Jan Janszoon van Hoorn's expedition of 1633 | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of Thirty Years' War | |||||||
The conquest of Campeche and Trujillo in 1633, by Claes Jansz. Visscher, after an original by Jacobus Dasniets. | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Netherlands | Spain | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
| ||||||
Units involved | |||||||
|
| ||||||
Strength | |||||||
|
| ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
| ||||||
|
Jan Janszoon van Hoorn's expedition of 1633 was a privateering voyage commissioned by the Dutch West India Company (WIC) against colonial Honduras and Yucatan in New Spain as part of the colonial theatre of the Eighty Years' War. It resulted in various casualties, the sacking of Campeche, and the sacking and burning of Trujillo. Consequently, this villa was left defenceless for the rest of the 1630s.
After the Dutch West India Company (WIC) used its naval superiority to capture the Spanish silver fleet in 1628, Admiral Piet Heyn advised the WIC's governing body to commission a raid of Trujillo, Honduras. On 4 June 1630, Jan Booneter and Adriaen Pater were instructed to surprise the silver fleet at port in Trujillo if they found this feasible. Said project proving abortive, the WIC instructed Galeyn von Stapels to chart the coast and waters of the Bay of Campeche, the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Bay of Honduras in 1632. On 2 November that year, the WIC instructed Jan van Hoorn to sail for the Bay of Honduras to sack Trujillo. [1] [2] [note 1]
Van Hoorn set sail from Pernambuco (Dutch Brazil) on 26 April 1633, [note 2] anchoring at Bridgetown, Barbados, on 20 May. The company watered there for seven days before sailing due west. On 18 June, they sighted the eastern tip of Puerto Rico. On 5 July, they dropped anchor off Little Cayman. Two days later, the fleet were joined by the Nachtegael and the Gijsselingh, which had been cruising for prizes off Cape Cruz, Cuba, since 29 June. The yachts brought the expedition's first prize, a small merchantman laden with hides, sugar and honey. They set off for the Bay of Honduras sometime during 7–10 July. [3] [4] [5]
The fleet sighted the Honduras mainland on 11 July. They spent the next three days charting the coastal waters, taking care to remain hidden from sentinels at the Santa Barbara Fortress. On 15 July, two hours past midday, the fleet's ships entered Trujillo's harbour. The fortress immediately engaged the ships, resulting in the expedition's first casualties – four deaths on the Zutphen. [note 3] In the meantime, the fleet's yachts and sloops made their way west of the city, disembarking soldiers at the mouth of the Santo Antonio Creek. This column now marched east, and in short order reached the fortress, which they took after outgunning its men. With the fortress fallen, the city was theirs within two hours. The men rested in Trujillo that night, spending the next morning ransacking the city's residences. [6] [7] Total casualties have been stated as 7 among the Dutch [8] and 14 or 15 vecinos among the Spanish. [9]
In a 1644 account published by WIC director Joannes de Laet, the city was ransacked on 16 July and while the goods were being brought to the fortress, a fire started at the eastern edge of the city and quickly destroyed two-thirds of the buildings, which had been roofed in palm fronds. Some died of burns when the powder house caught fire. What was left of the goods were brought aboard the ships the following day. [10]
On 19 July, van Hoorn agreed with Juan de Miranda, the governor of Truchillo, [note 4] to a ransom of twenty pounds of silver for the rest of the city. De Miranda informed them that the Spanish had not known of their arrival until 14 July. [10] The ransom was paid and the expedition departed on 21 July. [8] [11]
Van Hoorn's fleet had difficulty circumnavigating the Yucatan Peninsula, their nautical charts proving inaccurate. They sighted Cozumel on 25 July, and Cape Catoche on 1 August, where they resupplied with fresh water. Here, they surprised an unladen frigate, from whose crew they learnt of a naval squadron cruising for them, with instructions to transport them to Saint Martin (a Dutch salting station which, to their surprise, had been captured by the Spanish that year). They nonetheless proceeded, sighting Campeche on the afternoon of 11 August. The ships anchored some 19 or 24 kilometres (12 or 15 mi) east-northeast of the city. [8] [note 5]
According to Laet's Historie, about 400 men were put onto boats of various sizes and anchored in shallower water where they observed the city and organized themselves. On the morning of 13 August, the soldiers were brought ashore on a beach about 2.4 km (1.5 mi) southwest of the city, landing in order. The soldiers immediately began marching on the city, covered by two boats which rowed alongside them and fired cannons when the enemy presented itself. The sloops Nachtegael and Gijsselingh also sailed along the coast and fired. Defending infantry and cavalry were forced to flee, and the attackers quickly captured three trenches and entered the city. The defenders had fortified themselves in the plaza, but the attackers stormed their barricades so swiftly that the defenders' cannons were only fired once. [12]
The defenders had fought so fiercely that only twenty prisoners were taken among them. While loot was loaded onto captured boats, the expedition attempted to gain ransom from Governor Juan de Barros, who refused due to a royal decree prohibiting such. On 17 August, the expedition left with their prisoners, nine captured ships and anything else of value they could find. They left the city intact, as its buildings were stone and could not easily be destroyed, but burned the remaining ships and barges. [12]
