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 of Europeans. The identity and distribution of indigenous macaws in the Caribbean is only likely to be further resolved through palaeontological discoveries and examination of contemporary reports and artwork. Bouton's original description of the Martinique macaw is reproduced below, translated from French: A translation of the original French description of ""Ara erythrura"" by de Rochefort follows below: In spite of the fact that the tail of ""Ara erythrura"" was described as entirely red, the plate in Rothschild's "Extinct Birds" showed a blue tip, which Charles Wallace Richmond complained about in his review of the book. Martinique macaw The Martinique macaw