Six Galleons for the King of Spain: Imperial Defense in the Early Seventeenth Century by Carla Rahn Phillips

Author:Carla Rahn Phillips [Phillips, Carla Rahn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781421441191
Google: Sx75DwAAQBAJ
Published: 2020-09-01T06:22:01.353000+00:00

EIGHT

The Struggle for the Indies, 1629-1635

The “galiflota” of 1629, a war fleet of thirty-five ships, represented a tremendous effort in a year without merchant fleets. Royal ministers scarcely questioned that it had to be sent, despite the chilling losses at Matanzas in 1628. Fortunately the total receipts of treasure and trade in 1628-29 were quite respectable, once the Tierra Firme fleet returned home safely. There is no doubt, however, that the late 1620s and early 1630s marked a slump in the Indies trade, although not as serious a slump as Chaunu claims.1 At that crucial juncture, the crown determined that war fleets had to sail in defense of the empire, whether or not the averías on trade could finance them. In the period when Martín de Arana’s galleons served in the Armada de la Guardia—roughly from 1629 to 1635—the crown would continue this extraordinary response to the challenge to its empire. Although the cost was high, the results, as we shall see, would repay that expense.

The fleet of galleons in 1629, however unusual it was in some respects, continued the tradition of the Indies run (described in chapter 1) that had been evolving for over a century. Once the “galiflota” left the safety of Cádiz Bay in mid-August, it probably headed briefly down the African coast, then out toward the Canary Islands, following the traditional path of many fleets before it. The voyage from Cádiz to the Canaries could be as short as four days or as long as fourteen, depending on the winds and currents and on whether a ship sailed alone or in convoy. Even a merchant fleet could make it in eight days, if all went well.2 At sea the commander of the 1629 fleet, don Fadrique de Toledo, opened his sealed orders, as generations of commanders had done before him.3 In addition to delivering supplies encountered, the armada of 1629 had a new charge—to dislodge interlopers from the Lesser Antilles.4 Don Fadrique’s officers began to plan their strategy, studying what few charts they had of the Lesser Antilles. (See figure 28.) Spaniards had shown little interest in those islands, in part because they had less to offer than the main Spanish bases, and in part because the fierce Caribs who inhabited many of the islands rarely permitted visitors to stay long without attacking them. These islands, then, formed the southern outer fringes of the Spanish empire in the Caribbean, claimed but only tenuously held.

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