Providence Company, or Providence Island Company

It takes time for Europeans and North American natives to learn the customs of the other side.

Europeans will often be offered fur, food or other items as gifts when they first encounter a tribe.

The Europeans do not understand they are supposed to take on an alliance with the natives, including helping them against their enemies.

Native tribes regularly practice gift giving as part of their social relations.

Because the Europeans (or most of them) do not, they are considered to be rude and crude.

After observing that Europeans want to trade goods for the skins and other items, natives enter into that commercial relationship.

As a consequence, both sides become involved in the conflicts of the other.

The Europeans in New France, Carolina, Virginia, New England, and New Netherland become drawn into the endemic warfare of their trading partners.

A Spanish force from Santo Domingo raids Tortuga early in 1631 and expels the pirates, leaving a small garrison of twenty-five soldiers to prevent their return.

The Providence Company later in the year brings Hilton's new colony under its control.

The Providence Company's colony on Tortuga rapidly grows as roaming Englishmen and Frenchmen gravitate toward the opportunities it affords of finding employment on the privateers who make it their base.

The hard discipline and constant labor of St. Christopher and Barbados result in constant desertions of indentured servants who find refuge and opportunity in Tortuga.

There they find a life both lax and exciting, blending logwood cutting and cattle hunting in Hispaniola's forests with potential adventure and booty at sea.

The new settlement becomes a magnet for every deserter in the Caribbean.

Friction develops, however, between the French and the English settlements in Tortuga, soon notorious for its disorder and licentiousness.

The Audiencia of Santo Domingo resolves in 1633 that the island must again be ruthlessly swept of pirates, and plans an invasion.