Ile-à-Vache, or Ile-à-Vaches, is an island in the Caribbean Sea, south of Hispaniola. The island was originally claimed by the Spanish Empire, for the two centuries that followed the discovery of the New World in 1492. At that time, the island was known as “Isla Vaca”
In 1697, the island of Hispagnola was officially divided between Spain and France in the Treaty of Ryswick which ended a nine-year war. France took control of the western half of the island and Isla vaca took the name of Île-à-Vâ € ™ ou. Among the 13 paradise brothers of the coast [1], Ile-à-Vache was a haven for pirates, such as the English Henry Morgan in the seventeenth century.
The ex-privateer Laurent de Graff then becomes his governor. In 1698, Jean Baptiste du Casse, governor of Santo Domingo, concedes Ile-à-Vache to Jean Le Goff de Beauregard. The island is not part of the concession granted to the Company of Santo Domingo on the peninsula of the South. After the death of Beauregard in 1699, the Company of Santo Domingo recovers the island in 1700. Today, Île-à-Vache forms a commune of the district of Les Cayes, in the South department and does not count only one communal section (“Ile-à-Vache”).
Two major personalities bring Ile-a-Vache to the forefront of History: Sir. Henry Morgan and Bernard Kock
Cap. Henry Morgan was a British privateer of Welsh birth, who made a name in the Caribbean as a leader of buccaneers and roughnecks. He set Ile-a-Vache as a base in 1668 to attack the Spaniards fearing an attack upon Jamaica. His main ship the Oxford exploded killing 300 of his 900 men. A privateer was a private ship (or its captain) authorized by a country’s government to attack and seize cargo from another country’s ships.
Read More:
•Sir Henry Morgan
•Captain Morgan’s Ship Found near Ile-a-Vache
•Sub Sea Research Team Plans for Excavation of Ancient Shipwreck Sites Discovered Off Haiti’s Coastline
Bernard Kock, a British citizen had the grand plan for colonizing Ile-a-Vache (Cow Island), Haïti with 5000 black american slaves. Read More: •Bernard Kock: Bernard Kock was the self-styled governor of Vache Island off the coast of Haiti. Kock had approached Lincoln in October 1862 with a plan to colonize the island with 5,000 former slaves from the United States. Lincoln signed a contract with Kock in December 1862, but this contract was canceled in April 1863 and the U. S. agreed to a new contract with three of Kock’s business partners. By the end of April 1863, nearly 500 colonists had sailed for the island. Less than a year later the project was an utter failure and the 350 remaining colonists on Vache Island returned to the United States. (Source: Library of Congress)
- Bernard Kock colinized Cow’s Island with Free Slaves.
- Abraham Lincoln and the colinisation of Ile-a-Vache
- More information can be found by Querying the US Library of Congress at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/malquery.html (search for Bernard Kock)
Ile-a-Vache Currency (2 gourdes and 5 gourdes) under Bernard Kock
