Misplaced Pages

• Before 1600
• 1600s
• 1700s
• 1800s

Captain general Luis de Córdova commanded seven treasure-laden galleons of the Armada de Tierra Firma from Cartagena, Colombia. Between Serrana Bank and Serranilla Bank, a hurricane struck the fleet. One ship returned to Cartagena; two others reached Jamaica. The hurricane wrecked the other four galleons on Serranilla Bank. No one survived these four wrecks, and Spanish marine salvage teams traversed the western Caribbean Sea but failed to locate them and recover their lost 8 million pesos. Spanish fishermen from Cuba in 1667 accidentally located at least two of the shipwrecks and recovered some silver coins. Spanish marine salvage expeditions over the next six years failed because of bad weather. Robert F. Marx attempted to salvage the wrecks in 1963 but failed on account of bad weather and rough seas. See List of deadliest Atlantic hurricanes.

The furious tempest occurred the day of San Leoncio, Saturday 12 September 1615, three days after full moon. Father Diego de Torres Vargas describes the storm. Arriving Bishop of Puerto Rico, Pedro de Solier y Vargas (OSA) experiences the storm, and it damaged Cathedral of San Juan Bautista. In the aftermath, people covered the cathedral with straw thatch until His Majesty raised 4000 ducats in alms and the proceeds from the auction of the estate of Bishop Fray Martín Vázquez de Arce to cover it properly. The repairs included an arch and two pillars to support the crossing (architecture) of the Cathedral church.

A presentment to His Majesty Philip III of Spain, king of Iberian Union, tells of the storm when Captain General Felipe de Beaumont y Navarra served as Governor of Puerto Rico. This document, now archived at General Archive of the Indies, describes a great storm of water and air crashing houses of wood and some of stone, leaving others without door and window tiles. The storm hit the countryside with similar damage with some deaths and injuries to persons; it isolated and destroyed cassava and sugarcane. It drove aground carracks (naos in Spanish) and bajel es from the port with most of their cargo lost. The residents asked the king for a reduction in their tribute. Other commentators note that the storm destroyed the Capital of Puerto Rico.

In another incident that year (or, more likely, in different recollections of the same incident), after six crucial weeks of delays, Spanish treasure fleet and Tierra Firma fleet left Havana for Spain on or about the morning of 4 September despite the reluctance of some ship captains who suspected a brewing storm. Lope Díez de Armendáriz, marqués de Cadereyta, admiral Tomás de Larraspuru, and admiral don Pedro de Pasquier y Esparza jointly commanded the combined fleet of 28 ships: 17 cargo carracks (naos in Spanish), 8 registered treasure galleons, and 3 pataches. A hurricane hit that fleet on 5/6 September in Straits of Florida off Florida Keys. The lead ship Nuestra Señora de Candelaria and 20 other ships then passed west of the Dry Tortugas and safely into the Gulf of Mexico to ride out the storm. Several of these ships were lost, and the hurricane drowned more than 1,000 men aboard. Many of the surviving ships jettisoned cannon and cargo before returning, battered and dismasted, to Havana. Spanish marine salvage operations began within a week and found the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, rescuing her five survivors. Because she sank in water too deep for common salvage operations, however, they recovered little treasure, and 2 fathoms (12 ft; 3.7 m) of sand reportedly buried her remains within a few months. Spanish marine salvage crews located and salvaged Nuestra Señora del Rosario and recovered probably at least half of the treasure from Santa Margarita (shipwreck) during the succeeding several years. Sand buried the remaining treasure. The Spanish treasure fleet did not return to Spain until the next year.

Mel Fisher found the Nuestra Señora de Atocha in 1985 363 years later after its sinking. Treasure hunters from Tampa in 1989 identified probable remains of Nuestra Señora de la Merced and recovered a bell and numerous gold bars. Nuestra Señora de Candelaria probably survived, but treasure hunters recently sought her. Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum displays salvaged artifacts salvaged from the wreckage of this fleet. This event may continue as another event this season. See List of deadliest Atlantic hurricanes.

• The es:capitana (nave), Nuestra Señora del Juncal, sank 8 leagues north of "Bajo de las Áreas" (location unknown), and 35 of the 335 persons aboard her escaped in a small boat; the other 300 presumably drowned to death. The Spanish never located the wreck nor salvaged any of its cargo.
• The carrack (nao in Spanish) San Antonio under captaincy of Antonio de Lajust wrecked 1 league "windward of the port of Tabasco"; marine salvage recovered most of its cargo of cochineal.
• The carrack (nao in Spanish) under captaincy of Baltasar de Espinoza (or de España) wrecked very close to the port of Tabasco, and divers recovered 164,954 pesos in specie, 23 silver bars, 50 marcos in silver objects, and 9 marcos in golden objects.
• Two other merchant carracks (naos in Spanish) wrecked on the coast of Campeche, but marine salvage recovered nothing from them.