While transferring the captured goods onto the expedition's bigger ships, they were approached by Spaniards who bought back five of the captured ships and paid the ransom for the prisoners. [note 6] The fleet then departed on the morning of 24 August. [12]
On 18 September, the fleet came 39 or 43 km (24 or 27 mi) due south of Pan de Matanzas (a hill near Matanzas, Cuba). At this point, some of the company wished to cruise for prizes. Consequently, the Otter and the sloops stayed behind, with the rest of the fleet proceeding to open ocean via the Old Bahama Channel. [13] [14]
Under command of Cornelis Jol, the Otter and the sloops Nachtegael and Gijsselingh were to set course for Cape San Antonio and cruise the southern coast of Cuba, heading for Tortuga, where the crew were to ascertain whether the Spanish had captured St. Martin, and thereafter undertake 'what is convenient in the service of the Company'. [13]
According to Laet, on 24 September, the ships fired on a Spanish galleon near Cabo Corrientes. On 24 October they captured a barge loaded with 30 barrels of wine. During the first half of November, the Otter grounded broadside for maintenance and repairs, and learned from an Englishman that St. Martin had been captured by the Spanish. Returning to sea, on the night of 13–14 December, they sighted some 15 ships and followed. During the day they saw a single ship separated from the others and attacked, disabling its main sail, and boarded; finding that it carried only ballast, they let it go. Two days later, they sighted a fleet of 31 ships and followed at a distance. On 19 December they captured a frigate, but it also had no cargo. They pursued some other Spanish ships but were unable to intercept them. [15] The division continued cruising and departed the Caribbean on 27 April 1634. On 6 June, it reached Texel, North Holland, [16] where the main part of the expedition had returned on 11 November 1633. [13] [14] Jol's division had at least three prizes. [17] [18]
In the last quarter of 1633, the governor of colonial Yucatan requisitioned funds from local treasuries of the province's majority-Maya reduccion (forcibly relocated) or encomienda settlements, under pretext of the funds being surpluses, and diverted these towards bolstering Campeche's defences. It has been suggested that the appropriation was prompted (at least partially) by the participation of two of the province's Maya residents in the city's sacking. [19]
Fernando Centeno Maldonado, governor of colonial Campeche was stripped of his office in 1636, purportedly or partially due to van Hoorn's successful sacking. [20] [note 7]
The loss of the Santa Barbara Fortress's artillery, and especially of its ten cannons, left Trujillo precariously defenceless until the latter half of 1639, when the fortress was supplied with harquebuses. [21]
The expedition is deemed[ by whom? ] to have helped bring about the 'destruction of Spanish naval power'[ who said this? ] in the Caribbean. Van Hoorn's capture of Campeche, in particular, has been described as 'one of the most courageous acts committed by so few people'[ who said this? ] to that time. Van Hoorn, however, is thought to have been disappointed for not contributing greatly to the WIC's treasury. [22]
It has been suggested[ by whom? ] that van Hoorn's sacking of Campeche was so traumatising to residents that it became local legend which was romanticised over generations. The event is prominently featured in El filibustero: Leyenda del siglo xvii, an 1841–1842 serial novel by Justo Sierra O'Reilly, which narrates the tragic romance of Conchita (of Campeche) and her father's killer, Diego el Mulato. [23] [note 8]
It has been suggested[ by whom? ] that the fleet's two Maya pilots participated in Campeche's sacking voluntarily, which has been regarded as a precedent-setting example of 17th century opposition to Spanish temporal and spiritual hegemony by the province's Amerindian residents. [24]
The Second Anglo-Dutch War, or Second Dutch War, began on 4 March 1665, and concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Breda on 31 July 1667. One in a series of naval conflicts between England and the Dutch Republic, its causes were a combination of political differences and commercial disputes.
Samuel Blommaert was a Flemish/Dutch merchant and director of the Dutch West India Company from 1622 to 1629 and again from 1636 to 1642. In the latter period, he was a paid commissioner of Sweden in the Netherlands and he played a dubious but key role in Peter Minuit's expedition that led to the Swedish colonizing of New Sweden. For years Blommaert was involved in the copper trade and industry. In 1645 he was appointed for a third time as a manager of the WIC, being one of the main investors from the beginning.
The Spanish conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities in the Yucatán Peninsula, a vast limestone plain covering south-eastern Mexico, northern Guatemala, and all of Belize. The Spanish conquest of the Yucatán Peninsula was hindered by its politically fragmented state. The Spanish engaged in a strategy of concentrating native populations in newly founded colonial towns. Native resistance to the new nucleated settlements took the form of the flight into inaccessible regions such as the forest or joining neighbouring Maya groups that had not yet submitted to the Spanish. Among the Maya, ambush was a favoured tactic. Spanish weaponry included broadswords, rapiers, lances, pikes, halberds, crossbows, matchlocks, and light artillery. Maya warriors fought with flint-tipped spears, bows and arrows and stones, and wore padded cotton armour to protect themselves. The Spanish introduced a number of Old World diseases previously unknown in the Americas, initiating devastating plagues that swept through the native populations.
