History: The First Sack of Cartagena

By the mid-1500s, the city of Cartagena was the jewel in Spain’s New World crown. The city, which would rival Havana in its cosmopolitan splendor, was awash in wealth of every kind imaginable. As a large port, Cartagena was a destination for goods and raw materials from all over South and Central America. Spices, exotic animals, gold, silver, gems and people, just to name a few, would be loaded onto the infamous treasure galleons for shipment first to Cuba and then on to Spain. It is little wonder that over the course of two hundred and fifty years Cartagena was a consistent target for seadogs, buccaneers and pirates.
Many of the attempted raids were repulsed, or never got off the drawing board at all. Henry Morgan thought about it but decided on Panama instead. Treasure ships were taken as they left Cartagena by men like Woodes Rogers and Laurens de Graff. Then, in 1811, Cartagena turned the tide and declared her freedom from Spain. At that point the Governor began handing out letters of marque to men like my own ancestor Renato Beluche, sending them ironically off to prey on Spanish shipping. But before all that, in 1586, Francis Drake proved that the infamously well fortified city could be taken, emptied of its riches and ransomed by the right leader with the right force.

By January of 1586 Drake, the once and future pirate, was in possession of a letter of marque from Queen Elizabeth I. He commanded a fleet of ships headed by his six hundred ton flagship Elizabeth Bonaventure. 2,300 soldiers accompanied his equally numerous sailors and the air of a naval presence settled upon his flotilla. Having proven that piracy and/or privateering against the Spanish could be both personally profitable and patriotic, Drake was a national hero with no intention of slowing down. England and Spain were at war, and the seadog was bent on doing every damage possible to the enemy. Particularly the enemy’s wallet.

On January 10, Drake and his men landed at Hispaniola, captured and sacked the capital of Santo Domingo. The city was burned, everything not nailed down was loaded into prize ships and sent back to England and Drake was paid a ransom of 2,500 gold ducats. The carnage and rapine ended on February 11, when Drake and his army sailed off to the next golden shore.

That unfortunate harbor was Cartagena. Considered virtually impenetrable until the fateful morning of February 19, 1586, the city’s fall was a combination of excellent strategy on Drake’s part and horrible bad luck on the Spanish side. Cartagena’s Viceroy Pedro Fernandez de Bustos had plenty of warning regarding Drake’s assault on Santo Domingo as some of the wealthier refugees had fled to his city. He had managed to assemble a force of some 500 armed soldiers and enlisted the aid of the well known and mellifluously named Admiral Pedro Vique Manrique who had two large galleons at anchor in the harbor. Unfortunately, the stories of Drake’s massive flotilla seemed to erode the courage of both leaders, and their men grew just as anxious.

Drake sailed right into Cartagena’s outer harbor on the evening of the 19th. He immediately landed 600 soldiers under the veteran Christopher Carleill who took his men north to assault the city from the inland jungle. Meanwhile Drake’s sailors took boats out to scout the fort of Boqueron under cover of darkness. At dawn, Carleill engaged a group of Bustos’ soldiers, causing a break in ranks that scattered the Spanish.

Meanwhile, Admiral Manrique grounded both his galleons and his men, too, left their posts. Jumping ship, they ran for the jungle rather than face the ruthless ladrons. Drake won the day through terror more than muscle. By the 21st the city had officially fallen. Interestingly, only seven Spaniards were killed in the two day engagement while some 30 Englishmen lost their lives. The citizens who could escaped to the jungle. Those left behind were “persuaded” to give up anything of value. Buildings – including the Cathedral – were stripped of all their wealth. Finally Bustos met with Drake and ransomed his unfortunate city for 107,000 gold ducats. Drake, being a businessman, gave Bustos a receipt for his payment.

