page_title: Sint Eustatius
section_title: "First Salute"
hierarchical_section_title: Sint Eustatius / History / "First Salute"
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Johannes de Graeff, ook Johannes de Graaff (1729-1813), gouveneur van Sint Eustatius
context_page_description: Sint Eustatius, also known locally as Statia, is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality of the Netherlands.
  The island lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, southeast of the Virgin Islands. Sint Eustatius is immediately to the northwest of Saint Kitts, and to the southeast of Saba. The regional capital is Oranjestad.
  The island has an area of 21 square kilometres. Travellers to the island by air arrive through F. D. Roosevelt Airport.
  Formerly part of the Netherlands Antilles, Sint Eustatius became a special municipality of the Netherlands on 10 October 2010. Together with Bonaire and Saba it forms the BES islands.
  The name of the island, "Sint Eustatius", is the Dutch name for Saint Eustace, a legendary Christian martyr, known in Spanish as San Eustaquio and in Portuguese as Santo Eustáquio or Santo Eustácio.
context_section_description: The island sold arms and ammunition to anyone willing to pay, and it was therefore one of the few places from which the young United States could obtain military stores. The good relationship between St. Eustatius and the United States resulted in the noted "First Salute".
  On November 16, 1776, the 14-gun American brig Andrew Doria commanded by Captain Isaiah Robinson sailed, flying the Continental Colors of the fledgling United States, into the anchorage below St. Eustatius' Fort Oranje. Robinson announced his arrival by firing a thirteen gun salute, one gun for each of the thirteen American colonies in rebellion against Britain. Governor Johannes de Graaff replied with an eleven-gun salute from the cannons of Fort Oranje (international protocol required two guns fewer to acknowledge a sovereign flag). It was the first international acknowledgment of American independence. The Andrew Doria had arrived to purchase munitions for the American Revolutionary forces. She was carrying a copy of the Declaration of Independence which was presented to Governor De Graaff. An earlier copy had been captured by the British on its way to Holland. It was wrapped in documents that the British believed to be a strange cipher, but were actually written in Yiddish, addressed to Jewish merchants in Holland.
  U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited St. Eustatius for two hours on February 27, 1939 on USS Houston to recognise the importance of the 1776 "First Salute". He presented a large brass plaque to St. Eustatius, displayed today under a flagpole atop the walls of Fort Oranje, reading:
  "In commemoration to the salute to the flag of the United States, Fired in this fort November 16. 1776, By order of Johannes de Graaff, Governor of Saint Eustatius, In reply to a National Gun-Salute, Fired by the United States Brig of War Andrew Doria, Under Captain Isaiah Robinson of the Continental Navy, Here the sovereignty of the United States of America was first formally acknowledged to a national vessel by a foreign official. Presented by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States of America"
  The recognition provided the title for Barbara W. Tuchman's 1988 book The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution.
  The British took the Andrew Doria incident seriously, and protested bitterly against the continuous trade between the United Colonies and St. Eustatius. In 1778, Lord Stormont claimed in Parliament that, "if Sint Eustatius had sunk into the sea three years before, the United Kingdom would already have dealt with George Washington". Nearly half of all American Revolutionary military supplies were obtained through St. Eustatius. Nearly all American communications to Europe first passed through the island. The trade between St. Eustatius and the United States was the main reason for the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War of 1780–1784. For example, the British Admiral George Brydges Rodney, having occupied the island for Great Britain in 1781, urged the commander of the landing troops, Major-General Sir John Vaughan, to seize "Mr. Smith at the house of Jones - they (the Jews of St. Eustatius, Caribbean Antilles) cannot be too soon taken care of - they are notorious in the cause of America and France." The war was disastrous for the Dutch economy.
  Britain declared war on the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on December 20, 1780. Even before officially declaring war, Britain had outfitted a massive battle fleet to take and destroy the weapons depot and vital commercial centre that St. Eustatius had become. British Admiral George Brydges Rodney was appointed the commander of the battle fleet. February 3, 1781, the massive fleet of 15 ships of the line and numerous smaller ships transporting over 3,000 soldiers appeared before St. Eustatius prepared to invade. Governor De Graaff did not know about the declaration of war. Rodney offered De Graaff a bloodless surrender to his superior force.  Rodney had over 1,000 cannon to De Graaff's one dozen cannon and a garrison of sixty men. De Graaff surrendered the island, but first fired tw
caption: Johannes de Graaff
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