Witte Corneliszoon de With was a Dutch States Navy officer who served during the Eighty Years' War and the First Anglo-Dutch War.
This timeline of the history of piracy in the 1680s is a chronological list of key events involving pirates between 1680 and 1689.
Trujillo is a city, with a population of 22,750, and a municipality on the northern Caribbean coast of the Honduran department of Colón, of which the city is the capital.
Michel de Grammont was a French privateer. He was born in Paris, France and was lost at sea in the north-east Caribbean, April 1686. His privateer career lasted from around 1670 to 1686 during which he commanded the flagship Hardi. He primarily attacked Spanish holdings in Maracaibo, Gibraltar, Trujillo, La Guaira, Puerto Cabello, Cumana and Veracruz.
Cornelis Corneliszoon Jol, nicknamed Houtebeen ("pegleg"), was a 17th-century Dutch corsair and admiral in the Dutch West India Company during the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic. He was one of several early buccaneers to attack Campeche, looting the settlement in 1633, and was active against the Spanish in the Spanish Main and throughout the Caribbean during the 1630s and 40s.
Laurens Cornelis Boudewijn de Graaf was a Dutch pirate, mercenary, and naval officer in the service of the French colony of Saint-Domingue during the late 17th and early 18th century.
Johan Nieuhof was a Dutch traveler who wrote about his journeys to Brazil, China and India. The most famous of these was a trip of 2,400 kilometers (1,500 mi) from Canton to Peking in 1655-1657, which enabled him to become an authoritative Western writer on China. He wrote An Embassy from the East-India Company about the journey.
This timeline of the history of piracy in the 1630s is a chronological list of key events involving pirates between 1630 and 1639.
Pieter Schouten was a 17th-century Dutch corsair and privateer. He was one of the first Dutchmen to explore to the Caribbean and, while employed by the Dutch West Indies Company, was involved in extensive reconnaissance to establish Dutch bases in the West Indies.
Jan, Johan or Johannes van Walbeeck was a Dutch navigator and cartographer during a 1620s circumnavigation of the earth, an admiral of the Dutch West India Company, and the first governor of the Netherlands Antilles.
Jan van Ryen was a 17th-century Dutch privateer, explorer, and colonist. He was granted a commission by the Dutch West Indies Company and active against the Spanish in the West Indies during the 1620s. He and Claude Prevost attempted to establish Dutch colonies in Guyana, although they both failed with most Dutch colonists being killed by natives in 1627. However, Zeelandian merchant Abraham van Peere was able to found a successful colony in the area shortly after.
Jan Willems, also known as Janke or Yankey Willems, was a 17th-century Dutch buccaneer. Based out of Petit-Goâve, Willems participated in a number of expeditions against the Spanish during the early to mid-1680s with other well-known privateers including Michiel Andrieszoon, Thomas Paine, Laurens de Graaf, Nicholas van Hoorn and Michel de Grammont.
Michiel Andrieszoon was a Dutch buccaneer who served as lieutenant to Captain Laurens de Graaf. He commanded the le Tigre, with a 300-man crew and between 30 and 36 guns. He is occasionally referred to in English as Michel or Mitchell, and is often erroneously given the nickname "Bréha Michiel".
The Noordsche Compagnie was a Dutch cartel in the whaling trade, founded by several cities in the Netherlands in 1614 and operating until 1642. Soon after its founding, it became entangled in territorial conflicts with England, Denmark, France, and other groups within the Netherlands.
The Spanish conquest of Honduras was a 16th-century conflict during the Spanish colonization of the Americas in which the territory that now comprises the Republic of Honduras, one of the seven states of Central America, was incorporated into the Spanish Empire. In 1502, the territory was claimed for the king of Spain by Christopher Columbus on his fourth and final trip to the New World. The territory that now comprises Honduras was inhabited by a mix of indigenous peoples straddling a transitional cultural zone between Mesoamerica to the northwest, and the Intermediate Area to the southeast. Indigenous groups included Maya, Lenca, Pech, Miskitu, Mayangna (Sumu), Jicaque, Pipil and Chorotega. Two indigenous leaders are particularly notable for their resistance against the Spanish; the Maya leader Sicumba, and the Lenca ruler referred to as Lempira.
George Spurre was an English pirate and buccaneer. He is best known for sacking Campeche and for joining a large buccaneer force which captured Veracruz.
Pirates, privateers, corsairs, and buccaneers were active in the Bay of Honduras from the 1540s to the 1860s. This is an annotated, chronological list of such events, with sortable tables provided.