Foxardo Affair (cont.)

                                 27 OCTOBER-14 NOVEMBER 1824                                          FOXARDO AFFAIR (cont.) So often in history, the similar actions of separate individuals are interpreted quite differently in light of the background circumstances.  In 1818, GEN Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish Florida with US forces, capturing a Spanish Read More

Foxardo Affair

                                 27 OCTOBER-14 NOVEMBER 1824                                               FOXARDO AFFAIR With a splash, the anchor of USS BEAGLE hit the water of Foxardo harbor (modern Fajardo), Spanish Puerto Rico.  The 3-gun US Navy schooner and her commander, LT Charles T. Platt, were in search of Read More

USS WEASEL vs. Gallago Segunda (cont. from 22 JUL)

                                            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

USS BEAGLE and GREYHOUND (cont. from 11 JUL)

                                                   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

The Death of Diabolito

                                            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

Avenging Captain Perkins

                                            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

Death of LT Cocke

                                                  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

The First Battle of Quallah Battoo

                       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

Friendship and the Sumatran Pirates

                      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

USS SHARK vs. Caroline

                        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