Drake and his men sailed off with their haul in April, touching at Virginia before returning to England. The unprecedented success of Drake’s cruise brought him further recognition from his monarch and drew the attention of other like-minded men. Privateering became a respected profession in Britain, eventually leading to the establishment of one of the greatest Navies the world has ever seen. Modern scholars estimate that during the period from Drake’s sack of Cartagena to the end of England’s war with Spain in 1603, around 150 privateering ventures were mounted in Britain every year bringing home an average of 200,000 pounds per year in Spanish prizes. And only the Spanish could argue with that.

Header: Chart of Drake’s Raid on Cartagena by Baptista Boazio

Seafaring Sunday: The Signal Book

April 3, 1797:  The first U.S. naval signal book using the numeral system was published and put into use by Captain Thomas Truxton, USN.

Header: Thomas Truxton by Bass Otis

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Turn

It goes without saying that a change of course will lead to a ship turning. No sailing ship can turn on a dime, mind you, but there are times when a drastic recalculation of course will make it feel like she did, particularly if you are below decks. There are an awful lot of ways to use the word turn at sea, though, and some of them have a familiar, salty humor to them.

A lot of turning of rope and cable is done aboard ship, as one might imagine. To catch a turn is to pass a rope twice around a cleat or belaying pin, ensuring the hold is firm. Similarly, to turn in a dead eye is to wrap the end of a stay or shroud securely around it thus turning in the rigging. A turn in a hawse is when two crosses of a cable have been achieved.

Turn the glass is an order to do just that: turn the half hour glass on deck marking the current watch time. The glass is placed near the ship’s bell which is rung when the glass is turned between one and eight times. One time signaled the beginning of the watch; eight signaled its end.

Turning room is an estimation of space in a narrow waterway based on whether or not the ship will in fact have room to turn around. Turn to windward is another way of expressing tacking into the wind to make progress against it. And, of course, the tide can turn helping or hindering both actions near shore.

To turn a turtle is to catch it on land by the surprisingly easy method of grabbing a leg and flipping the animal over on its back. A ship is said to turn turtle when it is capsized. Turning turtle is also a euphemism for flipping a lazy lubber out of his hammock.

On that note, it is not surprising that our phrases “turn in” for going to sleep and “turn out” for facing the world come from our nautical ancestors. A man turned in to his hammock when his watch was done and turned out of it when he woke up. The hands could be turned up when they were called to appear on deck by the bosun’s whistle. Turn out the guard was the order given to assemble the ship’s marines on the quarter deck for inspection, discipline or to welcome a dignitary aboard. Men were said to turn over when they were discharged from one ship and joined another.

Turnpike sailors is a British slang for con men who pretend to be seaman, dressing and using language like them, in order to give the appearance that they have been left behind by their ship and can therefore rightfully beg for alms. Finally, in a case of homonym, a tern is a sea bird similar to a gull but smaller with a longer and pointier tail and wings. Interestingly, the tern’s genus is Sterna which may come not from Latin but from the simple fact that these birds tend to fly astern of ships.

Happy Saturday, Brethren. Tomorrow is Seafaring Sunday.

Header: Ship in a Storm by Robert Salmon

Booty: Pirate Dog

I need to dash to an appointment in fifteen minutes so I’ll keep this short (kind of like the little fella Triple P features today).

A friend sent me the above picture and indicated that crewman Canine was spotted on the sidewalk side during Mardi Gras last month. Given that this weekend wraps up NOLA Pyrate Week 2011, he seemed like an appropriate salute. Hopefully, he turned up around the various piratical goings on this week, too.

Happy Friday, Brethren and go easy on the April Fools shenanigans; you never know what might come back to bite ye.

Women At Sea: "Arctic Diana"

With gusts of snow that bring Arctic isolation to mind swirling outside my window, I feel the compelling need to return to the top of the world again today. This time, however, with a happier and far more life-affirming story. Here is the tale of a woman who went to sea for fun, fell in love with the Arctic, and made it her life’s work to study a place that most people to this day shudder to think of.

