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Transcript
Welcome back! Last week, we saw the second Spanish attack on Providence Island, and the final reorganization of the venture into a potentially successful enterprise. It was the colony’s last hope. They adopted vital reforms, sold most of their slaves, and removed colony’s most belligerent citizens, and a group of people from New England, led by John Humfrey, prepared to move there. But, when they reached St. Kitts, they heard rumors that a Spanish fleet had been spotted off the coast of Providence Island, and had to decide whether to push forward, or turn back.
Intro
As Humfrey and his men deliberated about whether to push forward or turn back, Pierce asked to return to New England. He’d participated in the Providence Island venture more than anyone else on board, and he knew he was at more risk than the others if there was a confrontation with the Spanish, but Humphrey’s colonists insisted on going to the colony, to at least see what was going on. “Then I am a dead man,” Pierce responded.
When they reached their destination, the island was oddly quiet, and as they approached, they noticed that no flags, either English or Spanish, were waving over New Westminster. Everything about the scene was weird. Clearly something had happened, but who was on the island, and if they were English, what kind of distress were they in?
They sailed toward the shore to see what they could see, and the first thing they noticed was a cannon aimed directly at the Desire, and they realized they’d been lured into a trap. By then it was too late. They couldn’t turn the ship in time to evade the cannonfire. They steered frantically, but ships just didn’t turn that fast, so they were virtually paralyzed. Then, the cannon (or rather, cannons) fired, tearing holes in the ship’s sails, and hitting two men in the chest, mortally wounding them. One was Pierce, and the other was Samuel Wakeman, a Connecticut merchant who had come to buy cotton in the Caribbean, with no intention of settling there. As the ship continued turning away, the Spanish didn’t fire again.
Humfrey’s settlers were determined to avoid returning to New England, so they visited the Moskito Coast to consider settling there. But, they ultimately decided that living among buccaneers and runaway slaves was even less appealing than returning to Massachusetts. They asked the sailors to leave them at Cape Gracias a Dios, or in Florida, or in Virginia, but the sailors took them back to Boston. There, Winthrop criticized their foolishness in leaving “a place of rest and safety to expose themselves, their wives and their children to the danger of a potent enemy,” and the rest of the population was similarly hostile.
Their plans for leaving as a group had fallen apart, so now they had to choose between relocating as individuals, going back to England, to Virginia, or to other Caribbean colonies, or staying in New England for the time being. But if they wanted to stay in New England, they were going to have to stand in front of their hostile congregations, publicly acknowledge their error, their foolishness, their laziness, their selfishness and ask to be readmitted into society. This was a practice unique to New England, and was a big part of the reason most of them had left in the first place, so while some people did go through the humiliating ritual, many others chose to leave New England for good, and among the latter group were Humfrey, Lechford and Venner, all of whom became prominent Parliamentarians back in England. Barbados and Virginia were also popular destinations for those who chose to leave.
But back to Providence Island, we know now that the Spanish had, in fact, taken it. So, let’s go back and see what had happened there. The raiding of coastal settlements and drain on the treasury had convinced the Spanish of the need to eliminate Providence Island once and for all, and it’s quite possible that they’d heard about the several hundred English colonists who were coming to reinforce the island. So, after the 1640 attack was repelled, they had started planning another one, very carefully. The man chosen to lead the attack, Francisco Diaz Pimienta, had interrogated English prisoners, as well as a Moorish ship’s pilot who had spent some time on Providence Island as a privateer. The previous attackers hadn’t expected the island to be as well fortified as it was, both in terms of its natural defenses, and its manmade fortifications and militarily trained population. He was determined not to repeat the mistake. Then, he’d assembled a force of 1,400 soldiers and 600 sailors in 7 large ships, 4 pinnaces and assorted boats. They reached the Island on May 19, 1641, and immediately split into several parties and carefully reconnoitered, tested the English weapons and plotted their attack. Pimienta correctly predicted where the cannons were placed, and selected a route which the English had, indeed left unfortified. But, thanks to severe weather, they weren’t able to actually land there.
