"The Worke Wee May Doe in the World": The Western Design and the Anglo-Spanish Struggle for ...

156 Pages·2015·1.16 MB·English

by  Matthew Craig Harrington

Florida State University Libraries
Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School
2004
"The Worke Wee May Doe in the World"
the Western Design and the Anglo-Spanish
Struggle for the Caribbean, 1654-1655
Matthew Craig Harrington
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

(cid:147)THE WORKE WEE MAY DOE IN THE WORLD(cid:148)

THE WESTERN DESIGN AND THE ANGLO-SPANISH STRUGGLE FOR THE

CARIBBEAN, 1654-1655

By

MATTHEW CRAIG HARRINGTON

A Thesis submitted to the
Department of History
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts

Degree Awarded:
Summer Semester, 2004
The members of the Committee approve the thesis of Matthew Craig Harrington defended on 26
May 2004.

Matt D. Childs
Professor Directing Thesis

Rodney D. Anderson
Committee Member

Paul Strait
Committee Member

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I express my thanks and love for my wife, Lindsey, for her support
throughout my time in graduate school. Without her necessary and cheerful assistance, given
while beginning her own thesis research, this project would have never been completed. In the
past year, she has exemplified to me the message of the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians.
I would like to thank Dr. Matt D. Childs, my major professor, for his untiring and
enthusiastic teaching, mentoring, hospitality, and advice. He has taught me valuable lessons in
both the historian(cid:146)s craft and calling, and has worked unstintingly to shape my research and
writing; as well as providing numerous spare-time opportunities to debate issues of
historiography, politics; and teaching me why Walmart is heralding our civilization(cid:146)s decline and
fall. I would also like to express my appreciation for the teaching and mentoring of Dr.
Anderson and Dr. Strait, who have made the study of history at Florida State University a
pleasure. Dr. Anderson made it possible for me to complete my research and writing through
providing funding for a research assistantship in the best place to work anywhere in any field,
Florida State University(cid:146)s Guadalajara Census Project. I also express appreciation for the help of
the late Dr. Richard Greaves, who introduced me to Early Modern British history and provided
valuable help and guidance in shaping the first chapter of this thesis. Finally, I wish to thank my
mentors at Auburn University, Dr. Joseph Kicklighter and Dr. Emil Kramer, who inspired me to
seek an academic calling and instilled me with not only a love of but also a joy in learning.
Many colleagues, friends, and family provided help, advice, and opportunities that helped
complete this thesis. I would like to express my appreciation for the advice and camaraderie of
my colleagues in the Latin American history graduate program, Lindsey Harrington, Sarah
Franklin, Monica Hardin, Travis Hyer, Claudia Rivas, Tam Spike, and Andrea Vicente. Robert
Ryals gave me valuable assistance with research technology and in understanding Spain(cid:146)s
precarious situation in 1655-56, and Joanna Nielson endured numerous questions about Early
iii
Modern Britain. Ed Wiser cheerfully gave me assistance in studying the maritime aspects of the
Penn and Venables expedition, and my good friend Jonathan Sheppard helped guide me through
the military aspects of this study through many stimulating conversations in my grading office
and over the Loop(cid:146)s excellent hamburgers. Bruce Chappell, Richard Phillips, Paul Losch, and
the staff of the University of Florida(cid:146)s Latin American Collection and Special Collection
provided immense help and hospitality to us FSU Latin-Americanists conducting research at
Gainesville. I would also like to thank Debbie Perry and Chris Pignatiello for all of their help
throughout my course of studies at FSU.
I wish to thank my own parents, my grandparents, and the Clark and Robertson families
for their patience and support through many family visits where I spread my research across their
kitchen tables. My grandfather, Charles Bollinger, gave me an early love of history and reading,
and my grandmother, Vera Bollinger, inspired me with a love for and interest in England, and it
is to them that I dedicate this thesis.

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT vi

INTRODUCTION 1

(cid:147)160 SHIPS SWIMMINGE(cid:148): 20
THE ORIGINS OF THE WESTERN DESIGN, APRIL-DECEMBER 1654

(cid:147)A MIXTURE OF LITTLE WINE WITH MUCH WATER(cid:148): 42
PREPARING FOR WAR IN THE WEST INDIES, AUGUST 1654-MARCH 1655

