Naval Battle of Santa Cruz (1657)

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Naval Battle of Santa Cruz
The flagship The George during battle, painting by Charles Dixon from 1901
The flagship The George during battle, painting by Charles Dixon from 1901
date April 30, 1657
place Santa Cruz de Tenerife
output English victory
Parties to the conflict

Spain 1506Spain Spain

Flag of The Commonwealth.svg Commonwealth of England

Commander

Spain 1506SpainCapitán General Diego de Egües y Beaumont Capitán General Alonso Dávila y Guzmán
Spain 1506Spain

Flag of The Commonwealth.svgGeneral at Sea Robert Blake
Flag of The Commonwealth.svg Captain Richard Stayner

Troop strength
2 warships with 32 cannons each and a crew of 250
14 merchant ships
99 cannons ashore
6,000 militiamen ashore 		28 warships with a total of approx. 1,000 cannons
losses

all ships sunk, stranded or burned
300 men killed or wounded

several ships badly damaged
50–60 men killed
120–200 men wounded

The information on troop strengths and losses differ significantly in the literature.

The naval battle of Santa Cruz on April 30, 1657 took place during the Anglo-Spanish War (1655-1660) in the bay of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The battle was not a sea battle in the strict sense. The fighting took place in the port. The Spaniards defended themselves mainly through the fortifications on land. The English fleet managed to sink through the use of 28 heavily armed warships, 14 - not armed with cannons - merchant ships that had unloaded their cargo, and two armed warships.

prehistory

The attackers

Robert Blake

The Anglo-Spanish War was a military conflict between the Commonwealth of England and the Kingdom of Spain from 1655 to 1660 . In 1655 the English fleet, under the command of General at Sea Robert Blake, had besieged the port of Cádiz in the hope of intercepting the Silver Fleet ships coming from America . Since the silver fleet had not left this year, the company was unsuccessful. In 1656, an eight-ship silver fleet sailed from Havana for Cadiz. On September 19, a squadron of the English Navy under Captain Richard Stayner attacked the ships shortly before they had reached their destination. Two Spanish ships were sunk, two ships burned, two ships with their cargo could be captured by the English. The English put the value of this cargo at 3,000,000 pounds. Two ships reached the port of Cadiz. The siege of the port of Cadiz by the English fleet continued throughout 1656.

When Blake learned at the end of 1656 that part of the Spanish silver fleet had left Havana for the Canary Islands, he sailed south with a fleet of 28 ships. On April 28th, the island of Tenerife was in sight. The English ships were each equipped with at least 30 cannons. Some ships had more than 60 guns.

the defenders

Course of the journey of the Spanish convoy

On March 10, 1656, a convoy of the silver fleet , which consisted of 28 ships, left the port of Cadiz with the destination Veracruz . The command of the fleet was the captain general Diego Egües y Beaumont , his deputy Admiral José Centeno. The ships were four war galleons, a communication ship (Patache) and four merchant ships, which were equipped with twelve cannons and, in addition to the normal crew, had 50 infantrymen on board. The rest were normal, unarmed merchant ships. From June 25, the ships were unloaded and loaded in Veracruz.

The departure for Havana was delayed by bad weather and constant news about English ships in the waters off Cuba. On August 30, some of the ships in the fleet began their return journey to Spain, while the other ships were supposed to winter in America. The fleet left Havana on December 24, 1656. The destination was not Cadiz as usual. Since the port was blocked by an English fleet, the ships were supposed to call at the Canary Islands and wait there for further instructions.

