Qualla: Battle of Cape Palos (1815)

Battle of Cape Palos (1815): Introduction

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit unattributed, apparently from U.S. National Archives, Public domain. The men in the boats were rowing hard for the cape when the gunfire found them. Their brig, the Algerian Estedio, had fought for half an hour and then given up, and now her crew was trying to reach the Spanish shore off Cabo de Palos in whatever craft they could launch. The American vessels chasing her fired anyway, sinking the boats. When it was over, eighty men had surrendered and at least twenty-three lay dead. This brief, one-sided action in June 1815 was the final battle of the Second Barbary War, and it played out in the shoal waters at the turning point of the Spanish coast.

Image: unattributed, apparently from U.S. National Archives | Public domain

Battle of Cape Palos (1815): A Score to Settle

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nourerrahmane, CC BY-SA 4.0. For a decade the young United States had wrestled with the Barbary states of North Africa over the seizure of ships and sailors. In 1815, with the war against Britain finished, Congress sent a squadron into the Mediterranean under Commodore Stephen Decatur, a naval officer alread...

Image: Nourerrahmane | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Cape Palos (1815): The Chase Into the Shallows

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit unattributed, apparently from U.S. National Archives, Public domain. Decatur gave chase, and the Estedio fled into shoal water near Cape Palos, hoping the shallows would protect her. They nearly did. Fearing that his larger ships might run aground, Decatur held them back and sent in the small, nimble vessels of his squadron, the Epervier, Spark, T...

Image: unattributed, apparently from U.S. National Archives | Public domain

Battle of Cape Palos (1815): Half an Hour

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit unattributed, apparently from U.S. National Archives, Public domain. As the Algerians pulled for the cape in their boats, the American vessels kept firing, and the boats went under. Eighty surviving sailors were taken prisoner; at least twenty-three of their shipmates were killed, many of them in that final flight rather than in the exchange of br...

Image: unattributed, apparently from U.S. National Archives | Public domain

Battle of Cape Palos (1815): Cartagena's Prize

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit unattributed, apparently from U.S. National Archives, Public domain. Spanish authorities interned the brig and, at the war's end, returned her to Algiers. The peace did not hold for everyone. On 18 July 1815, Algiers declared war on Spain, and the Spanish government promptly seized both the Estedio and the frigate Meshuda where they lay at Cartage...

Image: unattributed, apparently from U.S. National Archives | Public domain