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which_chickIn my sojourn through Spanish colonialism in the New World, we are here: Spain (Isabella of Castile) fronted the money, sent an explorer out to find shit, and shit has been found. Hooray! Now, even though it wasn't the shit Spain had EXPECTED/HOPED to find, it still got found by Spain's guy, exploring on Spain's dime, and it is, therefore, now Spain's shit, even the Pope said so. (All of this is covered in previous posts, I'm just catching up anybody who was late to the party.)
But... now Spain has to find out what the New Colonial Possession has to offer in the way of loot and if it DOES have any loot, Spain needs to get that loot safely back home to enrich the coffers.
Finding out about loot is the job of explorers who can head out like Columbus only make (more involved) landfalls and explore and stuff. Probably they should be armed, in case of hostiles. Gotta Be Safe Out There. Might be a good idea to take some Religious fellas along in order to Spread The Faith as per the papal mandate, too.
So, Spain sent out explorers. Early on, they sent explorers to the islands and such, with minimalist results on the loot front and a bit of light genocide for the Taino natives they encountered. We can see from looking at the NWL (New World Loot) over time that the early, more island-based revenue efforts were not so great. From 1500 to 1520, NWL revenues were under 500K pesos per year on average. It wasn't until the 1530-1540 decade that revenues hit 1M pesos per year. After that, though, it was off-to-the-races in short order.
At the time of conquest, Central and South America had two fairly substantial, organized, and empire-like groups of native peoples. In Mexico, the Aztec empire occupied central and southern Mexico. The Incas in Peru-ish South America occupied a pretty good swath of the western side of South America, from about Ecuador at the north down to about the northern half of Chile at the southern end. It wasn't a super wide piece, maybe a fifth to a quarter of the continent's width, but it was a lot longer north-south than modern Peru is. There were other peoples on the mainland, obviously, but these were the two large, well-organized empires.
By 1521, Rogue Conquistador Hernan Cortes had defeated the Aztecs. (While this is neither the time nor the place to discuss Cortes and his 3-year Unauthorized Sojourn Against the Aztecs in Central Mexico, it is a very compelling tale and well worth a delve. You can watch it as a YouTube if you'd like.) and in 1532, Pizarro, following in Cortes's footsteps and also using his Pro Tips For Conquest (really, they talked before Pizarro did his thing) had largely conquered the Incas. Once the Spanish toppled these empires, they took over existing mines and established new mines in the New World starting around 1534 with Taxco, followed by Zacatecas and Guanajuato (1546 and 1550), all in Mexico. While profitable, these mines weren't a patch on the literal mountain of silver found in 1546 at Potosi, Bolivia. (From about 1575 to about 1635, the mine at Potosi produced roughly half the world's silver output.)
That's a back-of-the-envelope sketch of how the Spanish secured sources of New World Loot and I am skipping over a lot. But anyway, Loot Acquired!
The next problem was getting the NWL safely home to Spain to enrich the coffers. Spain needed money to fund its assorted wars as well as to pay debt service and repay previously borrowed money. (Spain was running up the credit cards to play Defend Catholicism and Defeat The Protestants And The Muslims and apparently also just generalized War For #Reasons. All this shit was expensive.)
During this time period, it took (on average) 6 to 8 weeks for a ship to make it from Spain to the West Indies or vice versa. You're looking at a month and a half EACH WAY in transit, possibly as long as two months... but since the flotas made an annual round trip, like, ONE PER YEAR, actual communication between the Colonies and Spain was much slower than ideal.
Anyway, ships leaving Spain sailed south for about a week to hit the Canary Islands (these belong to Spain yet today and they're located off the coast of Africa near southern Morocco) for fresh water and provisions. After that, they turned westward to sail (pushed by the fairly constant trade winds) across the Atlantic. In the New World, they arrived at the important Caribbean ports (Veracruz, Portobelo, Cartagena) to unload their goods and then reload with colonial outputs and NWL. After that, they all sailed back to Havana, Cuba to reassemble as a group before beginning the trek back to Seville.
The West Indies Fleets shipped all treasure into Seville (by law). Seville is a shitty river port way up the fucking Guadalquivir River. Boats frequently had trouble getting there if the tides or sand bars or whatever were not cooperative, but it was the ONLY port that people were LEGALLY allowed to use to bring back New World Loot because #politics.
