"The British Invation of the Bahamas 1783" Topic

… ONE OF THE FINAL ACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

"Tucked away in a small corner of history and buried deep beneath mountains of text lie brief mentions of the British invasion of the Bahamas in 1783.[1] As far as major battles are concerned, it does not make the list. It was not really a battle at all. Action is the more appropriate word. Whatever word is chosen to call this event, it occurred in April. Before this, the Bahamas were captured by the Spanish from the British in 1782. The British invasion of 1783 was an attempt to recapture what was previously lost. Information gleaned from the East Florida Gazette, a loyalist newspaper in British East Florida printed in 1783 and today one of the rarest newspapers of the era, reveals much about the invasion that has not been chronicled in earnest before.

Historian Charles Loch Mowat considered the 1783 invasion nothing but "theatrics," pointing out that the Bahamas were brought back under British control after peace was reached between Spain and Britain.[2] Article V of the peace preliminaries at Versailles, agreed upon on January 20, 1783, by England, France, and Spain, put the Bahamas back in British jurisdiction.[3] No British invasion of the Bahamas in 1783 was needed in order to bring the Bahamas back into the British Empire because the peace process had already done so. Despite the islands' change of hands, word travelled slowly in the eighteenth century. Messages from Europe had to cross the Atlantic Ocean and surely no one in the Americas was aware of the decisions of the peace process until some months after the fact. It is unlikely that anyone in East Florida was aware of the government peace process by the time the British invasion of the Bahamas in 1783 was underway—certainly not Col. Andrew Deveaux, who in March 1783 outfitted an expedition to recapture the Bahamas…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Another opportunity to game with AWI Brits v Spanish!

The British may not have been aware that the peace treaty was returning the Bahamas to Britain, but the Spanish who were defending them were aware.

Glad you like it my friend!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Perhaps 'British landing' would be more appropriate.

You can tell the airborne forces to turn back.