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Overview
Based on the exceptional and fascinating eyewitness account of a seventeenth-century Spanish padre, Dave Horner's Shipwreck is the absorbing and true story of two immense galleons that were lost (along with hundreds of passengers and millions of pesos in treasure) to disasters at sea. Shipwreck is an extraordinary literary adventure which interweaves accounts of the many attempts throughout the past three centuries to recover the sunken treasure, including the recent discovery and salvage of one of the galleons by Dave Horner himself. Shipwreck is an outstanding history of true adventure on the high seas, past and present, which is wonderfully enhanced for the reader with 50 photographic illustrations, six maps, four line drawings, seven appendices, as well as bibliographies of archival sources, institutions, original documents or primary works, and a general listing of thematically appropriate titles for further suggested readings.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781493064878 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Sheridan House, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2021 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 352 |
| File size: | 12 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
A graduate of the University of Virginia and Rutgers University, Dave Horner had become the youngest bank president in Virginia by the age of thirty. He founded one of the first pro dive shops in the mid-Atlantic region and pioneered sport diving for treasure. His interest in sport diving led him to research, locate, and successfully salvage a sunken treasure ship. He is a frequent speaker at Amelia Earhart Society events and a consultant for others seeking hidden treasure. Horner alternates living in Vero Beach, Florida, and the Maryland Eastern Shore with his wife.
Read an Excerpt
Within a hundred years after Columbus discovered the New World, Spain had become a great power. For more than three hundred years the flow of treasure to the mother country from the Indies, at first only a trickle, ultimately became a torrent. Streams of gold and silver continually gushed from the mines of Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile and Peru.
Goods badly needed in the new colonies were heavily loaded onto galleon after galleon sailing from the Spanish ports of Seville and Cádiz. Cargoes consisted of wine and cheese, hardware, nails, construction equipment, paper, glassware, pewter plates and buckles. Religious objects, medallions, books, cloth and clothes and other goods needed or desired in the colonies were included.
The Pacific colonial ports, a long distance from Spain, were important trading centers. Valparaiso and Arica in Chile, as well as Callao and Lima in Peru, were separated by many miles and a long journey from Panama. Maintaining an adequate transportation and communication link was an essential, though difficult requirement. Consistency in the flow of treasure was the highest priority.
Sailing from the southern reaches of long strung-out ports in Chile and Peru, the early Spaniards rode what is now known as the powerful northward-flowing Humboldt Current. The flow carried them to the latitude of present day Ecuador. There, this body of water takes a hard left turn, curving ninety degrees westerly to the Galápagos. Then turning southerly, it flows deeply into the South Pacific Ocean.
After losing the benefit of this current, Spanish navigators preferred to continue their northward voyage bypiloting along the coast. This enabled them to visually sight landmarks and reference points to measure their daily progress en route to Panama.
In traversing the South American coastline, the armada of the "South Sea" (as the Spaniards referred to the Pacific Ocean during colonial days) confronted considerable natural and geographic obstacles. Seasonal navigational challenges, including adverse weather patterns, added to the difficulties facing many of the king's ships. Tidal ranges of between six and fifteen feet embracing the entire South American shoreline compounded navigational hazards. This combined to create added dangers for careless or inexperienced seafarers.
As an example, in today's Ecuador, a particularly significant peninsula protrudes westward into the sea for approximately eight miles. Known as Punta Santa Elena, the village of the same name is located just inside its protective hook. Northward from Santa Elena the land falls back to the east. It forms a gentle curve in the coast toward modern Colombia. The seacoast then curves again, in a westerly contour, before reaching Panama.
Spain, along with several of her European trading neighbors, depended on successful round-trip voyages to the Americas. One grounding, one sinking, one captured vessel were all considered devastating news. Each heavily-loaded treasure ship that did not return meant bankruptcy for many. It became a story too often told.
