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The raid on Cartagena de Indias was a successful attack by the French on the fortified city of Cartagena de Indias, on 6 May 1697, as part of the War of the Grand Alliance.
By 1695, the French Navy had declined to the point that it could no longer face the English and Dutch in an open sea battle and therefore had switched to privateering – guerre de course. Bernard Desjean, Baron de Pointis, active in the Caribbean from the beginning of the war, was able to convince King Louis XIV of France to let him try a daring attack on the richest city of the region, Cartagena, in present-day Colombia.
He received command of a fleet of seven capital ships, three frigates, and some smaller vessels. The squadron left from Brest, France, on 7 January 1697, and arrived at Saint-Domingue in the West Indies on 3 March. Pointis requested assistance from governor Jean du Casse, who gave his support only reluctantly, as he preferred an attack on Portobelo. One month later, a fleet with 1,200 soldiers and 650 buccaneers appeared before Cartagena.
The renowned Spanish defences were not what they had once been, and Pointis conquered both fortresses which defended Cartagena relatively easily, losing only sixty men. Between 6 May and 24 May 1697 the French plundered the city, accumulating loot valued at ten to twenty million livres.
Pointis then set sail directly for France, cheating his buccaneer allies of their promised share of the loot. Outraged, the buccaneers returned and plundered the city once more, this time untempered by the Buccaneer, committing rape, extortion and murder.
On his return voyage to France, Pointis managed to avoid the English admiral John Nevell, whose squadron had been diverted from Cadiz, Spain, to pursue the French privateer. After a three-day chase, Nevell had captured only one ship. Unfortunately for him, this was a hospital ship infested with yellow fever, which now spread through the English and Dutch fleets. The disease killed 1,300 English sailors, six captains, and Admiral Nevell himself; only one captain in the Dutch squadron survived.
The French did not escape unscathed, as yellow fever spread through their fleet, too, killing hundreds of sailors. However, Pointis made it back to France and gave Louis XIV his share of two million livres. The rest of the loot made Pointis an immensely rich man.
He published Relation de l'expédition de Carthagène faite par les François en 1697 in Amsterdam the next year.
Buccaneers were a kind of privateer or free sailors particular to the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. First established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, their heyday was from the Restoration in 1660 until about 1688, during a time when governments in the Caribbean area were not strong enough to suppress them.
Sir Henry Morgan born Harri Morgan was a Welsh privateer, plantation owner, and, later, Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. From his base in Port Royal, Jamaica, he raided settlements and shipping on the Spanish Main, becoming wealthy as he did so. With the prize money from the raids, he purchased three large sugar plantations on the island.
The Nine Years' War, was a European great power conflict from 1688 to 1697 between France and the Grand Alliance. Although largely concentrated in Europe, fighting spread to colonial possessions in the Americas, India, and West Africa. Related conflicts include the Williamite war in Ireland, and King William's War in North America.
The Battle of Beachy Head, also known as the Battle of Bévéziers, was a fleet action fought on 10 July 1690 during the Nine Years' War. The battle was the most significant French naval victory over their English and Dutch opponents during the war. The Dutch lost a number of ships of the line and three fireships; their English allies also lost one ship of the line, whereas the French did not lose a vessel. Control of the English Channel temporarily fell into French hands but Vice-Admiral Anne Hilarion de Tourville failed to pursue the Anglo-Dutch fleet with sufficient vigour, allowing it to fall back to the Thames.
During the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the Spanish Main was the collective term for the parts of the Spanish Empire that were on the mainland of the Americas and had coastlines on the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico. The term was used to distinguish those regions from the numerous islands Spain controlled in the Caribbean, which were known as the Spanish West Indies.
William Wright was an English privateer in French service and later buccaneer who raided Spanish towns in the late 17th century.
This timeline of the history of piracy in the 1680s is a chronological list of key events involving pirates between 1680 and 1689.
