author
Robert Venables
d. 1687
Best remembered as a Parliamentarian soldier and memoirist, he wrote a vivid firsthand account of the failed attack on Hispaniola and the English capture of Jamaica in 1655. His life links the English Civil Wars with the early history of England’s Caribbean empire.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Robert Venables (c. 1613–10 December 1687) was an English soldier from Cheshire who served on the Parliamentarian side in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Later, under the Commonwealth, he became one of the joint commanders of the "Western Design," the 1654–1655 expedition against Spanish possessions in the Caribbean.
Although that campaign was judged a failure after the unsuccessful assault on Hispaniola, Venables was closely connected with the seizure of Jamaica in 1655, an event that had long historical consequences. He is now often remembered through The Narrative of General Venables, a firsthand account of the expedition that survives in manuscript and was later published in print.
For readers, Venables is interesting not because he was a polished literary figure, but because he left behind a direct witness's voice from a turbulent moment in British and Caribbean history. His writing offers a soldier's view of command, conflict, and colonial ambition in the mid-seventeenth century.