Louise Arner Boyd was definitely unusual in her own time. In ours, when heiresses seem bent on contributing nothing more than pictures of their underwear (or lack there of) to E! Online, she would be an absolute white elephant. Her story is one of tragedy, determination, and triumph of will, but it is also one that illustrates how thoroughly an individual can add value to the world in their lifetime. The shameful part of Miss Boyd’s story is that she is all but forgotten by the average American.

Born in 1887 to the gold rush millionaire John Franklin Boyd, Louise was her parents’ third child and their only girl. She grew up on the family estate in San Rafael, California, now part of beautiful (and exclusive) Marin County. Her brothers, John Jr. and Seth, were her constant companions and not surprisingly she took on the role of tom-boy, riding horses and playing baseball with the guys. It seemed that Louise would grow up happy, marry another nouveau riche California gold heir and host fundraisers and balls. For Louise, life was not at all what it seemed.

In 1901 both of her brothers died. The cause of their deaths was heart failure due to rheumatic fever. The family was devastated and local rumors said that neither of Louise’s parents ever recovered from the shocking loss. In 1920, with Louise still unmarried, her parents passed away within a few weeks of one another. Louise, buffeted by tragedy and now supremely alone in the world, inherited her family’s vast millions.

At first she did most of what was probably expected of her – hosting charity events and dinners – but in 1924 she took it in her head to travel. She headed to Norway and booked a luxury cruise that included the coast of Greenland. While taking in the icy landscape with its unique wildlife, dazzling fjords and blue glaciers, Louise became enchanted. As she would later write:

Far north, hidden behind grim barriers of pack ice are lands that hold one spellbound.

Where others saw nothing but grim desolation, Louise saw beauty she had never imagined.

In 1926, after a year in Europe that included her presentation to the King and Queen of England, she chartered Hobby, a supply ship that had previously travelled to the far north. Louise planned to see Greenland up close, hunt, take photographs and poke around for flora and fauna to collect and bring home. Though not a college graduate, Louise was a quick study and soon became a crack shot, capable amateur naturalist and compelling photographer. Her success aboard the ship she had chartered, crewed and provisioned with her own money brought the attention of the worldwide press. By 1927 pictures of Louise in parkas and with massive polar bears that she herself had brought down were being run with captions like “Arctic Diana” and “The Girl Who Tamed the Arctic”

Now 40 years old, Louise was hardly a girl and her accomplishments were only just beginning. She funded more cruises to Greenland including a search for the famous Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Amundsen had been lost trying to rescue his Italian counterpart Umberto Nobile but was unfortunately never found. Louise’s heroic efforts, however, were recognized by the government of Norway; they awarded her the prestigious Cross of the Order of Saint Olaf. She was the third woman and the first American to be so recognized.

In 1931, Louise collected scientists to join her in her exploration of Greenland. She would mount expeditions again in ’33,’37 and ’38, funding them with her own money. Any of the professionals who accompanied her, however, needed to understand who was in charge. No scientist, no matter how capable, would be asked back if they underestimated this woman who not only paid for everything but joined them in their efforts. She hiked every terrain, carried her own photographic equipment, collected samples, shot game and stayed awake on deck during storms to ensure the safety of her ship and its crew. As Elizabeth Old notes in her biography Women of the Four Winds:

[Louise] became a true leader, a presiding patron of scientifically trained personnel, a sponsor of science.

Louise continued her trips to the Arctic, even after nearly being trapped in pack ice in the ship Veslekari in September of 1933, and published a book entitled The Fiord Region of East Greenland in 1937. By that time she had the sponsorship of the American Geographic Society. She detoured to Poland just before World War II and documented that country’s agrarian society before it was crushed under the Nazi boot in a book of photographs, Polish Countryside.

When the Nazis conquered Holland and by default Greenland in 1940, Louise’s intimate knowledge of the vast island’s coastland became a strategic asset to the U.S. military. Louise was recruited by the National Bureau of Standards and funded an expedition for them in 1941 aboard the ship Morrissey, again paying for the venture herself. This trip to her beloved Greenland secretly involved gathering information on magnetic phenomena effecting radio waves in the Arctic. She would be commended by the U.S. Army for her work when the war ended. Her third book, The Coast of Northeast Greenland, which had been held back for security reasons, was finally published in 1948.

