Action of 1 January 1800

Action of 1 January 1800
Part of Quasi-War, War of Knives
A sketch of the action between Experiment and picaroons. William Bainbridge Hoff, 1875
Date 1 January 1800 Location Gulf of Gonâve, Saint-Domingue 19°00′N 73°30′W / 19°N 73.5°W / 19; -73.5 Result American victory
Belligerents
United States	France
Commanders and leaders
William Maley David Porter	André Rigaud
Strength
1 armed schooner 4 merchant ships	14 armed barges 400–500 Haitian Picaroons[1]
Casualties and losses
2 merchant ships captured 1 killed 1 wounded	3 barges sunk Many killed[1]
Civilian casualties: 1 wounded

The action of 1 January 1800 was a naval battle of the Quasi-War that took place off the coast of present-day Haiti, near the island of Gonâve in the Bight of Léogâne. The battle was fought between an American convoy of four merchant vessels escorted by the United States naval schooner USS Experiment, and a squadron of armed barges manned by Haitians known as picaroons.

A French-aligned Haitian general, André Rigaud, had instructed his forces to attack all foreign shipping within their range of operations. Accordingly, once Experiment and her convoy of merchant ships neared Gonâve, the picaroons attacked them, capturing two of the American merchant ships before withdrawing. Experiment managed to save the other two ships in her convoy, and escorted them to a friendly port. On the American side, only the captain of the schooner Mary was killed. Though the picaroons took heavy losses during this engagement, they remained strong enough to continue wreaking havoc among American shipping in the region. Only after Rigaud was forced out of power by the forces of Toussaint L'Ouverture, leader of the 1791 Haitian Revolution, did the picaroon attacks cease.