of Basque whaling in Iceland comes from the early 17th century. Two Icelandic annals state that Basques whalers were active around the Westfjords (the northwestern peninsula of Iceland) in 1610. A third annal says three Basque ships were whaling from Strandir in 1608, while another source says that a Spanish Basque ship was whaling around Strandir in 1613 – which would be consistent with an illustration on an early 18th-century map that says: "Anno 1613 by de Biscayers beseylt." The ship was directed to a suitable harbor in Steingrímsfjörður. In this harbor is where the ship presumably processed its catch of seventeen whales – probably North Atlantic right whales. Short-lived prosperity and subsequent abandonment It was probably this ship's excellent haul, as well as the barring of Basque ships from Spitsbergen by the English the same year (see below), that resulted in 26 Basque ships being sent to Iceland in 1614. Only ten reached Iceland, as the rest had been scattered or captured by English pirates. Most of the Spanish Basque ships spent the summer in Steingrímsfjörður, while a few of the French Basque were situated to the north. In 1615, there were reported to be sixteen ships by Strandir. Only four stayed the summer to hunt whales from Reykjafjörður in Strandir, the rest having departed for Russia. In September, three of the ships (under the commands of Martinus de Billafranca, Pedro de Aguirre, and Stephan de Tellaria), while preparing to leave, were sunk by the combination of a sudden storm and drift ice off the coast of Reykjafjörður. Of the 82 whalers that came ashore, thirteen were killed while spending the night at a seasonal fishing station. Another eighteen were killed at Ísafjarðardjúp in a campaign brought forth by the local sheriff, Ari Magnússon, to protect the livelihood of the inhabitants. No foreign whalers are mentioned whaling off Iceland nearly a decade after the massacre. This was the last documented massacre in Icelandic history and would be known in Iceland as The Slaying of the Spaniards. Basque whaling in Iceland continued until at least the early 18th century, but by the second half of the 17th century, Icelandic annals mentioned French and Dutch whalers more often they did the Spanish Basques. In 1675–76, 1680, and 1683 one or more ships from the French Basque ports of Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Ciboure hunted whales off Iceland. They resorted to Iceland during the