By 1950 Louise was in her sixties and travelling to the Arctic was no longer a realistic pursuit. She returned to San Rafael and did some of those things one might have expected a belle epoch heiress to do. She did charity work, hosted fundraisers and joined the executive committee of the San Francisco Symphony. She received an honorary law degree from the Cal Berkley and a Bachelor of Science from Mills College. In 1960, she became the second woman to receive the Cullum Medal from the American Geographic Society and she was also elected to their board.

Though how, exactly, Louise managed to lose her fortune remains a mystery, lose it she did some time after 1960. Most researchers put her late-in-life poverty down to bad investments which, as Old points out in her book, seems odd given Louise’s prior capacity as a savvy money manager. Regardless, Louise Arner Boyd, the “Arctic Diana” who trudged through hip-deep snow but never travelled anywhere without a lady’s maid and a flower pinned to her parka, died in 1972 in a San Francisco nursing home. She had long since sold all of her inheritance, including the San Rafael estate, and her rent was paid by caring friends. She was cremated and though she had asked that her ashes be scattered over her beloved Greenland the cost of such a last reward was prohibitive. Instead, her remains were released to the wind over Alaska where, as Old points out, “…at least there is ice.”

I personally understand Louise’s love of the cold North where, within a matter of minutes, nature can change from hostile to glorious. As I look out my window now the blizzard is gone, the sun dazzles off the new snow and I imagine Louise is happy here, too.

Header: Louise Arner Boyd

History: Lure Of The Lost

Captain Sir John Franklin was a visionary who, in 1845 at the age of 59, left England to cross the Atlantic and finally find the Northwest Passage. His expedition included two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, 129 men and enough provisions for a year. Unlike all those other men who had attempted to find the alleged river that ran from somewhere on the Canadian coast through North America to Alaska, Franklin was convinced that he would find the prize no one else could locate.

It will come as a shock to no one reading this that he did not find what did not exist. Instead his ships were frozen solid in ice and over the course of the next three years he and his crew died of various miseries including exposure, scurvy, lead poisoning, tuberculosis and starvation. Not one single soul survived the ill-fated journey and – for some reason I cannot fathom – Franklin was elevated to the level of heroism previously reserved for seamen like Drake and Nelson in Britain.

Despite ongoing reports from native Inuit that all the white men had died, wave after wave of explorers retraced the slogging, zombie-like shuffles of Franklin’s doomed crews. Most of these later adventurers were convinced that at least a man or two must have survived but time and again such hopes were dashed. Evidence repeatedly revealed that, instead of seeking out the help of the Native people who lived for centuries in the frozen north, the men of Erebus and Terror tried against all reason to get back home. Some even fell into the horrible last resort of cannibalism.

To this day research on the Franklin expedition continues unchecked, and books – both fictional and scholarly – continue to be written. There is a romantic quality to the idea of exploring, of course, but obviously this specific exploration raises a prurient interest in the unbearable last days and grisly deaths of the men involved. That’s how we humans are. The problem is that once you know, you can’t unknow. For all we wish it did, brain bleach does not exist. And yet we continue to try to find out more.

That’s why this article from Live Science is so interesting. Now, at last, researchers may be having some success at positively identify the departed who lost their lives on a fool’s errand. Attempts to identify the dead who have been found have been ongoing, but modern forensics are shedding some light on previous misconception, as in the example given in the article.

A body found in the 1870s was originally thought to be one Henry Le Vesconte, one of Erebus’ lieutenants, but new findings have put that assumption in question.  The remains, which were made available for study because of renovations to the Franklin Memorial in Greenwich where they were interred, have been put through the paces of modern CSI-style evaluation. The findings are extraordinary, if a little creepy.

