At the end of July 1657, during the longest and fiercest conflict between the Turks and Venetians, known as the Cretan War (1645-1669), Bosiljina/Marina saw the hardest days in its history.

In 1657, the Bosnian Pasha Seidi Ahmet and his powerful army embarked on the conquest of Dalmatian cities. After their siege of Split failed, the Turks set out to conquer Marina. The incentive for the attack was to get revenge on the feisty Marinites, who often waged war against the Turks, as well as the village riches.

The attack on the village started in late June. The local forces, led by Captain Jakov Jerković, refused to surrender and defended the village with any weapon available, including rifles and cannons. Although the Turkish troops outnumbered the locals, the unexpectedly robust defense of battle-hardened warriors forced the pasha to spend several days razing the village to the ground using large cannons. The Venetian Military Command sent no backup, as it deemed Marina to be undefendable, but the locals, refusing to abandon their homes, persevered and defended the village to their last breath, having received only the assistance of about 30 men from the island of Drvenik.

After seven days of resistance, the defenders were unable to keep back the invasion through the broken village walls any longer. The Turks carried out their final assault and penetrated the village, slaughtering almost the entire defending force and impaling the hearth of the fallen Captain Jerković on a spear. Some three hundred Marinites died in the battle and the same number of them ended up as Turkish slaves, including women, the elderly and children. However, about three hundred people managed to flee to Trogir during the night, while under fire of enemy ships. The Turks plundered and pillaged, takin a rich booty with them on a thousand and two hundred horses, “…because the village was among the most populous and richest in Dalmatia.”

Marina, the village that boasted up to forty newborns each year, came to complete ruin. Many old surnames of Marina died out and disappeared after 1657; however, descendants of surviving old families still live in the Marina area to this day, bound to their motherland.