Qualla: Capture of the Bahamas (1782)

Capture of the Bahamas (1782): Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Juan Manuel Cagigal was told not to go. His superior, Bernardo de Galvez, had canceled the mission, redirecting forces toward a planned invasion of Jamaica. But in April 1782, the Governor of Havana loaded 2,500 troops onto ships and sailed east anyway, heading for Nassau and an encounter that would end a British stronghold in the Bahamas without a single casualty. The capture he pulled off was swift, almost absurdly easy. The punishment that followed was anything but.

Capture of the Bahamas (1782): A Nest of Privateers

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Nassau in the early 1780s was a thorn in Spain's side. Perched on the island of New Providence, the colonial capital served as a major base for British privateers who harried Spanish and American shipping across the Caribbean. Spain had entered the American War of Independence in...

Capture of the Bahamas (1782): The Disobedient Governor

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Cagigal ignored the recall. He had already assembled his force and secured additional ships from an unlikely source: the South Carolina Navy, under the command of Alexander Gillon. On April 18, 1782, the flotilla sailed from Havana, leaving the city's garrison dangerously thin bu...

Capture of the Bahamas (1782): Victory as Crime

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Galvez was furious. The troops Cagigal had taken to Nassau were the same forces Galvez needed for Jamaica, and that invasion had already collapsed after the British naval victory at the Battle of the Saintes shattered Franco-Spanish plans in the Caribbean. Rather than celebrate t...

Capture of the Bahamas (1782): The Loyalist's Bluff

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Spanish held Nassau for less than a year. In April 1783, an American Loyalist named Andrew Deveaux sailed from St. Augustine with a tiny force of 220 men and just 150 muskets. Facing a Spanish garrison of 600 trained soldiers, Deveaux used an audacious ruse, ferrying the same...

Capture of the Bahamas (1782): Credit Where None Was Due

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Perhaps the strangest twist is who received credit for the capture. It was Galvez, the man who tried to cancel the expedition, whose name became attached to the conquest of the Bahamas in official Spanish accounts. Cagigal, the man who actually did it, rotted in a Spanish prison....