Evidently the body is that of a young gentleman, between 25 and 40, tall in stature and possessed of an unusual lower jaw shape and one gold filling. Tests on the man’s tooth enamel showed he would have grown up in northern Britain, possibly somewhere in Scotland, and facial reconstruction experts made a clay image of what they imagine the seaman might have looked like based on a cast of his skull.

None of the evidence fit Lieutenant Le Vesconte but pointed instead to the 29-year-old surgeon’s mate and naturalist Henry Goodsir, also of Erebus. The reconstruction of the face is compared in the photo above (from the article) to a pre-expedition daguerreotype of Goodsir. It is hard to argue with the distinct similarity and the facts that the surgeon’s mate grew up in Scotland and was from the kind of wealthy family that could afford gold fillings. Le Vesconte, it is worth noting, was a foremast seaman from a middle class family who grew up in Devon.

The article stops short of saying that the remains are Goodsir’s, but you have to wonder at least. Doubtless research, and exploration, will continue in an attempt to find more evidence regarding the Franklin expedition. We tend to feel a pull towards the lost, as people and as researchers, and so the shuffling – and discovery – will go on.

Header: Photo via the National Maritime Museum

Ships: The Clipper's Ancestor

In 1800 Captain Robert Hall Gower, a marine in the service of the East India Company of Britain, had retired and was prepared to launch a new career. He hoped to become a shipping magnet but what he really accomplished was a surprisingly successful invention that never really caught on.

 Gower’s brainchild was a ship he named Transit, which he envisioned as the future of speed in both travel and shipping. The special features of Transit are what made it truly revolutionary. Some of them, however, require a lot of “sailor speak” to describe; I will do my best not to go to far away from shore on this one.

First and foremost, Transit had a long, narrow hull that allowed for ease of loading without loss of sailing ability. The way she was worked in the building process also meant that ordinary carpenters, as apposed to more specialized and therefore expensive shipwrights, could do the framing. A ship built on Gower’s plans – he would complete three of them – could be put together by any woodworker, a shipwright being required only for the fitting of the deck.

Out of that deck sprang the most curious of Transit’s features. The original ship carried five masts (later versions would carry four) with an unusual form of fore-and-aft rigging on all but her foremast. The story goes that Gower ran out of money towards the end of the building process, and had to plunk a borrowed, square-rigged foremast onto his creation.

Regardless of the sails, each mast was self-supporting and independent from the masts next to it. This was a highly unusual design that meant the masts had to be stayed with cables attached at four points to the deck in a fashion known as “flag pole” rigging. Gower’s thought was to give each mast its own movement, allowing for more sail and faster running. The sails then became perhaps the most remarkable innovation found aboard Transit.

While the foremast held standard rigging including jib sails, the four other masts were decked out with sails of Gower’s own design. These were rectangular in shape with the addition of canvas strap pockets on either side of each sail. Sprits, similar to wooden dowels, would be housed in the pockets to keep the sails extended and flat. This innovation would improve both control and speed of running by exposing as much canvas as possible to the available wind. At least in part because of the free standing nature of each mast, the topmast portion of any one mast could be struck without disturbing the sails below.

Gower introduced his design to both the East India Company and the Royal Navy but neither would bite. Even after Transit got into the water and was proven a superior sailor to the naval sloop she was tested against, neither of these old guard organizations cared to back the new technology. Gower’s Transit was taken into the merchant service with her inventor as an independent owner. She routinely sailed faster than any ship in her convoys. The need for a larger crew due to her unusual rigging, however, kept other merchants from commissioning more like her.

R.H. Gower was a visionary ahead of his time. Though his ship was superior to anything else available in the early 19th century, Transit did not catch on as a new technology. It would not be until the 1840s, seven years after Gower’s death, that the great clipper ships such as Neptune’s Car and Cutty Sark would rival the speed and efficiency of their direct ancestor, Transit.

Header: Four Masted Clipper Ships by Donald Anderson