Spanish merchant Don Fernando de la Maza Arredondo began settlement of a claim in the Alachua territory, which had been granted to him by King Ferdinand VII of Spain. Cooley negotiated with Don Fernando on behalf of the displaced Indians but was unsuccessful. Cooley moved away in 1823—possibly to escape the Spanish influence—to the north bank of the New River.