In exchange for arriving cargoes, vast treasure shipments from the fabulously rich mines of the New World received priority space aboard the homeward-bound vessels. Along with tons of silver and gold, the ships were filled with goods considered rare and desirable throughout Europe. Pearls from Margarita Island, diamonds from Venezuela, sisal and hides, Caribbean fruits and nuts, tobacco, cocoa and coffee were packed tightly, often filling the vessel's holds to over capacity. Honduras rosewood, Mexican jewelry of opals, amethysts and turquoise, pottery and glaze, cochineal (a scarlet red dye), indigo and numerous other items were registered on return manifests. Safe arrival of the exotic products was second only to the silver and gold eagerly anticipated by not only the Spanish hierarchy, but also most of Europe.
Each year witnessed increases in treasure production. The numbers and sizes of vessels necessary to transport it expanded proportionately. Larger ships carried more treasure, but when they failed to return, as a result of shipwreck, storms or enemy corsairs, they turned into more significant sea disasters and represented greater economic losses.
The galleons sailing to Tierra Firme, later known as New Granada and often referred to as the "mainland" (today the area of Colombia, Venezuela, parts of Central America including Panama) represented the greatest number of ships and cargoes from Spain. About forty percent of these vessels sailed into Cartagena, discharged cargo, then continued to the isthmus ports of Nombre de Dios and Portobelo. The convoy then returned to Cartagena to await word on the arrival of the Armada del Mar del Sur, the Pacific fleet from Peru, sailing along the South American Pacific coast to Panama. Often the wait lasted months.
Another thirty-three percent of incoming Spanish-European shipments and outgoing treasure cargoes cleared through the port at Vera Cruz. This group of ships was known as the New Spain fleet, or plata flota. The viceroyalty of New Spain included all of Mexico and Honduras.
The remaining approximate twenty-seven percent of treasure and general cargo shipping volume originated through the specific ports of the captain generalcy of Cuba, Santo Domingo and the immense viceroyalty of Peru, geographically designated today as encompassing Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador.
Philip IV ran this far-flung empire from Madrid, but his job was not easy. The vast kingdom was long, wide and paper-thin. Spain was at war with the detested English. Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell possessed all de facto powers in England and ordered a blockade of the major Spanish Atlantic ports, primarily Cádiz and Seville.
Spain was at war with Portugal. The Duke of Braganza, King of Portugal, was a close ally of England. This enabled English ships to refurbish and revictual in Portuguese harbors. Having waged wars in Italy against neighbors of its peninsula possessions, King Philip also was at war with France, governed by Cardinal Mazarin. (Mazarin continued the politics of Richelieu, until Louis XIV took power in 1662.) This lasted several years, until the Traité des Pyrénées. At least Spain was at peace with the northern Netherlands. The two countries conducted brisk business.
However, the primary focus of the Royal Treasury was in the mines and mints of the New World. Increasing production of treasure and shipments back to the mother county was the principal goal.
Mining, refining, weighing, minting, stamping and transporting this treasure entailed every element of big business. Therefore, Spanish citizens were welcome to travel to the New World and operate a mine, so long as they took the oath to work on behalf of the King of Spain. Though most of the mines were operated privately, they were considered royal property.
Strict procedures and controls were designed to insure the king's allotment of the treasure. The royal quinto, or one-fifth, was the allotment claimed by His Majesty. As early as 1505 the royal share amounted to about fifty-thousand pesos. Twelve years later it grew to one hundred thousand pesos. The quinto later varied between one-fifth and one-tenth. Even so, royalties paid to the Royal Treasury continued to soar for more than one hundred years. Between 1556-1640, royalties paid to the king reached eighty-four million pieces-of-eight from the rich mountain of silver at Potosí alone.1
As silver production increased, the amount of contraband trade flowing between Old and New Worlds increased proportionately, in order to avoid the king's tariffs. This illegal commerce included treasure and commodities of every imaginable description. It was perpetrated by ship captains, merchants and "trusted" representatives of the Crown who constantly showed their palms and looked the other way. It reached epidemic proportions. King Philip was no longer sure he could trust captains of sea and war, lawyers, controllers, or local magistrates.
