The Battle of San Juan was a military and naval action on June 15, 1598 when an English force of 20 ships and 1,700 men under
Sir George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, overwhelmed and took the Spanish
fortress
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
Castillo San Felipe del Morro
Castillo San Felipe del Morro, also known as El Morro, is a citadel built between 16th and 18th centuries in San Juan, Puerto Rico.[ww ...](_blank)
and thus took the city of
San Juan,
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
. They were able to hold the castle for 65 days but disease took its toll and the English forces left, but not before sacking and burning San Juan to the ground. It was this attack that proved to be the only one to ever break through and capture El Morro castle.
Background
Sir Francis Drake had been defeated in 1595 and the report alarmed
Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
that she wanted to avenge or 'dirten' the defeat. Queen Elizabeth almost immediately sent a new expedition led by the third Earl of Cumberland, Sir George Clifford,
so that he could seize San Juan and hold as long as possible.
Merely three years after Drake's attack, Cumberland arrived off Dominica with his 600-ton flagship ''
Malice Scourge'' captained by
John Watts, plus the 400-ton vice-flagships ''Merchant Royal'' of Sir John Berkeley and ''Ascension'', the 400-ton merchantman ''Alcedo'', and ''Prosperous'', 300-ton ''Centurion'' of
Henry Palmer, ''Consent'', and ''Sampson'' of Henry Clifford; 250-ton galleon ''Constance'' of Hercules Fulham; 210-ton ''Guyana'', 200-ton ''Margaret and John''; 190-ton ''Royal Defence''; 120-ton ''Affection of William Fleming'', and ''Anthony'' 80-ton ''Pegasus'' the frigate ''Discovery'', the
pinnace
Pinnace may refer to:
* Pinnace (ship's boat), a small vessel used as a tender to larger vessels among other things
* Full-rigged pinnace
The full-rigged pinnace was the larger of two types of vessel called a pinnace in use from the sixteenth c ...
''Scout'', the bark ''Ley''; plus two unnamed barks.
In total the fleet consisted of 1,700 men and twenty ships. After refreshing his fleet for nearly a week, the Earl transferred to the
Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands ( es, Islas Vírgenes) are an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. They are geologically and biogeographically the easternmost part of the Greater Antilles, the northern islands belonging to the Puerto Rico Trench and St. Croix ...
on 11 June and celebrated a final muster three days later before laying in a course for San Juan.
[Marley p. 140]
Battle
On the morning of 16 June, Cumberland disembarked 700 men at
Cangrejos Bay twelve miles east of San Juan, then marched until nightfall.
However one mile short of the city he and his men came up to a bridge known as San Antonio, the only land access to the San Juan islet. This was held by around 100 Spanish soldiers.
They managed to repel the English assault, inflicting forty casualties on them,
while the Earl of Cumberland himself almost drowned trying to cross the San Antonio channel. The Spaniards suffered only four casualties.
The next morning, the English used their boats to outflank the Spanish position, disembarking at Escambrón Point while bombarding Boquerón Redoubt (called Red Fort by the English).
The fort was bombarded into submission and the guns silenced with ease as the English deliberately grounded one of their ships in front of the fort which enabled point blank precision firing; by the evening most of the defenders had retreated. The English took possession of the area and consolidated while the rest of the force arrived; two Spanish vessels found were captured.
![Attack on Porto Rico](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Attack_on_Porto_Rico.jpg)
On 18 June Cumberland with his forces advanced and then swept into San Juan's streets meeting little resistance; he found that some of the citizenry had already fled.
The government officials and other residents had taken refuge in El Morro and 250 Spanish soldiers were ensconced within the Morro Citadel. Soon after the town had been occupied, the English had artillery ferried ashore from their fleet and a formal siege was instituted.
Two days later the siege was under way and El Morro was bombarded from both land and sea while in the meantime Cumberland set about sacking the town. Knowing that the Spanish were short of supplies, the English preferred to lay siege to the
castle of El Morro rather than destroy it. After nearly 15 days huddled inside El Morro, short of food and ammunition and being constantly bombarded, the Spanish governor Antonio Mosquera requested terms on 30 June for a surrender. Cumberland refused this request and set his own terms for the Spanish surrender of which Mosquera eventually agreed to. He and his followers were repatriated to Cartagena several weeks later.
Aftermath
The victory had cost Cumberland nearly 60 casualties; however, as the same dysentery that had crippled much of the Spanish it had then spread to Cumberland's men, incapacitating nearly 600 - 700 of them as well as which included forty deaths.
[Marley, p. 141] With barely enough troops to crew his ships, much less maintain control of the prize he had seized from Spain, Cumberland finally decided to leave the island. Before he left however he ordered the sacking of San Juan and then ordered the destruction of the crops. His troops took the organ and bells from the local cathedral and took booty ranging from 2,000
slaves
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
to a marble windowsill that caught the eye of Cumberland.
Cumberland sailed for England with some ships on 14 August, then on 23 September Berkeley followed with his main body along with around 70 artillery pieces from the fort. Clifford on his return to England was proclaimed as a hero of sorts and as a consequence with his limited booty was well rewarded for his efforts including a patent from the Queen.
In the wake of the attack, Spain sent more soldiers, supplies, and weapons to rebuild the city and its defenses.
From 1601 to 1609, the reconstruction of El Morro saw its toppled hornwork strengthened with the foundations still used today. The Spanish on San Juan built up its defences and was next attacked by the Dutch in 1625. This time however the Spaniards were better prepared and were able to
defeat the Dutch.
[Van Middeldyk p.116-120]
See also
*
Military history of Puerto Rico
The recorded military history of Puerto Rico encompasses the period from the 16th century, when Spanish conquistadores battled native Taínos in the rebellion of 1511, to the present employment of Puerto Ricans in the United States Armed Forces ...
Notes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Battle Of San Juan (1598)
Conflicts in 1598
Colonial Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
Old San Juan, Puerto Rico
16th century in Puerto Rico
16th century in the Caribbean
1598 in North America
1598 in the Caribbean
1598 in the Spanish Empire
1598 in the British Empire
History of San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan