Vencedora (English: Victorious) was a screw corvette of the Spanish Navy in commission from 1862 to 1888. She participated in the Chincha Islands War of 1865–1866 and in the Spanish–Moro conflict in the Philippines in the 1870s and 1880s.
Characteristics Vencedora was a screw corvette with a wooden hull and a schooner rig, and because of the latter some sources list her as a schooner. She had three masts and a bowsprit. She displaced 778 tons and was long. She had a steam engine manufactured in Barcelona, Spain, by La Maquinista Terrestre y Marítima that was rated at a nominal , and she could reach a maximum speed of . Her armament consisted of two 68-pounder (31 kg) smoothbore guns amidships and a 32-pounder (14.5 kg) smoothbore swivel gun on her bow. She had a crew of 98 to 130 men.
Construction and commissioning Vencedora was laid down at the in Cartagena, Spain, in 1859 as a wooden-hulled screw frigate with mixed sail and steam propulsion. She was launched in 1861, and after fitting out was commissioned in 1862. Her total construction cost was 1,212,764.44 pesetas.
Service history 1862–1865 Upon entering service, Vencedora was assigned to the Pacific Squadron and proceeded to the Río de la Plata (River Plate) on the coast of South America, arriving there in April 1862. With the squadron commander, Contralmirante (Counter admiral) Luis Hernández Pinzón Álvarez, and a scientific team composed of three zoologists, a geologist, a botanist, an anthropologist, a taxidermist, and a photographer aboard, the screw frigates Resolución (Pinzon's flagship) and departed Spain in August 1862 and rendezvoused with her at the Río de la Plata. The screw schooner soon joined the squadron.
Ordered to carry out both the political-military task of demonstrating a Spanish presence in the Americas and a scientific research mission, the four ships got underway from Montevideo, Uruguay, on 10 January 1863Almagro, p. 34. and proceeded down the coast of Patagonia, passed the Falkland Islands, rounded Cape Horn on 6 February 1863,Almagro, p. 35. and entered the Pacific Ocean. They then stopped at the Chiloé Archipelago off the coast of Chile before continuing their voyage up the coasts of South America and North America, stopping at several ports before calling at San Francisco, California, in the United States from 9 OctoberAlmagro, p. 70. to 1 November 1863. They then headed southward and arrived at Valparaíso, Chile, on 13 January 1864.Almagro, p. 72.
At the time, Spain still had not recognized the independence of Chile and Peru from the Spanish Empire, and the presence of the Spanish warships on the Pacific coast of South America – especially in the aftermath of Spain's annexation of the First Dominican Republic in 1861 and Spanish involvement in a multinational intervention in Mexico in 1861–1862 – raised suspicions in South America as to the intentions of the Spanish government. In retaliation for various hostile actions against Spanish citizens and property in Peru, Pinzón's squadron seized the Chincha Islands from Peru on 14 April 1864 without authorization from the Spanish government, taking several Peruvians prisoner. With tensions spiking between Spain and Peru, Resolución and Nuestra Señora del Triunfo covered an operation in which many of the Spaniards in Peru embarked on the steamer at Callao and Virgen de Covadonga towed Heredia out of the harbor under the guns of Peruvian Navy warships that were ready to open fire. Spain and Peru avoided war, but Pinzón resigned his command on 9 November 1864 because he felt that the Spanish government had not supported his actions, and Vicealmirante (Vice admiral) José Manuel Pareja took charge of the Pacific Squadron.
An accidental fire destroyed Nuestra Señora del Triunfo on 25 November 1864, but Pareja's squadron received reinforcements on 30 December 1864 when the screw frigates , , and joined it. Tensions with Peru remained high, and a member of Resolución′s crew was killed while on leave at Callao. Pareja attempted to settle affairs with Peru by signing the Vivanco–Pareja Treaty with a Peruvian government representative aboard Villa de Madrid (Pareja's flagship), but the Peruvian Congress viewed it as a humiliation and refused to ratify it, and the failed treaty instead sparked the outbreak of the Peruvian Civil War of 1865 in February 1865.
Vencedora was at Valparaíso on 28 April 1865 when the armoured frigate and the transport steamer Marqués de la Victoria arrived there from Spain as reinforcements for the Pacific Squadron. Numancia′s commanding officer, Capitán de navío (Ship-of-the-line captain) Casto Méndez Núñez, gathered information from Vencedora′s commanding officer, learning that Spain had reached an agreement with Peru to avoid war and that the Pacific Squadron was at Callao, and Numancia and Marqués de la Victoria got back underway and rendezvoused with the squadron at Callao on 5 May 1865.
