Spanish Treasure Ship Missing Since 1681 Found

Seattle Times ^ | 11-2-2003 | Rich McKay

[austinTparty]

ping of interest

[xrp]

Watch Hugo Chavez of Venezuela lay claim to everything on behalf of South Americans and also expect him to blame Bush somehow.

[PoisedWoman]

Exciting! Have you visited the Atocha Museum in Key West? Atocha was a Spanish treasure ship finally dredged up off Florida. Much loot and a good documentary movie are on display in Cayo Oesto.....worth a trip.

[NautiNurse]

Aaaargh! A pirate's plunder foiled again.

[blam]

"Have you visited the Atocha Museum in Key West? "

No but, I saw a documentary on it.

[jimtorr]

I was fortunate enough to be in Key West when the mother lode of the Atocha was hauled in and divied up. Since I lived in the Truman Annex, on the navy base, I was able to watch the boats being unloaded a few times.

I visited the museum after the treasure had been divied up but before the bulk of it was hauled away. There were 3-foot tall stacks of large silver ingots everywhere, partially blocking the aisles. All of the best gold jewellry, with lots of emeralds and rubies, were still on display. Lots of armed guards, too.

Awesome is a fair description.

The Atocha is considered to be just an average treasure ship. A number of ships just like it sailed to Spain every few years for centuries.

If this latest ship hasn't already been looted, the finds could be pretty spectacular. Probably not on the scale of the Atocha, but still.......

[Oztrich Boy]

Somebody looked under the sofa cushions?

[jimtorr]

Do you recall how often the treasure fleets sailed for Spain? I think it was every three years, 4-10 galleons at a time.

[Ditter]

I have a piece of 8 that I wear that was found on the Atocha. I love the idea that it lay on the bottom of the ocean for hundreds of years.

[PatrickHenry]

Do you recall how often the treasure fleets sailed for Spain? I think it was every three years, 4-10 galleons at a time.

I've read that the fleet gathered in Havana Harbor and then sailed every year, for about two centuries (1500s and 1600s) until pirates made it impossible. Every year, the fleet was around 100 ships, some were military escorts, but the rest held treasure. Spain looted Mexico and the Incas of everything, plus they were operating sliver mines, etc. The wealth they hauled back to Spain every year was fantastic.

[PatrickHenry]

The History of the Spanish Treasure Fleet System.

[livius]

And they wasted it all on foreign wars in Northern Europe. There is one particularly odd sight I remember seeing in the town of Plasencia in Extremadura (western Spain), where a number of sailors had come from and which received substantial amounts in gold every year. They had started to build a lavish new church - and then suddenly they stopped, because the king needed all of the gold for his foreign wars. The church, hundreds of years later, is still only half-built.

[PatrickHenry]

Right, they squandered it. All of it. When the Spanish Empire ended in the Western Hemisphere, after 300 years of continuous plunder, Spain was probably the poorest country in Europe. But it was fun while it lasted. I imagine the same will be true of certain Middle Eastern countries when the oil money stops.

[Ciexyz]

Finders keepers!

[Ciexyz]

Inflation brought about by that massive infusion of gold into the Spanish economy, ruined colonial-era Spain. Too much of a good thing.

[TheyConvictedOglethorpe]

More than a dozen replies and no parrot jokes? You guys are slipping.

[PatrickHenry]

The influx of gold and silver affected price levels all over Europe. But other countries were industrializing. Spain was above all of that. Lords and masters of the world's biggest empire. When it was over they had zilch to show for it. Lots of glory, of course.

[txhurl]

Czech this out.

[NewRomeTacitus]

Hey now! That's not a parrot; that's a large parakeet.

Anyone into sunken treasure and lost ships should be keelhauled if they miss reading Clive Cussler's "The Treasure Hunters", books 1 and 2. Arrr!