The reason that the fleet mustered at Havana before heading back to Seville was safety in numbers. When you have ships that are known to be laden with treasure... or goods, there is definitely a risk of piracy. Spain's eventual, pretty-good solution to this issue was a policy of safety in numbers. Ships were required by law to travel in fleets as of 1564 and had started doing so, more informally, as of the 1550's. (Prior to that, less-successful protective efforts centered around having armed ships patrolling areas of likely piracy -- Cuba, the Canary Islands, and the waters offshore of Spain).
An overview of The Important Loot Ports in the New World! (There were others, but these were the biggies for loot purposes.)
Veracruz is on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, founded as Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (roughly "Rich Village of the True Cross") by the aforementioned Cortes en route to his sorta-unauthorized conquest of the Aztecs. (Do watch the video, it's very good.) Veracruz handled the loot from Mexico. (As Spanish Colonial Efforts in the Philippines got underway, there was also established a PACIFIC treasure fleet that went between Manila in the Philippines and Acapulco on the west coast of Mexico on a yearly basis. Goods from that fleet got unloaded in Acapulco, were schlepped overland to Veracruz, and from there went on different boats to Spain.)
Portobelo "Beautiful Port" and not "Large Mushroom" is a deep natural harbor at the skinny part of the Isthmus of Panama. It's about 20 miles northeast of the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal and it was an Important Port not because of the particular riches of what is now the COUNTRY of Panama but because it was used to ship back the riches from the west coast of South America. (Recall, the south part of South America contains Cape Fucking Horn which is (A) horrible and (B) a bazillion miles more the long way 'round.) The Spanish sailed Inca-empire-territory loot up the west coast of South America, unloaded it off the boats at the Pacific port city called Panama (I am sorry there are so many Panamas here, but I was not in charge of naming things), schlepped it OVERLAND ACROSS THE NARROW ISTHMUS OF PANAMA to Portobello, reloaded it onto different boats, and thus got it back to Seville.
Cartagena is in modern-day Columbia. By 1540, it was a notable port for the West Indies. It mostly shipped South American loot back to Spain and was fortified against pirate attacks. By the 1600's Cartagena had also become an important port for the trade of enslaved persons from Africa under the asiento system, about which we will have to speak sometime soon, probably even while it's still Black History Month.
Despite the delights of having Pirates of the Caribbean, the Spanish Treasure Fleets did ok. There were three fairly well-documented instances of serious pirate-or-privateer losses from the Spanish Treasure Fleet, to wit:
1. In March 1579, Francis Drake captured the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción en route from Peru to Panama on the PACIFIC side of South America. This capture made Drake allegedly the richest man in England. (He was a privateer, with a Letter of Marque and Reprisal from Elizabeth I of England to attack Spanish ships FOR ENGLAND (cue Rule Britannia!). Privateers are basically licensed pirates or maybe a self-financing Somewhat-Irregular Navy. They procure their own boats and crew, attack Enemies-of-the-State, get to keep the stuff they take, and do not face prosecution in their home country for their very-like-piracy efforts on the high seas. They do risk life and limb FROM THE ENEMIES while they're out there privateering, though.)
2. In 1587, Thomas Cavendish (also a privateer) captured the Manila galleon Great Santa Ana. This was a ship from Spain's Pacific Treasure Fleet.
3. In September 1628, Admiral Piet Pieterszoon Hein (and fleet) captured the entire New Spain treasure fleet on its way to Havana. (The treasure fleets were "New Spain" by which they mean "Veracruz and Portobelo" and "Tierra Firma" by which they mean "Cartagena".) This one happened IN the Caribbean but the pirates were, obviously, Dutch and not English. And, also, they were not pirates. When they call you Admiral you are clearly part of an official navy, especially if you have a FLEET with you.
A bigger problem for the ships of the Spanish treasure fleets was that they were crappy ships, poorly maintained, frequently overloaded, and utterly useless in the slightest hint of bad weather. If they hit bad weather, they suddenly acquired the buoyancy characteristics and general seaworthiness of twice-cooked bread.
I am not MAKING SHIT UP here. I know that in many Age of Sail entertainment things, the Spanish Armada boats with the big red crosses on the sails are the Impressive Bad Guys or whatever, but in reality, these boats kinda sucked for sailing purposes. I'm sorry. I wanted them to be awesome, but history does not support the Spanish Treasure Fleet being made up of awesome boats. It just wasn't like that. My information on this comes from Trade and Navigation between Spain and the Indies in the Time of the Hapsburgs by C. H. Haring, three hundred and thirty pages of fairly dry nonfiction from 1918. He has an entire chapter on the boats and navigators and it is not a flattering chapter.