René Trouin, Sieur du Gué, also known as René Duguay-Trouin, was a French naval officer, nobleman, slave trader, and privateer best known for his career during the War of the Spanish Succession. He had a brilliant privateering and naval career and eventually became "Lieutenant-General of the Naval Armies of the King", and a Commander in the Order of Saint-Louis. Ten ships of the French Navy have since been named in his honour.
Vice Admiral Sir Christopher Myngs was an English naval officer and privateer, most notably in the Colony of Jamaica. He came from a Norfolk family and was a relative of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell. Samuel Pepys' story of Myngs' humble birth, in explanation of his popularity, has now been evaluated by historians as being mostly fictitious in nature.
Michel de Grammont was a French privateer. He was born in Paris, Kingdom of 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.
Bartholomew Sharp was an English buccaneer and privateer. His career of piracy lasted seven years (1675–1682). In the Caribbean he took several ships, and raided the Gulf of Honduras and Portobelo. He took command of an expedition into the Pacific and spent months raiding settlements on the Pacific Coast of South America including La Serena which he torched in 1680. His flagship, taken at Panama, was the Trinity.
Jean-Baptiste du Casse was a French naval officer, privateer, slave trader and colonial administrator who served as the first governor of Saint-Domingue from 1691 to 1700. Born on 2 August 1646 in Saubusse, France to a Huguenot family, du Casse enlisted in the French merchant navy before joining the French East India Company and the Compagnie du Sénégal. He subsequently enlisted in the French Navy and took part in several victorious expeditions during the Nine Years' War in the West Indies and South America.
Edward Davis or Davies was an English buccaneer active in the Caribbean during the 1680s and would lead successful raids against Leon and Panama in 1685, the latter considered one of the last major buccaneer raids against a Spanish stronghold. Much of his career was later recorded by writer William Dampier in A New Voyage Round the World (1697).
Bernard Desjean, Baron de Pointis was a French admiral and privateer.
Vice Admiral John Nevell, Neville, Nevill or Nevil,, was an officer in the Royal Navy. He is best known for the failed attempt to intercept the treasure-laden fleet of Pointis after the raid on Cartagena in 1697. He died later that year in Virginia from yellow fever.
The Cassard expedition was a sea voyage by French Navy captain Jacques Cassard in 1712, during the War of the Spanish Succession. Targeting English, Dutch, and Portuguese possessions, he raided and ransomed the colonies of Cape Verde, Sint Eustatius, and Curaçao—factories, depots, and seasoning camps used in the Atlantic slave trade. He also raided and ransomed Montserrat, Antigua, Surinam, Berbice, and Essequibo—wealthy sugar-producing colonies in the Caribbean whose economies were based on the exploitation of slave labor.
The capture of the galleon San Joaquin or the battle of Cartagena was a naval engagement that took place off the coast near Cartagena. It involved five British ships of the line against the Spanish galleon San Joaquin and a smaller ship. After an action lasting barely an hour the Spanish ship surrendered. The galleon had fought in the previous encounter during Wager's Action nearly three years earlier but had just barely escaped capture.
The Sack of Campeche was a 1663 raid by pirates led by Christopher Myngs and Edward Mansvelt which became a model for later coastal pirate raids of the buccaneering era.
Jean Charpin was a French pirate and buccaneer active in the Caribbean and off the coast of Africa. He is best known for sailing alongside Jean-Baptiste du Casse as well as for his Articles, or “Pirate Code.”
Charles de Courbon, comte de Blénac was a French colonial administration who served as governor general of the French Antilles during the 17th century. He was an experienced soldier and fought for the king during the Fronde before becoming a naval officer in the French Navy. Towards the end of the Franco-Dutch War he led the land forces that captured Tobago from the Dutch before taking command of the French Antilles. During the Nine Years' War he was active in the struggle with the English and Dutch in the Windward Islands. He captured Sint Eustatius and Saint Kitts, and defended Martinique against a large English expedition in 1693.
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