Chincha Islands War The political situation in the southeastern Pacific further deteriorated during 1865 when Pareja steamed to Valparaíso to settle Spanish claims against Chile. When Chile refused to settle, Pareja announced a blockade of Chilean ports, and the Chincha Islands War broke out between Spain and Chile on 24 September 1865. The blockade spread the Pacific Squadron thinly along the Chilean coast. Early setbacks in the war culminating in a humiliating Spanish naval defeat in the Battle of Papudo on 26 November 1865, in which the Chilean Navy corvette captured Virgen de Covadonga, prompted Pareja to commit suicide aboard Villa de Madrid off Valparaíso, shooting himself in his cabin on 28 November 1865 while lying on his bed wearing his dress uniform. He was buried at sea, and Méndez Núñez took command of the Pacific Squadron on 12 December 1865 and transferred to Villa de Madrid.Farcau, p. 17. Méndez Núñez concentrated his squadron off Valparaíso, where Vencedora and Resolución joined it on 19 December 1865. A few days later, Méndez Núñez limited the blockade to Valparaíso and Caldera. After bringing aboard supplies from a newly arrived Spanish frigate, Méndez Núñez's squadron began operations to find and recapture Virgen de Covadonga. The squadron first searched the Juan Fernández Islands and then Puerto Inglés on Chiloé Island in the Chiloé Archipelago off Chile without finding her.
Peru joined the war on Chile's side on 14 January 1866, as did Ecuador on 30 January. In February and March 1866, Méndez Núñez made two unsuccessful attempts – the first by Villa de Madrid and Reina Blanca and the second by Numancia and Reina Blanca — to destroy the combined Chilean-Peruvian squadron in the waters off Chile. Bolivia joined the war against Spain on 22 March 1866, closing all the Pacific ports of South America south of Colombia to Spanish ships. Under orders to take punitive action against South American ports, Méndez Núñez selected undefended Valparaíso as his target,Scheina, page not specified. although he found the idea of attacking an undefended port repugnant. On the morning of 31 March 1866 his squadron arrived at Valparaíso. Numancia fired two shots ay 08:00 to signal the rest of the squadron to open fire, then withdrew to a rearward position to cover the other ships and took no further part in the bombardment, instead standing by to intervene if any foreign warships at Valparaíso tried to interfere. Facing no opposition, Resolución, Reina Blanca, Villa de Madrid, and Vencedora began a three-hour bombardment of Valparaíso at 09:00 while Berenguela and the sidewheel paddle steamer Paquete de Maule stood by offshore to guard against any attempt at escape by Chilean merchant ships. By the time it ended at 12:00, the bombardment had killed two people, injured 10, and sunk 33 merchant ships in the harbor, destroying Chile's merchant fleet.New York Times staff, 6 May 1866. It inflicted US$10 million (equivalent to about US$224 million in 2011) in damage.
Méndez Núñez chose the heavily defended port of Callao, Peru, for his next attack. He divided the squadron into two divisions, the first made up of Berenguela, Numancia, Reina Blanca, Vencedora, and three auxiliary steamers and the second of Resolución, Villa de Madrid, the screw frigate , Paquete de Maule, and three transport frigates and, after burning prize ships his squadron had captured, set off on 14 April 1866 for San Lorenzo Island off Callao, the second division getting underway at 09:00 and the first division at 16:00. The first division made the voyage under steam and arrived at San Lorenzo Island on 25 April, while the second division, making the journey under sail and delayed by the low speed of one of the transport frigates, arrived on 27 April 1866. Several days of negotiations began on 26 April, during which Méndez Núñez granted neutral countries a four-day delay in his attack to give them time to salvage their interests in Callao. The Spanish ships used the delay to prepare for the attack: The frigates all lowered their topmasts and main yards and altered their rigging to reduce the likelihood of damage to their masts, set up on-board field hospitals, and painted over the white stripes on their hulls with black paint to reduce the ships' visibility and give Peruvian gunners less of an aiming point.
On the morning of 2 May 1866 the Spanish ships entered Callao Bay, beginning the Battle of Callao, the largest battle of the Chincha Islands War. Vencedora and the auxiliary ships stood off near San Lorenzo Island while the other six Spanish ships attacked Callao, with Resolución, Numancia, and Almansa assigned to bombard the northern part of the harbor while Reina Blanca, Berenguela, and Villa de Madrid shelled the southern part. Numancia fired the first shot at 11:55, and soon all the Spanish ships were exchanging fire with the Peruvian fortifications. After Villa de Madrid was disabled when a Peruvian projectile destroyed her boilers, Vencedora came to her assistance under fire, towing her out of danger to San Lorenzo Island. By 16:00, only three Peruvian guns still were firing, and Méndez Núñez ordered Numancia, Almansa, Resolución, and Vencedora to shift fire from the harbor defenses to the city itself, but he rescinded the order after his officers advised him that his squadron had run low on explosive shells and would have to use solid shot, which would be ineffective. Running low on ammunition and with only the last three Peruvian guns still firing, the Spanish squadron ceased fire at 16:40 as dusk fell and fog began to form in the harbor. Although one of her three guns broke down at the beginning of the battle, Vencedora fired 114 rounds and emerged from the engagement undamaged, the only Spanish ship that suffered no hits from Peruvian gunfire.
Méndez Núñez's squadron spent the next several days at San Lorenzo Island, making repairs and tending to casualties. The Chincha Islands War ended in a ceasefire on 9 May 1866, and on 10 May 1866, Mendez Núñez's squadron burned and scuttled Paquete de Maule near San Lorenzo Island and departed South American waters to steam west across the Pacific Ocean. Méndez Núñez divided the squadron, sending Berenguela, Numancia, Vencedora, and three auxiliary ships to the Philippines while he led the rest of the ships on a voyage across the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with Villa de Madrid as his flagship.