England's seizure of Jamaica in 1655 was part of Oliver Cromwell's Western Design, an ambitious -- and largely bungled -- campaign to break Spanish dominance in the Caribbean. The invasion force took the island, but holding it proved far harder than taking it. Tropical disease decimated the English garrison. Governors died almost as fast as they could be appointed. General Robert Sedgwick arrived and died in 1655. General William Brayne replaced him and died in 1656. The pattern was grim enough that survival itself became a qualification for leadership. General Edward D'Oyley, who had been on the island since the initial invasion and had somehow built up immunity to the fevers that killed his predecessors, took command by default. He was not the most senior officer. He was simply the one still breathing.

While D'Oyley struggled to keep his garrison alive, the man he had displaced was planning a comeback. Cristobal Arnaldo Isasi, the former Spanish governor, had not fled Jamaica when the English arrived. Instead, he retreated into the mountainous interior with a group of formerly enslaved people who had escaped during the chaos of the invasion -- people who would later become known as the Maroons. From the hills, Isasi sent appeals to Cuba for reinforcements. Spain had no intention of letting Jamaica go without a fight, and by late 1657, a force of Cuban soldiers had crossed the strait. Isasi assembled nearly 300 regular soldiers and about 100 militia or guerrilla fighters, and brought them to the coast at Las Chorreras, the place now called Ocho Rios. It was a credible force for an island campaign, and Isasi believed surprise was on his side.

It was not. D'Oyley had received reports of Spanish ships spotted off Jamaica's northern coast, and he did not wait for Isasi to march south. Instead, he loaded roughly 900 militia onto boats and sailed around the island to meet the threat head-on. When the English force landed near Ocho Rios and encountered Isasi's army close to Dunn's River Falls, the battle was lopsided. D'Oyley's force outnumbered the Spanish nearly three to one. The fighting was brief. Isasi escaped into the hills once more, reverting to the guerrilla existence he had led for two years, but the rest of his force was captured. The prisoners were eventually repatriated to Cuba under negotiated terms -- a pragmatic gesture by D'Oyley, who had no resources to spare on holding prisoners of war in a colony that could barely feed its own garrison.

Isasi was persistent, if nothing else. In 1658, he tried again, this time landing reinforcements from New Spain at Rio Nuevo, farther east along the coast. He had learned from Ocho Rios and built a fort to anchor his position. D'Oyley responded with the same tactic that had worked before: he sailed north and attacked. At the Battle of Rio Nuevo, the English stormed Isasi's fortifications and defeated him decisively. Isasi fled Jamaica for good, and Spain's attempts to reclaim the island ended. D'Oyley was confirmed as governor by the restored King Charles II in 1661. The cascades at Dunn's River kept falling, indifferent to the question of which European power claimed the water. Centuries later, the battlefield became a beach resort, and the name Las Chorreras faded into Ocho Rios -- a corruption of the Spanish that tourists accept without question.