Armada de Barlovento
The Armada de las Islas de Barlovento y del Seno Mexicano ( Fleet of the Leeward Islands and the Gulf of Mexico , Armada de Barlovento for short ) or Windward Fleet or Windward Squadron was part of the Spanish Armada from 1635 to January 31, 1748 ; barlovento means " windward " or "windward" in Spanish .
history
Beginnings
Since the 1560s, the commanders of the Armada de la Carrera de las Indias (Castilian Latin American fleet) demanded a separate battle squadron, with fixed bases in the Caribbean. Spanish maritime trade was disrupted by privateers with French and English letters of war . The Armada de Barlovento was founded on the initiative of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza during the tenure of the 16th Viceroy of New Spain Lope Díez de Aux de Armendáriz in 1635. Its original area of operation was between the Islas de Barlovento and the Gulf of Mexico .
It served to protect coastal settlements and colonial seafaring and as an escort for valuables to Seville. The 17th Viceroy Diego López de Pacheco Cabrera y Bobadilla introduced a seal tax and continued the armada de Barlovento . The New Spanish arsenal developed under his rule. In Cartagena and Havana, cannons were cast and ammunition, gunpowder and rigging were produced. The Alcabala , a local sales tax in New Spain , has been doubled to finance the Armada de Barlovento .
The Armada de Barlovento began its patrols in 1641 with a few ships of different tonnage reserved for this purpose , while others were laid down in the viceroyalty of New Spain .
The Armada de Barlovento was first stationed in Puerto de Veracruz and was later relocated to the ports of Havana, Santo Domingo, and San Juan in Puerto Rico . On its first voyage, under the command of Admiral Antonio de la Plaza Eguiluz, the Armada de Barlovento captured three ships with English or Dutch letters of war. Their crew was about to destroy two galleons that had been laid down at the mouth of the Río de Alvarado . As they continued south up the coast, they overwhelmed the crews of three other ships, murdered their captain, and caused other great losses. The ships captured in this way were incorporated into the Armada de Barlovento .
The Armada de Barlovento had a constant shortage of seafarers, which is why the ships were sometimes unable to sail. From time to time the ships were ordered to escort silver transports to Seville. In order not to leave the coasts defenseless, reasons had to be found vis-à-vis the Crown for the indispensability of the fleet. As a power factor, the Armada de Barlovento was the subject of intrigue at the Spanish court.
From 1664
In 1664 four ships were bought in Amsterdam for the Armada de Barlovento . These ships were equipped and manned in Cádiz and sailed into the Caribbean in July 1667 as an escort for the Flota de Azogues ( mercury transporter ). After reaching Veracruz, they patrolled Campeche Bay for a while. The main association was then used again as an escort for the transport of valuables to Seville. Admiral Alonso de Campos and what was left of him were to stand up to Henry Morgan in the southern Caribbean. After looting Portobelo and Cartagena in the summer of 1688, Morgan turned to Maracaibo in 1689 . Admiral Alonso de Campos ordered the remaining Armada de Barlovento to Maracaibo. On April 27, 1689, his fleet of three ships with a crew of 130 from a vastly superior privateer fleet was destroyed.
1672 had the then Viceroy of New Spain (1664-1673), Antonio Sebastián de Toledo, Marqués de Mancera dig a new Armada de Barlovento . The whereabouts of the Armada de Barlovento were often known to their numerous enemies, including a growing number of multinational privateers, and they dodged their pillage accordingly. In May 1683 about 1000 men from eight ships belonging to the privateers Michel de Granmont and Laurens de Graff Veracruz looted .
In 1684 Privateers tried to loot Tampico . Under the command of Captain-General Andres Ochoa de Zárate, the Armada de Barlovento captured 104 pirates, mostly English and Dutch. The prisoners, 14 of whom were strangled with the garrote , said they had recently gutted a shipwreck in Matagorda Bay .
A captain who was spared later served as a pilot in the area of the Texan coast in search of Robert Cavelier de La Salle's expedition .