Vessels crossing the Atlantic for Spain were of several types but the common Atlantic ship from the middle of the 16th century (1550's, I always get confused about "century" but it's Year Plus 100) was the "galeon". Haring calls the galeon (or "galleon" if you're doing modern spelling) notoriously unseaworthy and goes on to say Constructed with keel and beam in the proportion of three to one or less, and with towering "castles" at either extremity, its sailing qualities were of the very worst. There isn't really any other way to read that besides "These boats were shit." There were also (as seen in The Pirate Show) "urcas" ("hulk" or "cargo ship") which were easy prey to contrary winds and useless for defense against a foe.
The Spanish knew their boats were shit and they tried for a better boat, the galleas but it also sucked and was described as mas de buen parecer en los puertos que de desempeño en la mar (roughly, according to my high school Spanish, "They do a lot better staying in the ports than they do sailing upon the sea"). After the galleas, shipbuilders lengthened the keel in relation to the beam (made a a longer, skinnier boat) and called this new design the galoncetes. These galoncetes were much better at being boats and were the first step of boat evolution en route to the frigate (which became a Standard Type of Boat for many navies after 1650). By the time we get to Philip-the-Pious (1598-1621), they are building 500-ton ships that draw less water (can sail in shallower water) than the old-style shitty galleons of 250 or 300 tons.
Being able to sail in shallower water was important because Seville, the port where BY LAW all NWL had to be processed, was, as I have mentioned, a SHITTY PORT on a river, way the hell inland. You may wonder, at this point, if Spain HAD TO use the port of Seville for its NWL because it didn't have any other port options. Nope. That wasn't it. Heck, let's get a map and actually look at how FUCKING DUMB the Seville option was because, seriously, understanding the dumbness here will help you to understand the tenor of Spain's overall management practices with respect to the NWL and the New World Colonies, which we will get into next time.
You can see Seville, with the red line of misery representing the Guadalquivir River that connects Seville to the ocean at large. Seville is, because of the way rivers work, UPSTREAM from the ocean. Your sailing ships have to SAIL UPSTREAM against the current to get to Seville. You can also see a red circle around Cadiz, which is ON THE DAMN OCEAN and represents a PERFECTLY VIABLE PORT that they could have used instead if, y'know, they had been even remotely interested in efficiency. But no. Spain made every damn boat with New World Loot sail up the fucking river against the current to get to Seville. Because #reasons.
From 1503 to 1717, all New World Loot had to go through the House of Trade in Seville. In 1717... they moved the House of Trade because the sand bar problem on the Guadalquivir River had become completely and totally unworkable instead of just mostly-unworkable. When they finally moved the House of Trade, they moved it to Cadiz, the aforementioned red circle. They moved the House of Trade from Seville to Cadiz after TWO HUNDRED YEARS of doing it wrong. Better late than never, I guess.
Anyway, back to boats. WEATHER was more of a problem for the boats than pirates. Pirates were an issue, but weather got more boats than pirates ever did. I mentioned that the boats sucked, and one way of telling that the boats sucked is seeing how many of them were lost to weather.
They wrecked a lot. From the aforementioned Haring book, p. 294, and Imma blockquote here because he says it better than me.
And these are the crappy boats that you are making sail UPSTREAM to Seville. Because that's a good idea. Mmm-hmm. (While I have basically been mean to the Port of Seville this whole time, that's only partly because it was a crappy port for sailing ships to get to. But, Spain picked Seville as the site for all New World Loot not JUST for political reasons but also because it was SAFE -- well inland means SUPER easy to defend against pirates -- and had good roads and lines of communication to the capital. Also, in modern times, the river has locks and modern dredging to remove the tidal water-level problem and the sand bar problem, respectively. These days it is a fairly workable, busy river port for NON SAIL POWERED cargo.)
So, for today. Loot was acquired, by conquest and mining. Fleets of not-super-seaworthy ships were organized to sail from Spain to the New World Ports on a yearly basis, travelling in groups or "flotas" for safety reasons. For the return trip, they gathered in Havana before setting off across the Atlantic. Some sank, but most of them made it back to Seville, where they ran face-first into the Casa de la Contratación de las Indias, the House of Trade, which was established in 1503 to handle the trade with the New World Colonies.
Hoo boy, The House of Trade, it is amazing, and we will get to it next time.
But... now Spain has to find out what the New Colonial Possession has to offer in the way of loot and if it DOES have any loot, Spain needs to get that loot safely back home to enrich the coffers.
Finding out about loot is the job of explorers who can head out like Columbus only make (more involved) landfalls and explore and stuff. Probably they should be armed, in case of hostiles. Gotta Be Safe Out There. Might be a good idea to take some Religious fellas along in order to Spread The Faith as per the papal mandate, too.
