200th ANNIVERSARY 3 AUGUST 1823 USS WEASEL vs. GALLAGO SEGUNDA (cont. from 22 JUL) Continental and US Navy warships had been cruising the Caribbean Sea since the earliest days of our Revolutionary War. Their initial mission was to suppress British Read More
200th ANNIVERSARY 21-22 JULY 1823 USS BEAGLE AND GREYHOUND (cont. from 11 JUL) The demise of Diabolito ten days earlier did not bring piracy along the coast of Spanish Cuba to an end. Far from it. Piracy remained rampant Read More
200th ANNIVERSARY 11 JULY 1823 THE DEATH OF DIABOLITO Frank piracy reemerged in the Caribbean in the early 1800s with the sanctioning of privateering by newly independent former Spanish colonies. One of the more notorious of such pirate cut-throats Read More
200th ANNIVERSARY 22 MAY 1823 AVENGING CAPTAIN PERKINS On 1 March 1823 the American merchant brig Belisarius of Kennebunk, Maine, departed Port au Prince, Haiti, bound for Mexico. The new-found independence of such former Spanish colonies as Venezuela, Colombia, and Read More
6 MARCH 1823 DEATH OF LT COCKE Piracy was rampant in the Caribbean of the early 19th century. Independence movements in several Spanish New World colonies created the problem, as these new nations often sanctioned privateering against their former Spanish overlords. Read More
5-7 FEBRUARY 1832 THE FIRST BATTLE OF QUALLAH BATTOO His trading mission scrubbed, Captain Charles Endicott refitted Friendship for sea and departed 4 March 1831 for Salem. His landfall on 16 July was preceded several days by the arrival of another Read More
EARLY FEBRUARY 1831 FRIENDSHIP AND THE SUMATRAN PIRATES Salem, Massachusetts, was one of our busiest seaports in the early days of our young nation. In fact, it was the major port through which the American spice trade was conducted. About the Read More
10 NOVEMBER 1822 USS SHARK VS. Caroline Officially, the US government banned American participation in the African slave trade in 1808, although enforcement was not attempted until our Navy began patrolling off West Africa in 1820. Two years later those patrols Read More
4 MARCH 1825 EL PIRATA COFRESI Following the War of 1812, our Navy’s missions shifted to those of policing the slave trade off West Africa and combating piracy in the Caribbean. By 1825, our West India Squadron had nearly completed this Read More