Invasion of Martinique (1674) Martinique, the headquarters of the French colonial venture in the Caribbean. The Dutch believed that the capture of Martinique would enable them to quickly conquer France's other island outposts and rebuild their own war-ravaged network of Caribbean plantations, giving them dominance of the entire Lesser Antilles island chain. To achieve these aims, the Dutch assembled a powerful invasion force under Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, widely regarded as the greatest naval commander of the age, whose crushing victories had driven the English out of the war. Under his commanded sailed a fleet of eighteen major warships including his 80-gun flagship "De
Martinique macaw 1907 based on a 1658 account, is thought to be identical to the Martinique macaw, if either has ever existed. The Martinique macaw is one of thirteen extinct macaw species that have been proposed to have lived in the Caribbean islands. Many of these species are now considered dubious because only three are known from physical remains, and there are no extant endemic macaws on the islands today. Macaws were frequently transported between the Caribbean islands and the South American mainland in both prehistoric and historic times, so it is impossible to know whether contemporaneous reports refer to imported or