Meanwhile, the English noticed the Spanish ships, and began to fight back. It didn’t look like the Spanish would be able to take the Island, and the Spanish commanders suggested that they retreat and try again when the weather was better, but Pimienta refused. He would take the island, now, once and for all, and he had a bold idea. If the Spanish sailed their ships directly at the Northern tip of the Island, where New Westminster and Ft. Warwick were, as fast as they could, pushed by the storm’s brutal winds, the English wouldn’t have time to aim their cannons, and they’d be completely helpless. So, the next morning, that’s exactly what they did. They used the stormy weather in their favor, and simply sailed to shore. The English couldn’t aim, and the Spanish were able to shoot at the shore from their pinnaces to scatter the defenders. The Spanish sustained no damage whatsoever, and after landing, they began to march to Ft. Warwick. They were met by slaves who fought with valor, but who were hopelessly outnumbered in hand-to-hand combat, and who retreated after 20 were killed. And with no further resistance, they marched directly to New Westminster, raised a standard over the governor’s house, flushed out the English who were prepared to resist, and prepared to attack the Fort. Even the English who were prepared to fight back, simply couldn’t. And again, Carter surrendered. Taking Ft. Warwick may have been a difficult task, but the Spanish did have control of the governor’s mansion, and the rest of the island, and 1400 troops who had thus far encountered no resistance … so you can’t quite begrudge him the surrender this time. Carter sent the two Dominican Friars to meet Pimienta with a message declaring the surrender of the English in exchange for safe passage to Cadiz, and Pimienta accepted. They took the weapons, renamed the Island Santa Catalina, and installed a garrison of 150 soldiers with corn, beans, and instructions to live good, Christian lives.
And seriously, that was it. After all of that, the Spanish had won by simply sailing to shore and fighting a few unarmed slaves. Six days later, Pimienta formally took possession of the island and the Spanish celebrated their first Mass in Hope Sherrard’s Church. The Spanish were surprised at how much agriculture was going on on the island, which they considered no more than a hive of pirates, and they were surprised at how few slaves were there. They also re-captured 60,000 pounds worth of loot which had been stored on the island, and sent it to Spain. They then sold the Island’s 381 slaves at Cartagena and Portobello, and sent the 350 English prisoners to Cartagena for the summer, and there the English were shocked at how well they were treated. Even Carter’s life was spared. They were given comfortable lodging, food, water, and then allowed to buy their freedom. 150 of the English had escaped during the attack, and hidden in the mountains for the next few days. After watching the Spanish take over New Westminster, they took a small boat and set sail for the Moskito coast. A group of slaves had also escaped with a privateer ship, and despite never having been taught how to sail or navigate a ship, they also made it to Cape Gracias a Dios. They crash landed on the coast, and made it their home. Members of both groups hung on along the Coast for the next few years, and gradually melded into the Native population. The Spanish did drive out Claiborne’s settlement, and its colonists briefly went to Trinidad.
After Pimienta’s victory, more merchant ships entered Cartagena in two months than had in the previous two years combined. Residents of the coastal towns celebrated, and Pimienta was awarded a knighthood. He disobeyed royal orders to dismantle Providence Island’s defenses, saying the Spanish had worked too hard to take it to risk it being recaptured by pirates. The island was almost impregnable, so he said they should just spend a little money, keep the fort, install a self-sustaining garrison of 150 soldiers, and be done with it. They unenthusiastically went along with his plan.
And, over the course of the summer, assorted groups of intended English immigrants went to Providence Island, not knowing it had fallen. Leverton, Lane and intended deputy governor Thomas Fitch arrived first. When they found the Spanish in control, Leverton insisted they pick a fight, and they did manage to kill a number of Spanish soldiers and force their longboats ashore, but they were ultimately repelled. Fitch returned to England, while Lane and Leverton acted as privateers for three more years. They then went to Bermuda for a year, during which time Lane died, and after which Leverton returned to England, reunited with Sherrard and after enjoying a hero’s welcome, went to preach in Cornwall through the rest of the War and Interregnum. After the Restoration, he was evicted from his post and accepted an invitation to minister in Suriname, where he died shortly after his arrival.
And that brings us back to where we started this episode, with Humfrey and Pierce’s expedition. They were the last group of unknowing immigrants to arrive at the Spanish controlled island, and thus ends our story. I’m not sure if it’s completely anticlimactic or the most shocking failure imaginable. Not too long after the final fall, a man named Mr. Goose approached the company with a proposal to settle a few hundred New Englanders, again led by Humfrey, on the mainland, but the company was done. No more investment, no more bothering with this. Not only did they have other things to focus on, what with the impending Civil War and all, also … just no. No more. Not ever. Let’s chalk that up to a loss and a failure and move on with our lives.
As for the settlers, after a summer in Cartagena, the majority of them made their way back to England, though some went to other Caribbean Islands. They returned thoroughly impoverished, having lost everything in the venture, in the loss of the island, and in buying their freedom from the Spanish.
Privateers like Jackson, Axe and Lewis Morris, were still sailing under the company patent until 1645, and English mainland settlements, like the one at Cape Gracias a Dios, continued to entertain them. They were also greeted by the Moskito Indians, who they considered friends at this point.
