The Raid on Cartagena was the successful counter-attack against vessels sent to defend the city of

Cartagena de Indias Cartagena ( ), known since the colonial era as Cartagena de Indias (), is a city and one of the major ports on the northern coast of Colombia in the Caribbean Region of Colombia, Caribbean Coast Region, along the Caribbean Sea. Cartagena's past ...

(modern-day

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

) and the subsequent blockade of the city by Laurens de Graaf and his

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

compatriots.

Precursors

In May 1683, de Graaf had successfully attacked Veracruz with the assistance of Nicholas van Hoorn. The two subsequently had a falling-out and de Graaf wounded van Hoorn on the Isla de Sacrificios.''The Buccaneer's Realm: Pirate Life on the Spanish Main, 1674-1688''
by Benerson Little (

Potomac Books The University of Nebraska Press (UNP) was founded in 1941 and is an academic publisher of scholarly and general-interest books. The press is under the auspices of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the main campus of the University of Ne ...

, 2007) Van Hoorn later died when the wound became infected. De Graaf and his fleet sailed south, arriving off the coast of modern-day Colombia in November 1683 where they held for almost a month, preparing to infiltrate Cartagena in the same way as they had Veracruz.''Blood and Silver: A History of Piracy in the Caribbean and Central America''
by Kris E. Lane (Signal Books, 1999)

The raid

To prevent an attack, governor Juan de Pando Estrada commandeered three private

slave ships Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting Slavery, slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea ( ...

- the 40-gun ''San Francisco'', the 34-gun ''Paz'' and a smaller 28-gun

galliot A galiot, galliot or galiote, was a small galley boat propelled by sail or oars. There are three different types of naval galiots that sailed on different seas. A ''galiote'' was a type of French flat-bottom river boat or barge and also a fla ...

.''Wars of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the New World, 1492 to the Present''
by David F. Marley (ABC-CLIO, 1998) 800 Spanish, led by a 26-year-old commander, set out to meet the pirates on

Christmas Eve Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas, the festival commemorating nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus. Christmas Day is observance of Christmas by country, observed around the world, and Christma ...

but immediately struggled against De Graaf's more experienced men. 90 Spaniards were killed compared to only 20 pirates. The ''San Francisco'' was grounded and the other two ships were captured. De Graaf re-floated the ''San Francisco'' as his new flagship and renamed it the ''Fortune'', later the ''Neptune''. Michiel Andrieszoon took the ''Paz'' and renamed it the ''Mutine'' ("Rascal") and Yankey Willems was given command of the ''Francesca''.''Pirates of the Americas, Volume 1''
by David F. Marley (ABC-CLIO, 2010) The group released a large number of Spanish prisoners on Christmas Day and sent them ashore with a note for Governor Estrada thanking him for the Christmas presents. The pirates then proceeded to blockade the town and ransom their remaining hostages.

Relief

In January 1684 an English convoy, led by the 48-gun ''HMS Ruby'', arrived carrying a note for de Graaf from his wife offering a Spanish

pardon A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...

and

letter of marque A letter of marque and reprisal () was a Sovereign state, government license in the Age of Sail that authorized a private person, known as a privateer or French corsairs, corsair, to attack and capture vessels of a foreign state at war with t ...

. De Graaf ignored the note, not trusting the Spanish to keep their promises, and instead invited English officers to board his vessels and trade with his men. The English were then allowed to continue to Cartagena's port without incident and soon after, de Graaf and his compatriots left for

Petit-Goâve Petit-Goâve () is a coastal List of communes of Haiti, commune in the Léogâne Arrondissement in the Ouest (department), Ouest Departments of Haiti, department of Haiti. It is located southwest of Port-au-Prince. The town has a population of a ...

References

{{Pirates Conflicts in 1683 Naval battles involving pirates Military history of Cartagena, Colombia Military raids Blockades 17th century in Colombia