The Seaflower was a sailing ship (likely a fluyt) built in England. Regarded as sister ship to the Mayflower , the Seaflower also transported settlers to the New World, specifically to Jamestown, Virginia, colony in 1621. [1] [2] It was most notable for helping settle Puritans on the Caribbean Providence Island colony in 1631. [3] [4] The Colombian Marine Protected Area and Biosphere Reserve surrounding the islands is named after the ship. [5] [6] [ additional citation(s) needed ]
Seaflower (or Seaflour [7] ) was 140 tons, and frequented Bermuda (then known as the Somers Isles). Some time before 20 March [ O.S. 30 March] 1622, the ship was accidentally sunk by a gunpowder explosion in the cabin. [8] Apparently the explosion was caused by the captain's son mishandling lighted tobacco in the gunroom. [9] [ additional citation(s) needed ] It was carrying supplies for a relief mission to Virginia. [10] [ additional citation(s) needed ]
Records indicate that the a second ship was named Sea Flower[ sic ]. It is unknown whether the first or second ship were distinctly different in design or construction. This Sea Flower is documented to have been captained by Ralph Hamor with 120 settlers who arrived in Virginia colony, February, 1622. [11] This ship also sailed back to England (arriving in June, 1622) with news of the Indian attacks on Englishmen that began in March. [12]
In 1629, Privateer Captain Daniel Elfrith (aboard the Robert) scouted the archipelago of "Santa Calatina" for riches and as a staging point for Spanish ship plundering. [13] The Earl of Warwick was looking for a new location to build a colony, yielding the setup of Providence Island Company. [14] In c. February 1631, 100 men and boys (mostly Puritans recruited from Essex, England) boarded the Seaflower, sailing from Deptford to Providence Island. [15] Ninety passengers settled the island in c. May 1631, [16] intending to load the ship with exotic plants and produce for profit in London. [17]
Seaflower returned to London, England, in March, 1632. It was attacked-at-sea by Spanish during the return voyage, with Captain John Tanner and crew narrowly escaping. The ship's cargo was only a small batch of poor quality tobacco. [18] Later, the Seaflower returned to Providence Island and was loaded again, this time with 1 tonne (1,000 kg) of "mechoacan potatoes" ( Ipomoea purga ), used as a medicine. [19]
In autumn 1676, the Seaflower was still in use as a transport for slaves from Africa to the Caribbean. [20] During and after King Phillip's War, the Seaflower was used to transport Native Americans as slaves to Bermuda and other Caribbean colonies. [21] [22]
In 1696, notorious pirates Henry Every and Joseph Faro most likely [note 1] used the ship during their time in and around Rhode Island. [24] [25]
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.
The British colonization of the Americas is the history of establishment of control, settlement, and colonization of the continents of the Americas by England, Scotland, and, after 1707, Great Britain. Colonization efforts began in the late 16th century with failed attempts by England to establish permanent colonies in the North. The first of the permanent English colonies in the Americas was established in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Colonies were established in North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Though most British colonies in the Americas eventually gained independence, some colonies have remained under Britain's jurisdiction as British Overseas Territories.
The Mayflower Compact, originally titled Agreement Between the Settlers of New Plymouth, was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the men aboard the Mayflower, consisting of Separatist Puritans, adventurers, and tradesmen. Although the agreement contained a pledge of loyalty to the King, the Puritans and other Protestant Separatists were dissatisfied with the state of the Church of England, the limited extent of the English Reformation and reluctance of King James I of England to enforce further reform.
The Colony of Virginia was a British, colonial settlement in North America between 1606 and 1776.
Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick KB, PC was an English naval officer, politician and peer who commanded the Parliamentarian navy during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A Puritan, he was also lord of the Manor of Hunningham.
William Bradford was an English Puritan Separatist originally from the West Riding of Yorkshire in Northern England. He moved to Leiden in Holland in order to escape persecution from King James I of England, and then emigrated to the Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower in 1620. He was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact and went on to serve as Governor of the Plymouth Colony intermittently for about 30 years between 1621 and 1657. He served as a commissioner of the United Colonies of New England on multiple occasions and served twice as president. His journal Of Plymouth Plantation covered the years from 1620 to 1646 in Plymouth.
John Oldham was an early Puritan settler in Massachusetts. He was a captain, merchant, and Indian trader. His death at the hands of the Indians was one of the causes of the Pequot War of 1636–37.
Edward Winslow was a Separatist and New England political leader who traveled on the Mayflower in 1620. He was one of several senior leaders on the ship and also later at Plymouth Colony. Both Edward Winslow and his brother, Gilbert Winslow signed the Mayflower Compact. In Plymouth he served in a number of governmental positions such as assistant governor, three times was governor and also was the colony's agent in London. In early 1621 he had been one of several key leaders on whom Governor Bradford depended after the death of John Carver. He was the author of several important pamphlets, including Good Newes from New England and co-wrote with William Bradford the historic Mourt's Relation, which ends with an account of the First Thanksgiving and the abundance of the New World. In 1655 he died of fever while on an English naval expedition in the Caribbean against the Spanish.
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.
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.
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 protégé and vice-admiral, Henry Morgan.
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.
Mayflower was an English sailing ship that transported a group of English families, known today as the Pilgrims, from England to the New World in 1620. After 10 weeks at sea, Mayflower, with 102 passengers and a crew of about 30, reached what is today the United States, dropping anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on November 21 [O.S. November 11], 1620.
The New England Colonies of British America included Connecticut Colony, the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, and the Province of New Hampshire, as well as a few smaller short-lived colonies. The New England colonies were part of the Thirteen Colonies and eventually became five of the six states in New England, with Plymouth Colony absorbed into Massachusetts and Maine separating from it.
The English overseas possessions comprised a variety of overseas territories that were colonised, conquered, or otherwise acquired by the Kingdom of England before 1707.
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.
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.
Robert Hunt was an English soldier who was Governor of the Providence Island colony in the western Caribbean Sea from 1636 to 1638.
Fonseca, also spelled Fonzeca, Fonsequa, or Fonte Seca, other names San Bernardo, San Bernaldo, Galissonière's Rock, is a phantom island which was said to lie in the Atlantic Ocean at 12°27'N and 54°48'W, east of Barbados and Tobago.
