Between 1520 and 1820, so many Spanish treasure fleets sank in Florida’s shallow offshore waters.

Between 1520 and 1820,so many Spanish treasure fleets

sank in Florida’s shallow offshore waters

that today’s divers call these waters

The kings of Spain and their fleets made deposits in this bank for 300

years.

Today, the withdrawals have just begun.

Part One:

On Friday 13th, July, 1733, 22 shipsset sail from Havana, Cuba

bound for Seville, Spain.

They carried 20 million pieces of eightand other treasure worth at least $600,000,000.

Two days later, the entire fleet,under the command

of General Don Rodrigo de Torres y Morales,was gone --

stricken by a massive hurricane in the Florida Keys.

The wreckage lay strewn fromreef to reef -- from key to key.

In the warm shallow waters off Key Largo laythe 60-gun galleon El Infante beneath ten feet of water.

The Los Tres Puentes lay in 12 feet;El Poder de Dios lay in 20 feet; and the Herrera

and San Francisco in 18 feet.

Spanish treasure fleetscarried wooden chestsfilled with hundreds of

these Eight Escudo coins.

These coins are from the Combined Armada of 1715

which sank off the coast of present day Vero Beach, Florida.

These are the famous “pieces of eight” of pirate lore.

Eight Reales

This “piece of eight”(eight reales)

is from the wreck of the Nuestra Senora de Concepcion.

The Highway of the Indies

The Highway of the Indies

Click Here

If this coin and others from sunken ships could

talk,this is one of the stories

they would tell:

Part Two:

In the early summer of 1715, twopowerful treasure fleets met inthe harbor of Havana, Cuba.

One of these was theTierra Firme Flota

under the command of Capitan GeneralDon Antonio de Echiceis y Zubiza

who would not survive the summer.

The Tierra Firme Flota carried

gold, silver, emeralds, and pearls

from Spain’s new-world colonies in South America.

The other fleet was theNew Spain Flota

carrying the gold and silver of Mexico.

The fleet’s commander, Capitan GeneralDon Juan Esteban de Ubilla, along with 1000 others,

would die in the tragedy that lay ahead.

The flagship of the New Spainfleet was theCapitana

It carried 1300 treasure chests containing over 3,000,000

Pieces of Eight.

On July 24, 1715, all eleven shipsof the two fleets would

sail from Cuba together as the

The fleet carried 7,000,000 reales in gold and silverbound for Seville, Spain.

Combined Armada

But King Philip V of Spainwould never see the Armada of 1715 nor its treasure.

Early in the morning of July 31,the entire fleet was struck by a powerful hurricane

off Florida’s east coast.

By dawn, the wreckage of themighty armada lay scattered along

the reefs and beaches from Sebastian Inlet south toVero Beach, Fort Pierce, and Jupiter Inlet.

The Treasure Coast

Some of the treasure wasrecovered in the succeeding

months.

But 280 Caribe Indian divers lost their livesduring the salvage efforts and 300 armed men commanded

by an English privateer attacked the Spanish salvagecamps and stole 350,000 silver pesos.

1551

1554

1568

Click each yearto learn about its wrecks.

1565

1618

1623

1660

Note

Peterson, Mendel, 1975. The Funnel of Gold. Little, Brown, and Company, Boston. pp. 361-375.

For Further Reading

Meylach, Marty 1971. Diving to a Flash of Gold. Florida Classics Library, Port Salerno, Florida.

Earle, Peter, 1980. The Treasure of the Concepcion. Viking Press, New York.

Between 1520 and 1820, so many Spanish treasure fleets sank in Florida’s shallow offshore waters.

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