Container lines from the port serve routes to Colombia, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Aruba, Curaçao and Bermuda.

On March 16, 1812 nine American gunboats under the command of Commodore Hugh Campbell formed a line in the harbor and aimed their guns at the town.

[4][5] General Mathews, who was ensconced at Point Peter on the St. Marys in Georgia, ordered Colonel Lodowick Ashley to send a flag to Don Justo Lopez,[6] commandant of the fort and Amelia Island, and demand his surrender.

John H. McIntosh, George J. F. Clarke, Justo Lopez, and others signed the articles of capitulation;[7] the Patriots then raised their own standard at the flagstaff of the fort.

The next day, March 17, a detachment of 250 regular United States troops were brought over from Point Peter, and the newly constituted Patriot government surrendered the town to General Matthews, who ordered the stars and stripes of the US flag raised immediately.