The Council of the Indies, managing the affairs of the Carrera for His Majesty, tried everything conceivable to contain, control, and otherwise thwart contraband cargoes. Spies were placed on board the king's ships. Vows of allegiance from sea captains and officers were demanded. Salaries were withheld until a vessel safely returned to Spain. Taxes and fines were levied when unregistered goods were discovered. Yet it was all to no avail. Illegal shipments constituted a greater portion of the trade than did the registered commerce.
In late October of 1654, the immense capitana, the "Queen of the South Sea," was sunk off the coast of Ecuador. The royal court in Madrid did not learn of the loss until the beginning of May the following year. The capitana carried an actual ten million pesos in treasure, but only three million was registered on the ship. Even at the lesser amount, the tragedy was not only a monumental loss to Spain, but also created havoc within the Viceroyalty of Peru.
In 1655, the citizens of Lima witnessed their homes, cathedrals and the palace of the viceroy destroyed by an earthquake. To pour more salt on Spain's open wound, it was also in the same inauspicious year that the English snatched Jamaica from Spanish control.
The devastating domino effect continued. In 1656 the king received news of the sinking of the 900-ton Maravillas on the wild and uncharted shoals of Los Mimbres. Six hundred people lost their lives and more than five million pesos in gold and silver were buried at sea with the galleon. History records this loss as one of the single worst shipwrecks in the Carrera de las Indias. This tragedy was yet followed by a disastrous battle with the English in September. Within sight of the Spanish shore, hundreds of lives and many more millions of pesos were also lost off Cádiz.
Spain's period of misfortune was not yet ended. The following April it was magnified by the complete destruction of the entire 1657 treasure fleet as it returned to Spain. While anchored in the highly-touted safest harbor in the Atlantic, Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands, it met its demise at the hands of the brilliantly daring English force. The consequences of this series of disasters were far reaching. Their combined effect greatly contributed to the decline of Spain as a major power.
Let's now go back in time to the middle of the 17th century for the complete story. This narrative of the trials, tribulations, life and death struggles of Padre Diego Portichuelo is based on his personal memoirs. The story is much more than just the diary of a man of the cloth. It is a moving account of historic maritime events following the Spanish conquest of the New World. From the small fleets of the South Sea to the huge armadas of the North (Caribbean and Atlantic), Spain endeavored to sustain its economic well-being with the resources of its newly established colonies. Many of the successes and failures of the Carrera de las Indias are revealed within the pages of this book.
While this book is based, at least in part, on the miraculous account of our good padre, it is much more. Indeed, it is an epic of sea tragedy and lost treasure.
Table of Contents
Foreword xv
Author's note xvii
Introduction 1
1 Going Down to Panama 9
2 Salvaging the Queen of the South Sea 25
3 Everyone Is a Smuggler 38
4 Captain General of the Fleet 54
5 The Sinking 63
6 The Survivors 76
7 All of Spain Prays 85
8 The Homecoming 92
9 To the Victors Go the Spoils 113
10 Treasure Salvage on Los Mimbres 133
11 Treasure Is Trouble 153
12 Destruction at Santa Cruz de Tenerife 186
13 The Enigma of Padre Diego 204
14 Epilogue 213
Notes 252
Appendices
A Composition of the Spanish Fleet and Comparison of Spanish/English Naval Ranks 260
B Types of Treasure Shipped Aboard Carrera de Indias Fleets 261
C Denominations and Conversions of Weights and Values 262
D Mid 17th-Century Distances and Measurements-Latitude 264
E List of Persons Known to Have Been Aboard the 1654 Capitana, Jesus Maria- de La- Limpid Conceptión 265
F List of Persons Known to Have Been Aboard Nuestra Señora de Las Maravillas 267
G The Naming of the Maravillas and Biography of Admiral Orellana 270
Bibliography
a Archive sources 275
b Institutions 281
c Original documents or primary works 282
d General bibliography 283
Index 291
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