On February 18, 1657 La Palma was in sight. The fleet called at the bay of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The captain general of the Canary Islands, Don Alonso Dávila y Guzmán, recommended that the commander of the fleet, Don Diego de Egües y Beaumont, unload the cargo and bring it to safety in the Castillo de San Cristóbal. Diego de Egües initially did not accept this suggestion, but left the island on February 26 for the Spanish mainland. The fleet was surprised by a storm off Gran Canaria, but was able to save itself back to Santa Cruz de Tenerife with minor damage. As there was new news that an English fleet of more than 60 ships was cruising off the Andalusian coast, those responsible for the fleet and the port defense decided to store the cargo of the ships in the Castillo de San Cristóbal. On their return voyage from America, the ships of the Silver Fleet usually carried not only silver, but also gold, pearls, precious stones, leather and furs, indigo, sugar, cochineal and tobacco. In a letter written by Diego de Egües y Beaumont of Tenerife to the king, he indicated that the ships could not be defended against attack by a larger fleet. He was apparently hoping for reinforcements to enable the cargo to be safely transported to mainland Spain.

Depiction of the bay of Santa Cruz de Tenerife from 1699

The port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife at the time of the attack

Santa Cruz de Tenerife was a small town with 230 citizens in 1657, which means about 1,000 inhabitants. The port served as a fishing port and as a transshipment point for goods from the city of San Cristóbal de La Laguna . All processes such as trading, contracting, customs clearance, etc. took place in La Laguna. The main export ports of the island at that time were Garachico and Puerto de la Orotava . The port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife consisted of a bay open to the east and a pier where the rowing boats, with which the seagoing ships were loaded and unloaded, could dock. There was no quay where ocean-going ships could dock. The pier was protected by the Castillo San Cristóbal.

At the time, the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife was, despite its low economic importance, the most militarily equipped port in the Canary Islands. This is due, among other things, to the fact that Alonso Dávila y Guzmán , General Captain of the Canary Islands, appointed in 1650, who had relocated his official residence from Gran Canaria to La Laguna, had tried to renew and build new defenses, especially in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

The most important defense system, the Castillo de San Cristóbal, was armed with 19 cannons. The other two Castillos, San Juan and Paso Alto, had seven and eight cannons, respectively. Between these fortifications there were gun stands (Baterías) with a total of 41 cannons. During the English attack, another 24 cannons were used from land. These cannons had been taken from the merchant ships and used in the northeastern part of the defense line. So there were a total of 99 guns. But some of them were unable to take part in the fighting due to their poor condition. Elsewhere, only 64 guns are assumed.

At the time of the attack, in addition to the two warships and the nine merchant ships of the silver fleet, five other merchant ships were in port.

Course of the fighting

On Monday, April 30th 1657, a message ship from Gran Canaria reached the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. It brought the captain general the information that 33 ships of the English fleet under Admiral Blake were on the way to Tenerife. Since the fleet had already been sighted from the island on Saturday, April 28, the island's militia troops were already alerted. On Sunday the fleet appeared to be in front of the Anaga Mountains, the northeastern tip of the island. All infantry and cavalry units on the island were marched towards Santa Cruz. At the start of the attack, 6,000 militiamen from all parts of the island are said to have been in Santa Cruz. Since only some of the militiamen were armed with firearms, they did not take part in the fighting. They had been brought into port to ward off a feared invasion.

After consultation with his captains, Blake ordered that twelve ships under the command of Captain Stayner (who had already successfully led the attack on the silver fleet off Cadiz) attack and sink the Spanish fleet anchored in the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and then the The rest of the English fleet should bombard the fortifications on land.

Around eight o'clock in the morning, a squad led by the Speaker , Captain Stayner's ship, entered the bay of Santa Cruz de Tenerife from the northeast. It was shelled by the new defenses at El Bufadero and Valle Seco with no apparent success. Rifle volleys from land also apparently had no effect. Seen from land, the squadron anchored behind the Spanish ships lying in the bay. The English ships fired broadsides at the merchant ships and the two galleons. The port fortifications held back the gunfire because the English ships were hidden by the Spanish merchant ships. The Spanish merchant ships, protected only by infantry soldiers, had no chance against the English attackers, who were equipped with a large number of cannons, four of them stranded, three caught fire, two ships (a ship from the Silver Fleet and a ship that was already in port) were destroyed captured by the English for the time being, the rest were sunk.

