Robert Hunt | |
---|---|
Governor of Providence Island | |
In office 1636–1638 | |
Preceded by | Philip Bell |
Succeeded by | Nathaniel Butler |
Personal details | |
Nationality | English |
Profession | Soldier |
Robert Hunt was an English soldier who was Governor of the Providence Island colony in the western Caribbean Sea from 1636 to 1638.
The Providence Island colony was an English puritan colony founded in 1629 on what is now called Providencia Island,north of Cartagena and east of Portobelo on the Isthmus of Panama,strategically cited for raids on Spanish shipping. The Spanish attacked the colony unsuccessfully in July 1635. After the attack,King Charles I of England issued letters of marque to the Providence Island Company on 21 December 1635. These authorized raids on the Spanish in retaliation for a raid that had destroyed the English colony on Tortuga earlier in 1635. [lower-alpha 1] [2] The company could in turn issue letters of marque to subcontracting privateers who used the island as a base,for a fee. This soon became an important source of profit. Thus the Company made an agreement with the merchant Maurice Thompson under which Thompson could use the island as a base in return for 20% of the booty. [2]
In March 1636 the Company dispatched Captain Robert Hunt on the Blessing to assume the governorship of what was now viewed as a base for privateering. [3] Hunt was a protege of Robert Greville,2nd Baron Brooke,and was described as a godly man. He had served with Protestant forces in the Netherlands and at the siege of La Rochelle. [4] His departure was slightly delayed until he could find ministers and men of worth to transport. [5] Captain Hunt was also to be Governor of Cape Gratia de Dios on the Mosquito Coast,where the English were engaged in trading with the Indians for Camock's Flax. This was to be a refuge for the settlers if the Spanish took Providence Island. [6] Given the threat from the Spanish. Hunt was ordered to ensure the settlers were "very regmentlie exercised,especially upon the first comeing to p[er]sons to the Island till they be brought to a p[er]fect knowledge of the use of armes." [7]
Hunt arrived at Providence in May 1636 with three ships,the Blessing,the Expectation and the Hopewell. His passage and that of his wife and three children was paid,and he received one hundred acres of land with twenty servants to work it,but he was paid no salary. Also,the Company refused to pay for the defence of the island. On the other hand,the colonists were encouraged to engage in privateering,paying the Company one fifth of the value of the plunder. [lower-alpha 2] [8] Soon after Hunt's arrival,the Blessing and Hopewell were dispatched on a raid against Santa Marta under Captain William Rous. The raid was not successful and the force had to surrender. [8]
Nathaniel Butler,a former Governor of Bermuda,replaced Robert Hunt in 1638. Hunt remained on the island. [9] In July 1638 the company appointed a council of war for the island consisting of Captains Nathaniel Butler,Robert Hunt,Samuel Axe and Andrew Carter,"the King having permitted the Company to right themselves in hostile manner in the West Indies,upon the ships and goods of Spanish subjects". [10]
A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade,until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or delegated authority issued commissions,also referred to as letters of marque,during wartime. The commission empowered the holder to carry on all forms of hostility permissible at sea by the usages of war. This included attacking foreign vessels and taking them as prizes and taking crews prisoner for exchange. Captured ships were subject to condemnation and sale under prize law,with the proceeds divided by percentage between the privateer's sponsors,shipowners,captains and crew. A percentage share usually went to the issuer of the commission.
Tortuga Island is a Caribbean island that forms part of Haiti,off the northwest coast of Hispaniola. It constitutes the commune of Île de la Tortue in the Port-de-Paix arrondissement of the Nord-Ouest department of Haiti.
Isla de Providencia,historically Old Providence,and generally known as Providencia or Providence,is a mountainous Caribbean island that is part of the Colombian department of Archipelago of San Andrés,Providencia and Santa Catalina and the municipality of Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands,lying midway between Costa Rica and Jamaica.
Robert Greville,2nd Baron Brooke was a radical Puritan activist and leading member of the opposition to Charles I of England prior to the outbreak of the First English Civil War in August 1642. Appointed Parliamentarian commander in Staffordshire and Warwickshire,he was killed by a Royalist sniper at Lichfield on 2 March 1643.