On July 6, 1685, 750 freebooters belonging to the Graff and Grammont Society occupied Campeche, and for the next two months they looted and raped the coastal residents. The Armada de Barlovento sought at this time an alleged pirate base on the island of Roatan . When the Armada de Barlovento sailed back in September 1685, she had lost three ships in a hurricane and stumbled upon the Graff and Grammont fleet at Cabo Catoche when they returned from their sacking of Campeche. The Armada de Barlovento destroyed one pirate ship and captured another. The flagship on which Laurens de Graaf sailed was battered by Spanish fire. On a ship of the Armada de Barlovento one killed Rohrkrepierer Three Mariners. Ochoa died of a sudden illness two days after meeting Laurens de Graaf on the high seas. Several Castilian officers had to answer for the suspension of the persecution of Laurens de Graaf and were suspended from duty. The Armada de Barlovento had taken 120 prisoners. Among them were former members of Robert Cavelier de La Salle's expedition . Of these, some, hoping to escape the garrot, disclosed the French plan for a settlement on the Mississippi River . From 1685 to 1688, the Armada de Barlovento searched for Fort Crèvecœur . The Armada de Barlovento made five trips to track down the French invaders. These reconnaissance trips were commanded by Juan Enríquez Barroto, Francisco López de Gamarra, Andrés de Pez y Malzárraga and Martín de Rivas. The search rekindled interest in exploring the Gulf of Mexico and its coasts. That is why the Armada de Barlovento played a major role in mapping the Mexican Gulf Coast. The geographical naming was partly adopted in European languages.
The Armada de Barlovento continued the exploration of Texas, even when the Fort Crèvecœur was found by Alonso De León by land in 1689 from Coahuila near Lavaca Bay .
From 1690
In 1690 Capt. Francisco de Llanos in Matagorda Bay. This expedition included Capitan Gregorio de Salinas Varona, who was in command of a reconnaissance mission on land, and Manuel José de Cárdenas y Magaña, a cartographer who mapped the bay.
In 1691 and 1692, Enríquez Barroto (around 1660–1693), who piloted the expedition of Martín de Rivas and Pedro de Iriarte and mapped the Gulf coast from 1686–87 , with the Armada de Barlovento team and material for the Castilian governor of Texas Domingo Terán de los Ríos , who set up six missions in the territory of the Caddo (Confederation) . Six men drowned in Matagorda Bay during the landing mission.
During the King William's War from 1689 to 1697, the Armada de Barlovento's staff shortage was dramatic. Children of the Talon family from Fort Crèvecœur were recruited in childhood for the Armada de Barlovento under the command of Captain-General Andrés de Pez to serve on Admiral Guillermo Morfi's flagship , the Santo Cristo de Maracaibo . The talons were on the Santo Cristo de Maracaibo when it, cut off from the Armada de Barlovento , had to surrender to a French squadron from Haiti on January 7, 1697 . The talons were naturalized as French and came back to Louisiana . For the defeat, Pez and Morfi had a few years later before a court martial responsible. Morfi was found guilty and Pez was acquitted.
In 1693, Pez and Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora explored and mapped Pensacola Bay and part of the Mississippi Delta .
In 1695, Andrés de Arriola y Guzmán, who later became the founder of Pensacola and later still captain general, explored the coastline between Tampico and Pensacola Bay.
On August 4, 1696, the Nuestra Señora Rosario y Santiago Apostol, under the command of Francisco Butron, escorted a ship to the Old with the Santissima Trinidad y Nuestra Señora de Atocha , the Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe , the Santo Cristo de Maracaibo and 22 other ships Bahama Channel .
From 1700
In 1700 the Armada de Barlovento still had an abundance of tasks; in Laguna de Términos and in the Bay of Campeche a large number of people lived from piracy. Scots invaded the Darién area . At the beginning of the Spanish War of Succession, the ships of the Armada de Barlovento were in poor condition and sparsely equipped with crew. The flagships, which continued to be used as escorts for transporting valuables to Seville, were an exception.
In 1712 a new shipbuilding program was launched in Havana . In Madrid, a central form of organization of the Armada prevailed against the relatively autonomous Armada de Barlovento . In 1719, the Armada de Barlovento concept was reissued, but the crews were poached from the Armada within the next decade. On January 31, 1748, the dissolution of the Armada de Barlovento was decreed.
See also
swell
- ↑ For the name (p.51) and origin, see Bibiano Torres Ramírez: Los Primeros Intentos de Formación de la Armada de Barlovento . In: Yearbook for the History of Latin America / Anuario de Historia de América Latina (JbLA), Vol. 11 (1974), pp.33-51, online
- ↑ http://uwf.edu/shipwreck/rosario.htm
- ^ Robert S. Weddle: Armada de Barlovento , in Handbook of Texas, ARMADA DE BARLOVENTO ; accessed on December 30, 2014