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 amazon Martinique amazon The Martinique amazon ("Amazona martinicana") is a hypothetical extinct species of Caribbean parrot in the family Psittacidae. It is not known from any material remains, but was said to be similar to the red-necked amazon ("A. arausiaca") from Dominica, the next major island to the north of Martinique. Natives are known to have traded extensively in parrots between the Antilles, and it seems that the Martinique population was in some way related to or even descended from "A. arausiaca". Jean-Baptiste Labat described them as follows in 1742: Assuming it was a genuine and distinct taxon, it was endemic