Heroina
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Heroina was the ship of the United Provinces of the River Plate (later Argentina) under the command of Colonel David Jewett, who placed its flag for the first time on the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands.
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 the Heroina's 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.
