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 Martinique macaw The Martinique macaw or orange-bellied macaw ("Ara martinicus") is a hypothetical extinct species of macaw which may have been endemic to the Lesser Antillean island of Martinique, in the eastern Caribbean Sea. It was scientifically named by Walter Rothschild in 1905, based on a 1630s description of "blue and orange-yellow" macaws by Père Jacques Bouton. No other evidence of its existence is known, but it may have been identified in contemporary artwork. Some writers have suggested that the birds observed were actually blue-and-yellow macaws ("Ara ararauna"). The "red-tailed blue-and-yellow macaw" ("Ara erythrura"), another species described by Rothschild in