Jackson, Axe and Morris went on a mission to avenge the colony in 1642, but they soon decided that instead of Providence Island, they would rather take Jamaica. Of course, three privateers weren’t going to be able to do much more than burn a few villages, which is pretty much all they did, but if you’re listening to this and noticing that, hey, Jamaica, then you are absolutely correct in identifying the significance. Providence Island practically inspired the Western Design, and Jamaica was first singled out by these privateers on this voyage.
And it was from this voyage that the last of the Providence Island loot reached England the next year, under Captain Jackson, and worth a few thousand pounds, but it was nowhere near enough to pay company debt, which was at its highest point ever, a total of almost 19,000 pounds. Colonists were financially ruined, and investors were close. Jessop drew up a final list of debts, telling each investor exactly what they owed. The investors who had gotten out early had already paid off most of their debts, owing at most a couple hundred pounds each, so the remaining debt was all on the shoulders of the five people who had kept it going, and apart from Mandeville, each of them owed between 1 and 2,000 pounds, just for their shares in the joint stocks, not including all of the unexpected expenses. The one thing that saved the investors, was that MPs and their servants were immune from prosecution for debts. By now, King Charles had called the Long Parliament, and all surviving investors were members of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords. I say all surviving investors, because when Thomas Barrington died, his heir, John, wasn’t an MP. All the creditors went to John demanding their money back, so John went to Parliament asking for immunity from all but his father’s own debt, and fortunately Parliament agreed.
But, regardless of immunity, the debt followed them. They continued to meet for well over a decade just to deal with the debt, and when the investors died, as both Brooke and Pym did in 1643, their heirs would take their place at the meetings. Creditors were pressing for their money, and they never won any of the lawsuits over privateering prizes. After the regicide, Saye went into retirement, which meant he lost his immunity for the debt, and his son Nathaniel Fiennes acted for him during the Interregnum, and Fiennes took on some of Pym’s old role, trying to get people to actually pay their debts. He was dismayed to find that Pym had structured the debt in such a convoluted way that no individual could safely pay his debt unless everyone else paid at the same time, which was obviously impossible to achieve, and he pointed to Pym as the source of most of the company’s financial woes. And both Feinnes and Lady Brooke complained about Alexander Pym’s failure to fulfill his promises and financial obligations. Lady Brooke wrote to Fiennes in 1652 that the Sheriff was lying in wait to arrest her brother in law, William Greville, “for the debts which Pym should discharge, his lying in prison for the company’s debt will much reflect upon him he never having been one of the company.”
And the Spanish soon hated living on Providence even more than the English had, and for many of the same reasons, just, even more extreme. Unlike the English who were willing to work, but who were inexperienced, the Spanish soldiers considered manual labor beneath them, and the government, who wasn’t really dedicated to keeping the island, had only given them 15 slaves to do everything that needed to be done, and only the most minimal support and provisions. Soldiers began to emotionally collapse in the face of indefinite isolation, and everything decayed until the Spanish started abandoning the Island. This left it pretty much open, and it exchanged hands over the next few decades, used primarily as a base for buccaneers.
So, the story of Providence Island wasn’t a happy one for anyone involved. For the English, it was a decade of near-successes, should-be successes and utter failures which left its colonists in poverty and its investors in debt. But it was a story that inspired people for well over a century after its demise, as long as England and Spain remained rivals. Its name did join those of Drake and Raleigh as a rallying cry for English exploration and empire-building. The island itself still exists today, and its residents still speak English, it still keeps place names like Ft. Warwick, Morgan’s Head, and on the mainland, Bluefields, the anglicization of Blauveldt.
But with the story over, there are two final things that merit discussion, because this really marks the end of an era in American history, and in this podcast. These 35 years we’ve covered, this first generation, and I mean, at this point all of the early Jamestown settlers are dead, which feels somewhat significant to me … but these years were unique. This was the era when America was a big unknown, filled with lots of smaller unknowns, pursued by individuals fueled by dreams and desperation, where no one knew what they were doing, few got real support, and where luck was as big a factor in survival as determination ever was. It’s tempting from the 21st century to dismiss the Puritan ideas of providence, but I mean back then what explained life better? Unforgiving life in England pushed people out of the frying pan and into the fire, and tens of thousands made the trip. And I think it’s fitting to end the discussion of this era with the discussion of a failed colony, because there were far more failures than there were successes. They were the rule, not the exception, and even successes could easily have collapsed.
What’s really interesting is that, in her book on Providence Island, Karen Kupperman discussed a study from the 1950s on the dynamics of colonization, and it is absolutely fascinating, so I’m going to recap it here, because evidently, every new colony goes through 4 stages. The stages were repeated starting in Jamestown, in every subsequent American colonization project, in Australia, and then even in post-WWII new lands projects. It’s such a consistent pattern that even when we start colonizing the moon or mars, we can anticipate seeing something very similar. And, it seriously fits in with what we’ve already discussed.
