“To own the Indies”: English attacks on the Spanish Caribbean, 1590-1620

Abstract

By the end of the sixteenth century, the Spanish empire in America had suffered military and moral defeats that stained its prestige as a world power. After the failed invasion of the British Isles in 1586, Spain lost much more than its fleet: it also lost the respect of the English, who embarked on a programme of open aggression on Spanish possessions in the Americas. This essay portrays the colonies’ situation in the last decade of the sixteenth and the first two decades of the seventeenth century, and the desperate vulnerability of the Caribbean facing enemy attacks. With reference to correspondence from governors and the Real Audiencia appellate courts, the paper presents a combined look at attacks on the region by English aggressors, some of whom are better known than others.