(cid:147)JACK SPANYARD WOULD NOT STAND(cid:148): 72
THE CAMPAIGN ON HISPANIOLA, 13 APRIL-3 MAY 1655

(cid:147)FOR FRESH MEAT AND PIECES OF EIGHT(cid:148): 90
ESTABLISHING A FOOTHOLD ON JAMAICA, MAY-JULY 1655

(cid:147)THE OLD GOOD WAY OF SEEKING HIS FACE(cid:148): 114
THE AFTERMATH OF THE WESTERN DESIGN, APRIL-DECEMBER 1655

CONCLUSION 135

BIBLIOGRAPHY 141

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 148

v
ABSTRACT

In the spring and summer of 1655, Oliver Cromwell, as Lord Protector of England and
with the authority of the Council of State, dispatched an English fleet under the command of Sea
General William Penn and General Robert Venables to conquer and settle the target of their
choosing among Spain(cid:146)s colonies in the Caribbean. A Spanish defending force of perhaps 400-
600 men, mostly militia, repulsed a landing force of 9,000 men. Demoralized and defeated, the
much-reduced force boarded their ships and sailed to the more weakly held island of Jamaica,
where the Spanish who chose not to surrender faded into the interior to join their runaway slaves
in a guerrilla campaign that would last five years before the English completed their conquest of
the island. When Oliver Cromwell heard the news of the defeat at Hispaniola, observers in
London reported that he shut himself in his room for an afternoon, before placing Penn and
Venables in the Tower of London; but later recovered to call for godly Englishmen to settle the
new colony of Jamaica. Few chose to answer, while most followed the example of the New
England colonists, who felt they had enough trouble fulfilling God(cid:146)s mission in the North
American wilderness, without sailing through a war zone to an uncertain future in disease and
hunger-ridden Jamaica. Meanwhile, the war Cromwell felt he could avoid in Europe broke out
with Spain, gaining him Dunkirk but costing money and men. This ambitious and spectacularly
unsuccessful project to colonize the Spanish Caribbean has come to be known as the Western
Design.
The Western Design represents a key turning point in the history of the Caribbean and
development of England(cid:146)s American colonial empire. Through an unprecedented use of state-
commissioned force, England struck against a continental enemy across the Atlantic, and added
what would become a valuable sugar island and buccaneering base to a growing American
empire. The event has long been looked at by historians of Commonwealth England, both in
exploring Cromwell(cid:146)s religious psychology, and in debating its foreign policy. However, with
vi
the growth of an Atlantic approach to history, new fields have opened within which the Western
Design should be considered. One development has been the blurring of the formerly rigid
historiographical distinctions of what constituted English, colonial American, and Caribbean
history. A growing Atlantic empire including all three areas has begun to be explored, and
events in one place have been examined as to how they affected events in the others. One
example has been an analysis of the early seventeenth-century Caribbean as a target for Puritan
colonization, much as New England has been viewed for decades and even centuries.

vii
INTRODUCTION

In the spring and summer of 1655, Oliver Cromwell, as Lord Protector of England and
with the authority of the Council of State, dispatched an English fleet under the command of Sea
General William Penn and General Robert Venables to conquer and settle the target of their
choosing among Spain(cid:146)s colonies in the Caribbean. A Spanish defending force of perhaps 400-
600 men, mostly militia, repulsed a landing force of 9,000 men. Demoralized and defeated, the
much-reduced force boarded their ships and sailed to the more weakly held island of Jamaica,
where the Spanish who chose not to surrender faded into the interior to join their runaway slaves
in a guerrilla campaign that would last five years before the English completed their conquest of
the island. When Oliver Cromwell heard the news of the defeat at Hispaniola, observers in
London reported that he shut himself in his room for an afternoon, before placing Penn and
Venables in the Tower of London; but later recovered to call for godly Englishmen to settle the
new colony of Jamaica. Few chose to answer, while most followed the example of the New
England colonists, who felt they had enough trouble fulfilling God(cid:146)s mission in the North
American wilderness, without sailing through a war zone to an uncertain future in disease and
hunger-ridden Jamaica. Meanwhile, the war Cromwell felt he could avoid in Europe broke out
with Spain, gaining him Dunkirk but costing money and men. This ambitious and spectacularly
unsuccessful project to colonize the Spanish Caribbean has come to be known as the Western
Design.
The Western Design represents a key turning point in the history of the Caribbean and
development of England(cid:146)s American colonial empire. Through an unprecedented use of state-
commissioned force, England struck against a continental enemy across the Atlantic, and added
what would become a valuable sugar island and buccaneering base to a growing American
empire. The event has long been looked at by historians of Commonwealth England, both in
exploring Cromwell(cid:146)s religious psychology, and in debating its foreign policy. However, with
1
the growth of an Atlantic approach to history, new fields have opened within which the Western
Design should be considered. One development has been the blurring of the formerly rigid
historiographical distinctions of what constituted English, colonial American, and Caribbean
history. A growing Atlantic empire including all three areas has begun to be explored, and
events in one place have been examined as to how they affected events in the others. One
example has been an analysis of the early seventeenth-century Caribbean as a target for Puritan
colonization, much as New England has been viewed for decades and even centuries.
Another area rarely explored in English language studies of this event and its precursors
is the Spanish defense of their New World colonies. K. R. Andrews and Karen Ordahl
Kupperman have, among others, gone a long way to correcting this omission, but much remains
to be done. The Spanish defense of the Caribbean can be examined in its own right, and that
examination can cover the fleet system, fortification projects, and the effectiveness of the militia
system. An area especially needing exploration is the multiracial character of the Spanish
defenses the English faced. The maroons of Jamaica who waged the effective guerrilla war with
Venables(cid:146) survivors have been written about extensively, but the black militiamen and
emergency ad hoc units of plantation slaves require the historian(cid:146)s attention. Their scouting and
fighting roles on Hispaniola figured in the Spanish victory in April 1655, as was the role of black
militia regiments throughout the Spanish empire.
The Western Design, as such a pivotal event, is often mentioned in studies of
Commonwealth England, the English Caribbean, and life and career of Oliver Cromwell. Only
one book-length study has been devoted to the campaign, S. A. G. Taylor(cid:146)s The Western Design,
published in 1965. Taylor focuses on the English colonization of Jamaica, and he provides an
engaging narrative of their military experience there and on Hispaniola. The account of events
prior to Jamaica are dealt with rather quickly, without much attention paid to Spanish sources
from the defense of Santo Domingo, and the book is somewhat short on footnotes, reducing its
usefulness as an aid for researchers. Still, Taylor very effectively captured a sense of the
frustrations and sufferings of the English soldiers in the Caribbean.1 John F. Battick published a
short article on the topic in 1972, (cid:147)A New Interpretation of Cromwell(cid:146)s Western Design.(cid:148) He

1 S. A. G. Taylor, The Western Design: An Account of Cromwell(cid:146)s Expedition to the
Caribbean (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica and the Jamaica Historical Society, 1965).

2