Commodore Porter and the Fajardo Affair

Abstract

The Fajardo affair of 1824, a tortuous episode that has never previously been looked at from American and Puerto Rico viewpoints in sufficient detail, presents a pertinent subject for consideration in terms of Spanish colonial and American relations. At one level, the episode ended the brilliant naval career of Commodore David Porter. More importantly, the saga of Porter is an object lesson in a naval officer doing what authorities at home thought was far in excess of instructions. It is an age-old tale in civil–military relations. But that is only half the story. From the Spanish perspective, it may be seen as the final warning that bringing Cofresí and his men to account had to be accomplished with urgency by them and, if not, by a foreign power. The order of priorities on the seas was changing. Spanish rulers in Puerto Rico as in Cuba would do their utmost, by any measures, to save those islands from falling to an external or internal enemy. Hence derived the efforts to ward off insurgent corsairs and their powerful landing parties. This was seen as more important than bringing Cofresí to account. It was Commodore Porter that forced their hand effected the shift.