In 1625 a party
of English and French occupied the island San Cristobal. Four years
later Puerto Rico, being well garrisoned at the time, the governor,
Enrique Henriquez, fitted out an expedition to dislodge them, in which
he succeeded only to make them take up new quarters in Antigua.
The next year the French and English buccaneers who occupied the small
island of Tortuga made a descent upon the western part of la Espanola,
called Haiti by the natives (mountainous land), and maintained
themselves there till that part of the island was ceded to France by
the treaty of Ryswyk, in 1697.
Spain equipped a fleet to clear the West Indies from pirates in 1630,
and placed it under the command of Don Federico de Toledo. He was met
in the neighborhood of San Cristobal by a numerous fleet of small
craft, which had the advantage over the unwieldy Spanish ships in that
they could maneuver with greater rapidity and precision. There are no
reliable details of the result of the engagement. Abbad tells us that
the Spaniards were victorious, but the buccaneers continued to occupy
all the islands which they had occupied before.
In 1634 they took possession of Curagao, Aruba, and Bonaire, near the
coast of Venezuela, and established themselves in 1638 in San
Eustaquio, Saba, San Martin, and Santa Cruz.
In 1640 the Governor of Puerto Rico sought to expel them from the
last-named island.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142