So, Spain sent out explorers. Early on, they sent explorers to the islands and such, with minimalist results on the loot front and a bit of light genocide for the Taino natives they encountered. We can see from looking at the NWL (New World Loot) over time that the early, more island-based revenue efforts were not so great. From 1500 to 1520, NWL revenues were under 500K pesos per year on average. It wasn't until the 1530-1540 decade that revenues hit 1M pesos per year. After that, though, it was off-to-the-races in short order.
At the time of conquest, Central and South America had two fairly substantial, organized, and empire-like groups of native peoples. In Mexico, the Aztec empire occupied central and southern Mexico. The Incas in Peru-ish South America occupied a pretty good swath of the western side of South America, from about Ecuador at the north down to about the northern half of Chile at the southern end. It wasn't a super wide piece, maybe a fifth to a quarter of the continent's width, but it was a lot longer north-south than modern Peru is. There were other peoples on the mainland, obviously, but these were the two large, well-organized empires.
By 1521, Rogue Conquistador Hernan Cortes had defeated the Aztecs. (While this is neither the time nor the place to discuss Cortes and his 3-year Unauthorized Sojourn Against the Aztecs in Central Mexico, it is a very compelling tale and well worth a delve. You can watch it as a YouTube if you'd like.) and in 1532, Pizarro, following in Cortes's footsteps and also using his Pro Tips For Conquest (really, they talked before Pizarro did his thing) had largely conquered the Incas. Once the Spanish toppled these empires, they took over existing mines and established new mines in the New World starting around 1534 with Taxco, followed by Zacatecas and Guanajuato (1546 and 1550), all in Mexico. While profitable, these mines weren't a patch on the literal mountain of silver found in 1546 at Potosi, Bolivia. (From about 1575 to about 1635, the mine at Potosi produced roughly half the world's silver output.)
That's a back-of-the-envelope sketch of how the Spanish secured sources of New World Loot and I am skipping over a lot. But anyway, Loot Acquired!
The next problem was getting the NWL safely home to Spain to enrich the coffers. Spain needed money to fund its assorted wars as well as to pay debt service and repay previously borrowed money. (Spain was running up the credit cards to play Defend Catholicism and Defeat The Protestants And The Muslims and apparently also just generalized War For #Reasons. All this shit was expensive.)
During this time period, it took (on average) 6 to 8 weeks for a ship to make it from Spain to the West Indies or vice versa. You're looking at a month and a half EACH WAY in transit, possibly as long as two months... but since the flotas made an annual round trip, like, ONE PER YEAR, actual communication between the Colonies and Spain was much slower than ideal.
Anyway, ships leaving Spain sailed south for about a week to hit the Canary Islands (these belong to Spain yet today and they're located off the coast of Africa near southern Morocco) for fresh water and provisions. After that, they turned westward to sail (pushed by the fairly constant trade winds) across the Atlantic. In the New World, they arrived at the important Caribbean ports (Veracruz, Portobelo, Cartagena) to unload their goods and then reload with colonial outputs and NWL. After that, they all sailed back to Havana, Cuba to reassemble as a group before beginning the trek back to Seville.
The West Indies Fleets shipped all treasure into Seville (by law). Seville is a shitty river port way up the fucking Guadalquivir River. Boats frequently had trouble getting there if the tides or sand bars or whatever were not cooperative, but it was the ONLY port that people were LEGALLY allowed to use to bring back New World Loot because #politics.
The reason that the fleet mustered at Havana before heading back to Seville was safety in numbers. When you have ships that are known to be laden with treasure... or goods, there is definitely a risk of piracy. Spain's eventual, pretty-good solution to this issue was a policy of safety in numbers. Ships were required by law to travel in fleets as of 1564 and had started doing so, more informally, as of the 1550's. (Prior to that, less-successful protective efforts centered around having armed ships patrolling areas of likely piracy -- Cuba, the Canary Islands, and the waters offshore of Spain).
An overview of The Important Loot Ports in the New World! (There were others, but these were the biggies for loot purposes.)
Veracruz is on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, founded as Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (roughly "Rich Village of the True Cross") by the aforementioned Cortes en route to his sorta-unauthorized conquest of the Aztecs. (Do watch the video, it's very good.) Veracruz handled the loot from Mexico. (As Spanish Colonial Efforts in the Philippines got underway, there was also established a PACIFIC treasure fleet that went between Manila in the Philippines and Acapulco on the west coast of Mexico on a yearly basis. