![]() ![]() Pascual Cervera Y Topete, Spanish‐American War (1898).In 1895, the Cuban patriot José Martí renewed his homeland's attempt to achieve independence from Spain, triggering a gue… Dunkirk, Dunkirkĭunkirk was the northern French port from which British and Allied troops were evacuated during the fighting that led to the fal… Bernardo De Galvez, Gálvez, Bernardo deīernardo de Gálvez, an aristocrat born in Spain and trained for a military career, became governor of the Span… James Wolfe, Born JanuWesterhan, Kent, Englandīritish general who led the capture of Quebec "The West India Merchants and the Conveyance of the King's Troops to the Caribbean, 1779–1782." Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 45 (1967): 169-176. "The West Indies Hurricanes of October, 1780." Journal of the Royal United Service Institution 106 (1961): 573-584. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean. "Jamaica Prepares for Invasion, 1779." Caribbean Quarterly 4 (1955): 62-67. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1967. SEE ALSO Honduras Nicaragua West Indies in the Revolution Yorktown Campaign. ![]() Although unable to obtain Loyalists, he did get permission to recruit a unit from the American prisoners captured in the fall of Charleston by promising that they would only serve against the Spanish. Dalling looked to the southern colonies, where conditions matched Jamaican weather, as a source of troops better suited to defend the island and operate along the coast of the Spanish Main. Between 1 August and 31 December 1780, the seven and a half battalions at Jamaica lost eleven hundred men dead, and half of the remaining three thousand were sick. The climate, however, had a devastating effect on Europeans. But 1779 changed the picture dramatically, and the North ministry began dispatching large reinforcements to protect the island. Until Spain entered the conflict upon declaring war with Britain in 1779, Jamaica's role was that of naval base (it had only about five hundred troops in garrison), principally focused on intercepting American trade in the Caribbean and protecting its own semi-annual commercial convoys from privateers. On the other hand, Governor John Dalling aggressively sought to use Jamaica for operations against Honduras and Nicaragua. ![]() While the Royal Navy's squadron commander based in Port Royal had the responsibility to protect West Florida, his army counterpart had no connection with Pensacola or Mobile. As with other island possessions, Jamaica's planters and British merchants lobbied in London to have large forces of regular troops and Royal Navy vessels sent out, but they used their control of the colony's assembly to oppose spending local money for defense. Only sixteen thousand white colonists occupied the island, barely enough to maintain control over the sugar plantations' restive slaves and to deal with hostile Maroons in the mountainous interior. ![]() It unquestionably was the largest and richest British possession in the Caribbean, and its capture ranked as Spain's primary objective in the New World. Jamaica was one thousand miles to windward of the principal British and French possessions in the Caribbean. ![]()
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