Samuel Axe was an English

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

in Dutch service during the early 17th century. Serving with English forces in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

during the

Dutch War of Independence The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt ( nl, Nederlandse Opstand) ( c.1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Refo ...

, Axe traveled to the British

Providence Island colony The Providence Island colony was established in 1630 by English Puritans on what is now the Colombian Department of San Andrés and Providencia, about east of the coast of Nicaragua. Although intended to be a model Puritan co ...

in the western

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico ...

, where he assisted in the construction of its central fortress in 1629. However, after a disagreement with Daniel Elfrith (possibly over the capture of Spanish and Portuguese slavers during the early 1630s), Axe left the island with Abraham Blauvelt and

Sussex Camock Sussex Camock or Sussex Cammock (1600–1659) was an English privateer who was involved in establishing the Providence Island colony, a Puritan colony on what is now Isla de Providencia in the western Caribbean. Sussex Camock was the brother of Ca ...

and sailed for Honduras in 1633. In 1635, he accepted Dutch letters of marque despite being in the employ of the

Providence Island Company The Providence Company or Providence Island Company was an English chartered company founded in 1629 by a group of Puritans including Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick in order to establish the Providence Island colony on Providence Island and ...

and, from 1636 to 1641, acted as a privateer for the English trading company. Although briefly returning to Providence to assist the island's defense against Spanish attacks in 1636, Axe had a successful privateering career delivering a captured prize, with cargo including gold, silver, jewels, indigo and cochineal, as he returned to England in May 1640. Following the capture of Providence by the Spanish in 1641, the Providence Island Company was dissolved. Escaping to

St. Kitts Saint Kitts, officially the Saint Christopher Island, is an island in the West Indies. The west side of the island borders the Caribbean Sea, and the eastern coast faces the Atlantic Ocean. Saint Kitts and the neighbouring island of Nevis cons ...

, Axe later took part in a privateering expedition under Captain William Jackson to the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Great ...

from 1642 to 1645, in which the privateers managed to capture

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispan ...

References

External links

Pirates and Privateers
by Rick Vermunt

{{DEFAULTSORT:Axe, Samuel Year of birth missing Year of death missing English privateers English military personnel of the Eighty Years' War Isla de Providencia people

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