Progress Report
My research project is about the Battle of the Saints. It was one in a collection of battles which formed the American Revolution. I focused on this specific battle for my project because a new tactic known as “Crossing the T” was seen for the first time in this battle. This battle was also selected due to the close proximity of occurrence to Dominica.
Thus far many challenges have plagued the project. Since the battle occurred in 1782, very few writings still exist from that time period. Many of those that do exist are written in French or Latin. I sought statistical information pertaining to Dominica as a British colony and the effect which the American Revolution had on the colony. This information was not found. Information regarding the involvement of Dominicans in the war was also not found.
Upon searching at the National Achieves and documentation centre, no information about the Battle of the Saints could be found. At the public library, only one book containing information could be found and only 2½ pages of information proved to be relevant. The information acquired was only an overview of the battle and was substantially less than overviews found on the internet. In the book, nine sources were used to write the overview of the Battle of the Saints. Each source was investigated and many were not available on the internet. The few that were available did not provide useful information.
I set out to gather information pertaining to the casualties of the war and this I was able to do. Statistical data about the various ships of the line were obtained as well as information about the fates of the captains and crew. Diagrams and drawings dictating the use of the “Crossing the T” strategy were found.
To compensate for the challenges plaguing the project, I was forced to expand the scope. More battles of the American Revolution closely associated with the Battle of the Saints are to be touched on. Also, Dominica was focused upon for the project. More Caribbean islands will be brought into perspective to see how the war affected them and how they reacted to it. Since Jamaica was the primary target for the French-Spanish attack, it was believed that a lot of information regarding the war would be found in the archives. However, this was not the case since it is impossible to access that information from the archives via the internet.