War and Game

The Spanish capture of the Dutch island of St Martin's by Admiral Juan Fadrique de Toledo in 1629. St Kitts and Nevis were also captured. The Dutch and English reoccupied their islands once the Spanish had left. The Spanish often successfully countered incursions from pirates and enemy nations, but remained too weak to prevent the French, Dutch and British from settling the smaller islands. This contemporary painting by Eugenio Caxes gives an idea of the appearance and arms of Spanish soldiers in the West Indies in the early 17th century. Troops wore neither uniforms nor standard equipment at that time, but most are shown with a red or crimson sash, the recognition badge of Spanish troops.

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′Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo y Mendoza (Naples, May 30, 1580 - Madrid, December 11 de 1634), was a Spanish noble and admiral.

He was born in Naples as the son of Pedro Álvarez de Toledo, 5th Marquis of Villafranca, then commander in chief of the Spanish Army in the Kingdom of Naples, and Doña Elvira de Mendoza.

He served in the Spanish fleet under command of his father and rose quickly through the ranks, as did his elder brother García Álvarez de Toledo, 6th Marquis of Villafranca. In 1617, he became Capitán General de la Armada del Mar Océano or Armada de Barlovento.

He gained several victories against the Dutch, in 1621 near Cape Saint Vincent and Gibraltar in 1623 in the English Channel, blockading the Dutch coast. In the same year he defeated a Moorish incursion near Gibraltar.
In 1625 he was appointed General of Portugal (then in a personal union with Spain), and Capitán General of the Army of Brazil. He sailed towards Brazil at the head of a fleet consisting of 34 Spanish ships, 22 Portuguese ships and 12,566 men (three quarters were Spanish and the rest Portuguese). There he reconquered the strategically important city of Salvador da Bahia from the Dutch on April 30, 1625. This victory would prove decisively important in the Dutch-Portuguese War to oust the Dutch from Brazil over the next two decades. In 1629 he commanded a Spanish expedition that expelled the English and French colonial settlers from the islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis.

For all of his victories he was awarded the title of Marques de Villanueva y Valdueza on January 17, 1634.

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St Martin Overview
St. Martin/St. Maarten has the distinction of being the smallest island in the world shared by two independent governments. The 37-squre mile island is split between the Dutch on the south side and the French on the north. The two countries have co-existed peacefully for more than 350 years.

St. Martin/St. Maarten is located about 150 miles southeast of Puerto Rico at the northern end of the Lesser Antilles. It lies slightly southwest of Anguilla and just northwest of St. Barts.  The Atlantic Ocean borders the island to its east, and to its west lies the Caribbean Sea.

The Dutch side is known as St. Maarten and is 16 square miles in area.   It is part of the Netherlands Antilles and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  The French side is called St. Martin and is 21 square miles in area.  It is part of Guadeloupe, which also includes the islands of Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Desirade, Iles des Saintes (2), Saint-Barthelemy, Iles de la Petite Terre.

St. Martin/St. Maarten is known for its stunning, white-sand beaches.  It features some of the finest duty-free shops in the Eastern Caribbean islands as well as some of the most mouth-watering restaurants. It also is a popular spot for scuba diving, sailing, snorkeling, parasailing, deep-sea fishing, and other water sports.

St Martin History
The Arawak Indians from South America were the first people to inhabit St. Martin/St. Maarten, appearing on the island as early as 200-300 BC. These early people called the island "Soualouiga," or the "Land of Salt."  Europeans first encountered the island in November of 1493, when Columbus saw it during his second voyage to the New World.  Though he never actually set foot on it, Columbus named the island San Martin, for the feast of St. Martin in honor of the day, November 11, he purportedly first sighted it. The island first appeared on a map (Carta Atlantica) in 1516.

The empire of Spain first claimed ownership of St. Martin/ St. Maarten, but by the early seventeenth-century other Europeans began to settle the island.  In 1627, the Dutch began to explore there in search of salt.  From 1631-33 they settled parts of the island and, with the labor of Africans, actively mined salt in the Great Salt Pond in Great Bay.  Several years earlier, in 1629, Frenchmen fleeing nearby St. Kitts had made their way to St. Martin/ St. Maarten, where they eventually began cultivating tobacco. Though Spain regained some control of the island from 1638-1648, the Dutch and French eventually prevailed. On March 23, 1648, the treaty of Mount Concordia split the island formally into Dutch and French sides. A demarcation line built of rocks in 1772 is still visible today.