Between eleven and twelve o'clock, the remaining ships of the English fleet entered the bay and shot at the defenses on the beach and the two Spanish warships, which were still powerful. An attempt by the Speakers ' sailors to capture the Spanish flagship failed. When the attackers were fired at, the two Spanish galleons caught fire and burned or exploded after the powder magazines also caught fire. There were also later claims that the Spaniards set fire to the ships themselves to keep them from falling into the hands of the English.

After heavy fire from the cannons on land, several English ships were badly damaged. Captain Stayner's ship, the speaker , had lost all masts and could not retreat to the open sea on its own, so that it had to be towed by other ships. Only after repeated requests by Blake did the sailors give up the attempt to tow the two captured Spanish ships out of the bay. The ships were eventually burned. Due to the still strong fire from the coastal batteries, the English fleet withdrew to the open sea. By nightfall all English ships had finally left the bay.

Follow the action

The information about the losses on both sides differ widely. According to English reports, there were 50 dead and 120 injured on the English ships. According to other information, around 500 people were killed and injured. Some ships were damaged, but after a few repairs were able to return to the west coast of Spain.

The losses on land were apparently very small. Numbers of three to five dead and a few injured are given. Considerable damage was done to the fortifications, particularly at the Castillo de Paso Alto.

It is not known exactly how many victims there were on the Spanish ships. It is assumed that 300 to 500 dead and injured.

The news of the victory of the English fleet was received with great satisfaction in England in the first days of June 1657. Parliament decided to give the victorious General at Sea Robert Blake a piece of jewelry worth £ 500. However, Blake could no longer receive the present. He died on August 27, 1657 on his way back to England, shortly before his flagship, the George, reached the port of Plymouth.

The achievements of Diego Egües y Beaumont, the commander of the silver fleet, were also recognized. King Philip IV granted him an encomienda with an income of 2,000 ducats. Admiral José Centeno was granted an encomienda with an income of 1,500 ducats. Diego Egües y Beaumont was in 1661 for governor and captain general of New Granada appointed. The Capitán General de Canarias, Alonso Dávila y Guzmán, who led the defense ashore, became a member of the Consejo del Supremo de Guerra (the Supreme War Council of Spain) in 1659.

The cargo of the ships was still stored in the Castillo de San Cristóbal and arrived in March 1658 in the port of Santa María on the mainland.

The coat of arms of the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife shows - even today - three lions, which symbolize the three defended English attacks (1657, 1706 and 1797 ). Robert Blake was represented together with John Jennings and Horatio Nelson as one of the three British lions in the coat of arms of the very loyal, noble and victorious city of Santa Cruz de Santiago de Tenerife .

Assessment of the military action

The goal and thus the success of the military action is interpreted differently:

  • On the one hand, the aim of causing the Spanish king to become insolvent by not receiving any precious metal deliveries for Madrid is seen as a rather lowly set goal. In order to achieve this goal, the attack would not have been necessary, since the closure of the Spanish coast already prevented deliveries to Madrid. In addition, Diego de Egües intended to return to America unloaded.
  • A somewhat more ambitious goal is seen in the capture of the treasures, regardless of whether they are on the ships or on land. According to Rumeu de Armas, the fact that, after all Spanish ships had been destroyed, the English fleet bombarded the defenses on land for a further six hours speaks for the fact that at least this goal was pursued.
  • A further goal pursued could have been the conquest of the island of Tenerife as an English base. The British had not achieved such a goal two years earlier in the Western Design military operation on the island of Hispaniola . However, the island of Jamaica was captured by English troops. That this goal was presumed is inferred from Don Diego's response to Robert Blake's request to surrender. He stated that if the English approached, they would be paid with the same coin as in Hispaniola.

