David Jewett

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Colonel David Jewett is important in the history of the conflict between Great Britain and Argentina because he commanded the frigate Heroina which visited the Malvinas/Falkland Islands in 1820 and raised the first Argentine flag on the islands.

Jewett was born in New London (North Parish), Connecticut, United States, on 17 June 1772, and died 26 June 1842. He studied for a career in law and joined the United States Navy, where he commanded the frigate ship Trumbull, acted as privateer, and took prizes. He left the Navy in 1801, but rejoined during the War of 1812 against Britain, when he again acted as a privateer.

After that conflict Colonel Jewett offered his services to the newly-independent United Provinces of the River Plate (later Argentina), which accepted his proposal and authorized his corsair activities against the Spanish; he was appointed Colonel in the Argentine Navy.

He was given command of the frigate Heroina in 1820 and set out on a voyage marked by misfortune, a mutiny, and scurvy. Some 80 of his crew of 200 were either sick or dead by the time he arrived in October at Puerto Soledad (formerly Port Louis), the one-time Spanish capital of the Malvinas Islands. There he found some fifty British and U.S. sealing ships, whose presence had not been authorized by either the Spanish or the authorities at Buenos Aires.

On 6 November 1820 he raised the blue-and-white flag of what would become Argentina and warned the sealers that their activities were unauthorized and damaging to local resources, specifically seals. Buenos Aires was interested in protecting the lucrative sealing industry and profiting from foreign ships hunting the seals in the waters around the islands. However, Jewett left soon afterwards, and the foreign sealers paid little attention to his warnings.

[edit] References

• Child, Jack. Geopolitics and Conflict in South America: Quarrels Among Neighbors. New York; Praeger, 1985, pp. 112-115.
• Gough, Barry. The Falkland Islands/Malvinas: The Contest for Empire in the South Atlantic. London: Athlone Press, 1992, pp. 55-59.
• Strange, Ian J. The Falkland Islands. London: David & Charles Press, 1983, p. 194.