The Providence Company or Providence Island Company was an English chartered company founded in 1629 by a group of Puritan investors including Robert Rich,2nd Earl of Warwick in order to establish the Providence Island colony on Providence Island in the Caribbean and on the Mosquito Coast of what became Nicaragua.
Nathaniel Butler was an English privateer who later served as the colonial governor of Bermuda during the early 17th century. He had built many structures still seen in Bermuda today including many of the island's coastal fortresses and the State House,in St. George's,the oldest surviving English settlement in the New World. He also has the distinction of introducing the potato,the first seen in North America,to the early English colonists of Jamestown,Virginia.
Samuel Axe was an English privateer in Dutch service during the early 17th century.
James Riskinner or Reiskimmer was a 17th-century English privateer who operated from Providence Island against Spanish shipping during the late 1630s. A lieutenant on the ship Warwick,then part of a fleet under the command of Nathaniel Butler,he later took part in a privateering expedition under Butler between May–September 1639.
This timeline of the history of piracy in the 1640s is a chronological list of key events involving pirates between 1640 and 1649.
Edward Mansvelt or Mansfield was a 17th-century Dutch corsair and buccaneer who,at one time,was acknowledged as an informal chieftain of the "Brethren of the Coast". He was the first to organise large scale raids against Spanish settlements,tactics which would be utilised to attack Spanish strongholds by later buccaneers in future years,and held considerable influence in Tortuga and Port Royal. He was widely considered one of the finest buccaneers of his day and,following his death,his position was assumed by his protégéand vice-admiral,Henry Morgan.
William Rous was a 17th-century English privateer in the service of the Providence Island Company. He was later enlisted by William Jackson to accompany him on his expedition to the West Indies.
Daniel Elfrith was a 17th-century English privateer,colonist and slave trader. In the service of the Earl of Warwick,Elfrith was involved in privateering expeditions against the Spanish from his base in Bermuda. He was particularly known for capturing Spanish slave ships bound for the Spanish Main and selling the slaves himself to rival colonies in the Caribbean and the American colonies.
The Providence Island colony was established in 1630 by English Puritans on Providence Island,about 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of the coast of Nicaragua. It was founded and controlled by a group of English investors,the Providence Island Company.
Sussex Camock or Sussex Cammock (1600–1659) was an English privateer who was involved in establishing the Providence Island colony,a Puritan colony on what is now Isla de Providencia in the western Caribbean. Sussex Camock was the brother of Captain Thomas Cammock.
Philip Bell was Governor of Bermuda from 1626 to 1629,of the Providence Island colony from 1629 to 1636,and of Barbados from 1640 to 1650 during the English Civil War. During his terms of office in Providence and Barbados,the colonies moved from using indentured English workers to slaves imported from West Africa. The Providence Island colony,despite its puritan ideals,became a haven for privateers attacking ships in the Spanish Main.
Francisco de Murga y Ortiz de Orué was Spanish soldier and engineer who became Governor and Captain-General of Cartagena. He was governor of Marmora in Africa when he was appointed to fortify the plaza of Cartagena. He was a knight of Order of Santiago. He died in 1636.
Karen Ordahl Kupperman is an American historian who specializes in colonial history in the Atlantic world of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Daniel Searle was an English tobacco planter and Governor of Barbados from 1652 to 1660.
The 1635 Capture of Tortuga was a successful military campaign against the Anglo-French plantation,pirate,and buccaneering settlement of Tortuga,then a dependency of the Providence Island colony. It resulted in heavy casualties for the settlement,the severance of Tortuga's link with Providence Island,and Tortuga's further shift towards piracy and buccaneering.
The Seaflower was a sailing ship built in England. It was most notable for helping settle Puritans on the Caribbean Providence Island colony in 1631. Regarded as sister ship to the Mayflower,the Seaflower also transported settlers to the New World,specifically to Jamestown,Virginia,colony in 1621.
Notes
Citations
Sources