The Price of Amity: Of Wrecking, Piracy, and the Tragic Loss of the 1750 Spanish Treasure Fleet

La flotte de trésor espagnole navigant de La Havane vers l'Espagne en août 1750 a été prise dans un ouragan et a échoué sur les bancs extérieures de la Virginie, du Maryland et des Carolinas.En dépit des hostilités alors récentes et prolongées entre l'Espagne et l'Angleterre, 1739-48, les gouvernements coloniaux britanniques ont tenté d'aider les Espagnols à sauver leurs navires et à protéger leurs cargaisons.Ces gouvernements, cependant, se sont trouvés impuissants face aux "naufrageurs" rapaces à terre et les pirates en mer qui ont emporté la plus grande partie du trésor et de la cargaison de grande valeur.The Spanish treasure fleet of 1750 sailed from Havana late in August of that year into uncertain waters.The hurricane season was at hand, and there was little reason for confidence in the nominal state of peace with England, whose seamen had for two centuries preyed on the treasure ships.The bloody four-year conflict known in Europe as the War of Austrian Succession and in the Americas as King George's War had been finally concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle only in October 1748 by the wearied principal combatants, France and Spain, which had been aligned against England.England and Spain, in fact, had been at war since 1739.Like many such contests between great empires throughout history, the initial Anglo-Spanish conflict and the larger war of 1744-48 had ended in little more than a draw.The treaty for the most part restored conquered colonies in the Americas and the Far East to their original owners.Indeed, little had been resolved by force of arms except to insure that the paranoia infecting the mightiest kingdoms of Europe would continue unabated.No nation was more xenophobic about its rich empire in the Western Hemisphere than Spain.Within a few decades of Columbus's discovery of the New World, Spain had enslaved the great Aztec, Mayan, and Inca empires and established hegemony throughout most of Florida, Central and South America, and in much of the West Indies.The efforts to explore, appropriate, and colonize these vast and rich new territories, and to carry home the enormous wealth gained by conquest, had quickly led to the establishment of a complex maritime system linking the Old World with the New.Over time, a sophisticated convoy operation was instituted and refined.By 1566, two heavily armed fleets were being sailed annually.The first, called the Flota, departed from Spain in the spring, usually in April or May, for calls at Mexico, the Mosquito Coast of Central America, Cuba, and Hispaniola.After provisioning and watering at Puerto Rico, the Flota passed The Northern Mariner/le marin du nord, XVIII Nos. 3-4, (July-October 2008), 25-48The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Cuba before landing at Vera Cruz, Mexico, to take on the treasures of New Spain.The second fleet, called the Galleones, embarked for Panama about August to take on the treasures brought up from Peru and Chile and carried across the isthmus.It was then on to Cartagena and the Spanish Main to take on emeralds and other precious stones, and pearls from the fisheries of Isla Margareta.Both the Flota and Galleones then sailed to rendezvous at Havana for the return voyage to Spain.The usual homeward course from Cuba was through the Florida Straits, riding the Gulf Stream northeastward up the Atlantic coast of North America.After passing the latitude of Bermuda, the fleet turned due east to the Azores and then toward home.It was a tried and true course that would vary little for more than two hundred years, a pipeline of treasure that insured Spanish supremacy in both the Old and New Worlds.By the end of the War of Austrian Succession, that supremacy, which had been sorely tested, had been all but exhausted.Havana Harbor was a hotbed of activity as the 1750 Spanish treasure fleet readied itself for the long and perilous voyage to Spain.It was August and the hurricane season was already upon them.Yet this convoy was a far cry from the enormous hundredship armadas that had sailed during the heyday of the great plate fleets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.Indeed, the vessels that were assembling beneath the mighty guns of Morro Castle numbered just seven.They had been placed under the overall command of Captain-General Don Juan Manuel de Bonilla, a courageous man but occasionally prone to indecision. 1 The most important ship was the Almirante, or "admiral" of the fleet, Bonilla's five-hundred-ton, four-year-old, Dutch-built Nuestra Señora de Guadeloupe, also known as Nympha.She was owned by Don Jose de Renturo de Respaldizar, commanded by Don Manuel Molviedo, and piloted by Don Felipe Garcia.Guadeloupe was a big ship, and had been allotted a substantial cargo of sugar, Campeche dyewoods, Purge of Jalapa (a laxative restorative plant found in Mexico), cotton, vanilla, cocoa, plant seedlings, copper, a great quantity of hides, valuable cochineal and indigo for dyes, and most importantly, as many as three hundred chests of silver containing 400,000 pieces-of-eight valued at 613,000 pesos.Among her passengers was the president of Santo Domingo, Hispaniola, as well as a company of prisoners.

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