The other 14 ships of this fleet vanished to an obscure fate; most likely, they sunk at sea without survivors. Tropical cyclone status in doubt. Marx in one account labels the storm a "norther," which could refer either to an especially ferocious cold front or to the western semicircle of a hurricane.

Captain general (or admiral) Juan de Campos commanded the Spanish treasure fleet from Havana through Old Bahama Channel (or the northern extension of Straits of Florida) for Spain. During the Eighty Years' War, es:Armada de Barlovento protected Spanish ships returning from the Caribbean. A hurricane struck the fleet at 30°N latitude on 27 September and drove four ships back toward Cuba. Two of these ships wrecked near Havana, a third ship wrecked 6 leagues from Santiago de Cuba, and a fourth successfully returned to the port of Havana. Four merchant carracks (naos in Spanish) wrecked without survivors. The hurricane wrecked the patache of the fleet also wrecked; a priest and other survivors attempted to swim ashore, but sharks ate them all. Another patache from Havana located the wrecked patache 5 leagues from the Florida coast with some survivors still aboard her. Other ships in the convoy survived the storm with such damage that they later sank on the high seas.

The storm also separated the 680-ton almiranta galleon Nuestra Señora de la la Limpia y Pura Concepción under captaincy of Hernando Rodríquez from the remainder of the fleet; she drifted without mast (sailing) or rudder and wrecked on the north side of Abreojos (now Silver Bank) off Hispaniola. More than six hundred persons aboard her swam to a nearby sandbar and constructed makeshift rafts and boats from the wreck. Two hundred survivors then traveled toward Santo Domingo, but most perished before the few survivors reached that destination. Although authorities in Santo Domingo sent a vessel to rescue the stranded, no one survived on the sandbar when it returned. Sir William Phips of Britain in 1687 operated from Port Royal, Jamaica, to recover more than 2 million pesos of silver—twice the registered amount of treasure—from this sunken galleon, setting a world record for value of treasure recovered from a shipwreck. Bermudian and other marine salvage operations of his era recovered more treasure. Burt Webber circa 1979 nevertheless found more valuable cargo: more than 95,000 silver coins, Ming Dynasty ceramics, gold chains, and other artifacts.

At Saint Kitts and Nevis, several ships containing tobacco ran aground and poisoned the water, killing thousands of fish.

Father Pierre Pelleprat at Saint Kitts related that the hurricane destroyed four or five loaded merchant vessels at Sandy Point Town. A large Dutch fluyt "resisted the sea" and enabled him to aid "two men that only awaited death behind this ship."

This terrible hurricane hit the fleet of Prince Rupert of the Rhine on September 23 [O.S. September 13] and scattered the ships. The men aboard the Swallow, including Prince Rupert, took in most of their sails; the storm destroyed the remaining sails. In the northerly hurricane, the Swallow passed within a half-league of Sombrero, Anguilla, and near Anguillita before increasingly easterly winds took him and his vessel to anchorage near an uninhabited island among the Virgin Islands. Meanwhile, the hurricane scattered the fleet, driving the Honest Seaman ashore on Porto Pina in Hispaniola. The Defiance with Prince Maurice of the Palatinate aboard her vanished into obscurity, probably sinking in the hurricane with her crew; another ship and her crew shared her fate. The hurricane subsided after three or four days, ending on 25/26 September [O.S. 15/16 September]. José Carlos Millás suggests that a slow-moving hurricane battered islands from Martinique through Puerto Rico and parts of Hispaniola with the center passing just south of Saint Martin.

Prince Rupert gradually recognized the loss of his brother and grieved terribly. Still, he captured four ships as prizes in the Antilles before returning to Nantes in France early the next year. Cardinal Mazarin bought the ships and stores; Prince Rupert split the limited profit spoils with exiled Charles II of England.

Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre reported on a fearful, tremendous hurricane that desolated Guadeloupe. It destroyed most houses, killed all domestic animals, laid waste all plantations, wrecked every vessel at anchor in the roadstead, and drowned most of their crews.

• Pre-1600s
• 1600s
• 1700s
  • 1780 season
• Next: 1800s