Caribbean Sea attracted pirates such as Samuel Bellamy and Blackbeard. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Caribbean Sea as follows: Note that, although Barbados is an island on the same continental shelf, it is considered to be in the Atlantic Ocean rather than the Caribbean Sea. The Caribbean Sea is an oceanic sea largely situated on the Caribbean Plate. The Caribbean Sea is separated from the ocean by several island arcs of various ages. The youngest stretches from the Lesser Antilles to the Virgin Islands to the north east of Trinidad and Tobago off the coast of Venezuela. This
Dutch–Venezuelan crisis of 1908 Dutch–Venezuelan crisis of 1908 In 1908 a dispute broke out between the Netherlands and Venezuela when the Venezuelan president, Cipriano Castro, cut off trade with the Dutch island of Curaçao on the grounds that it was harbouring political refugees from Venezuela. Venezuela expelled the Dutch ambassador, prompting a Dutch dispatch of three warships - a "pantserschip" (coastal defence ship), the "Jacob van Heemskerk", and two protected cruisers, the "Gelderland" and the "Friesland". The Dutch warships had orders to intercept every ship that was sailing under the Venezuelan flag. On 12 December, the "Gelderland" captured the Venezuelan coast guard ship "Alix"