The first stage is simply planning and feasibility studies, with many ventures failing because of inadequate information. As we’ve seen, many succeed despite inadequate information, though. Colonists depend on investor money, so they have to convince the investors that a project is worth spending money on … even if it means stretching the truth.
The second, and I find this perhaps the most interesting, is the settling period. During this period, the colonists are just trying to meet subsistence needs. They don’t want to take risks, they just want to transfer their known ways of life to a new habitat, even if they’re not well suited. This period almost always lasts for 5-10 years. During this time, the maximum the colony accomplishes is to feed settlers and build shelter. When there is pressure to do more than that, morale collapses, and people leave or die. And this means anything more, building infrastructure projects, building the foundation for an economy, whatever. Colonists are particularly vulnerable to setbacks like environmental changes, or rat infestation. In every colony we’ve discussed, that’s been the case, and in colonies like Jamestown, Plymouth and Providence Island, the pressure to do more in this period has been extremely intense, and we can see the collapse that followed. The differences in our perceptions about the settlers at different colonies are really a matter of aesthetics, and of rhetoric about the colonists in England, not a substantive difference among the settlers, themselves.
In every colony, one of the big differences between success and failure is whether colonists are able to move into phase 3. In successful settlements, people actually grow secure enough in their new surroundings to gain the confidence to take risks. This is when they find commodities, invest in projects, and start actually building something that can last. This is when they become more adapted to their new surroundings than dedicated to recreating their old ones. This transition was … tenuous at best in most of these colonies, but we can see how it started to happen.
And fourth, a stage which can happen either before, after, or simultaneously with stage 3, is the handing over of control to colonists, and the formation of local political structures and institutions.
It’s not too hard to see this pattern in all the colonies we’ve discussed so far, and it’s not too hard to see where Providence Island fell short. By the time they finally allowed self-government in the colony, the colony was destroyed. They weren’t unique in putting too much pressure on their colonists early on, or accusing their colonists of laziness, but the consistent dual between the civilian and military factions did create an extra moving target. You can see where Providence Island moved to a point of no return, and that was in large part because the colony could never recoup its money from privateering, while the privateers were forcing the civilians to be a more and more insular and separate society. You could even argue that Sherrard’s creation of his separatist congregation was an attempt to bypass the company and create some aspect of self government. The captains weren’t loyal to the company, the company could profit from neither group, and neither could quite stabilize into producing a consistent source of revenue. This really gets back to that Elizabethan thing, because as we saw in the Roanoke episode, and with Captain Newport, and quite a few times since, that was somewhat characteristic of the relationship between mariners and colonists. I don’t know that any Elizabethan-style colony would have been able to break free of that cycle. And on the other end of the spectrum, we can see why Massachusetts Bay had such a relatively easy time. They went to a place which, though it was way colder than they were used to, was a fundamentally more familiar environment than the Caribbean or the Chesapeake, and they knew what to expect because Plymouth had preceded them. They also took their charter, bringing them to the stage of self governance within a couple years.
But though Providence Island failed, it had one of the most enduring legacies of any colony. When the king finally called a Parliament, or rather two parliaments in 1640, he found an opposition which was more organized and proactive than it had been when the Personal Rule had begun.
Tom Feiling calls the Providence Island Company England’s first political party, and there’s a lot of truth in that. They’d spent 10 years not only festering in resentment toward the king, but actively working to build an ideal society, and engaged in philosophical and ideological debates, both within the company and with the Massachusetts colonists, which helped them form a coherent vision of what they thought an ideal society should look like. They had a relatively large degree of mutual trust and cohesion, and the end result of all of this, all of these things which only happened because of the Providence Island colony, was that no one expected the king’s opponents to take the kind of offensive position Company members did. At the opening of the Short Parliament, all of Parliament was united against the king, but the Providence Islanders distinguished themselves by how long, how far, how hard they pushed. And this was a huge part of what finally did push England into full-blown war. The people who followed them in their push became the Roundheads, and the people who turned against their push became Cavaliers.
And that’s where we’ll leave off for now at least. We’ll get much more into this soon, because next up, dun dun dun, is the one, the only, or one of a few, but still, the English Civil War. The British Civil War. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, whatever you want to call them. An extraordinarily, exceptionally important part of America’s history. But that’ll be in a couple weeks, because I need a little while to finalize how exactly I’m going to approach this subject, which is just unwieldly. So, I will see you back here in the near future, but not next week, and it is going to be amazing.