Chapter 10: Back on the Account
The failure of the Panamanian Filibuster did not put a stop to Bahamian attempts at expansion, it simply redirected them. The Council decided to pull back from attacking mainland targets and search for low-hanging fruit, islands or archipelagoes that could be seized with relatively little risk. British possessions were still off-limits, they had just antagonized Spain, and the French were not taking any chances after losing two valuable colonies in as many decades, which left the Dutch and Danish. The Danish Virgin Islands were poorly defended, but also had relatively little to offer. The Dutch islands, just north of Venezuela, on the other hand, were a far more tempting target. The islands were fairly isolated and difficult for the Dutch to defend. They were also the property of the Dutch West India Company, not the United Provinces themselves, so there was a chance the Dutch government might not declare war over them. After several weeks of debate, the Council settled on trying to seize Curacao. This time, Bartholomew Roberts would lead the expedition, with Finch coming along as his second-in-command.
A fleet of four ships, Roberts’s
Royal Fortune, Finch’s
Mother of Pearl, and a pair of sloops, the
Ranger and
Rover, set out from Nassau, stopping in Port-au-Prince along the way to pick up more troops. They arrived off Curacao to find a small Dutch fleet, consisting of a pair of armed merchant ships and a frigate. Roberts hailed the frigate and demanded that they allow his fleet to enter the harbor. When the captain refused, he was met with fire from the
Royal Fortune. The
Mother of Pearl drove one of the merchant ships away with a broadside, with the other fleeing shortly thereafter. The frigate put up more of a fight, but was surrounded and forced to surrender. The Bahamian-Haitian force sailed into port and occupied the town, to the dismay of the populace.
When news arrived in Paramaribo, the Dutch West India Company heads were outraged to hear that Curacao had fallen. They chose to rally all available forces in the area to retake the city and surrounding islands. They were able to put together a respectable force of about 400 men and 5 warships to escort them to the islands. The Bahamians had already begun receiving reinforcements, including 100 men from Martinique and a few ships to add to their fleet guarding Curacao. The battle to retake the islands was sharp, but ended with the Dutch being forced to withdraw with one of their ships sunk and the rest heavily damaged. The Stadholders of the United Provinces voted not to assist the company, choosing instead to punish it for losing yet more Dutch territory in the New World by levying sanctions on the shareholders, with three of them resigning shortly thereafter.
Curacao and the neighboring island of Aruba were admitted into a confederacy of republics that was unlike any other before it. The Bahamas had already been developing an identity of their own, and since their recognition as a legitimate nation this trend had only accelerated. Bahamian culture placed a very high value on individual liberty, owing to its piratical origins, and the majority of decisions were made locally, with the Brethren Council handling foreign affairs. The Magistrate had the power to levy troops and enforce the laws, but said laws were fairly lax, mostly being a more formalized version of the articles that pirate crews had been using since the mid-seventeenth century. Unusually for the time, the Bahamians allowed women to join the navy, a hold-over from the pirate crews that allowed female members. This decision did meet with a good deal of resistance, but the exploits of women such as Anne Bonney and Mary Read helped win many over. Racial inclusion was less grudging, with blacks and Indians often being recruited into pirate crews, and the fact that the second-largest member of the Confederacy was formed by a slave revolt certainly helped shape opinions as well. The Bahamas banned slavery not long after the Haitian Revolution, a practice that would be adopted by later additions to their alliance system, although some members would keep indentured servitude for some time.
The freewheeling stance of the Bahamas and their allies was attractive to many, but also set quite a few people on edge. The southern English colonies in particular were very uncomfortable with abolition so close by, with freedmen able to visit relatively easily and introduce ideas that slaves were not generally supposed to have. The British were accepting of the Confederacy’s early victories against the French and Spanish, but now they were starting to think about bringing them under more firm control. The thought of having to enter a major war because of a handful of filibusters, one that might not necessarily benefit the crown, was an uncomfortable one. The question was how to go about doing this. One option was to threaten the revocation of the trade privileges the Bahamas enjoyed, or even to embargo them entirely. This carried the risk that they might simply ignore the embargo and resort to smuggling, which Bahamian sailors had plenty of experience with. The other option was to try to redirect their energies in a direction more beneficial to their masters. It was unclear exactly where this direction lay, but Parliament needed a solution, and soon.