literature

  • Antonio Rumeu de Armas: Piraterías y Ataques Navales versus Islas Canarias . III 1 1. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, Madrid 1950.
  • Alejandro Cioranescu: Historia de Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1494 - 1803 . tape II . Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorro, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1998, ISBN 84-7985-064-7 (Spanish).
  • William Stevens: History of Sea Power. Bremen, 2009, p. 147f. (First edition 1920)
  • Carlo M. Cipola: The Odyssey of Spanish Silver: Conquistadores, Pirates, Merchants . Wagenbach, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-8031-3594-X . The section “The organization of the fleets” pp. 35–42.
  • William Laird Clowes; Clements Robert Markham: The royal navy, a history from the earliest times to the present . tape 2 . Sampson Low, Marston and Company, London 1898 (English). archive.org

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In England in 1657 the Julian calendar was still in effect, so April 20, 1657 is mentioned as the day of the battle in English sources.
  2. ↑ a b c Steven p.148
  3. ↑ In historical Spanish literature, the name Egüés is written without an acute and often without a trema .
  4. ↑ a b c d Alberto García Paredes: Diego de Egües y la flota de 1656. In: Revista del Centro de Estudios Merindad de Tudela. No. 11, 2001, ISSN  1131-9577 , pp. 47-70 dialnet.unirioja.es p. 62.
  5. ↑ a b Antonio Rumeu de Armas: Piraterías y Ataques Navales contra las Islas Canarias . III 1 1. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, Madrid 1950, p. 174 .
  6. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: Piraterías y Ataques Navales contra las Islas Canarias . III 1 1. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, Madrid 1950, p. 180 .
  7. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: Piraterías y Ataques Navales contra las Islas Canarias . III 1 1. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, Madrid 1950, p. 191 .
  8. ↑ In England the Julian calendar was still in effect in 1657 , so April 20, 1657 is mentioned as the day of the battle in English sources. The Gregorian calendar was already in effect at the location of the action. In the following, all dates correspond to the Gregorian calendar.
  9. ^ M. Napier Trevylyan: Robert Blake. An Admiralty Naval History Prize Essay for 1924 . In: The Navel Review. The Naval Society, 1925 (English). P. 427.
  10. ↑ a b Capt. Richard Stayner: Capt. Richard Stayner to the generals of the fleet. September 9, 1656, accessed January 13, 2013 .
  11. ↑ Alberto García Paredes: Diego de Egües y la flota de 1656. In: Revista del Centro de Estudios Merindad de Tudela. No. 11, 2001, ISSN  1131-9577 , pp. 47-70 dialnet.unirioja.es p. 55.
  12. ↑ Manuel Hernández González: Tenerife - Patrimonio Histórico y Cultural . Editorial Rueda, Madrid 2002, ISBN 84-7207-134-0 (Spanish). P. 184
  13. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: Piraterías y Ataques Navales contra las Islas Canarias . III 1 1. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, Madrid 1950, p. 180 . Antonio Rumeu de Armas thinks this number is likely. The figures vary between 2,000 and 12,000.
  14. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: Piraterías y Ataques Navales contra las Islas Canarias . III 1 1. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, Madrid 1950, p. 186 .
  15. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: Piraterías y Ataques Navales contra las Islas Canarias . III 1 1. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, Madrid 1950, p. 188 . Antonio Rumeu de Armas refers here to CH Firth: Blake and the Battle of Santa Cruz. In: The English historical review. 1905.
  16. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: Piraterías y Ataques Navales contra las Islas Canarias . III 1 1. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, Madrid 1950, p. 190 .
  17. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: Piraterías y Ataques Navales contra las Islas Canarias . III 1 1. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, Madrid 1950, p. 194 .
  18. ↑ Alberto García Paredes: Diego de Egües y la flota de 1656. In: Revista del Centro de Estudios Merindad de Tudela. No. 11, 2001, ISSN  1131-9577 , pp. 47-70 dialnet.unirioja.es p. 59.
  19. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: Piraterías y Ataques Navales contra las Islas Canarias . III 1 1. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, Madrid 1950, p. 192 .
  20. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: Piraterías y Ataques Navales contra las Islas Canarias . III 1 1. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, Madrid 1950, p. 182 footnote 99 .

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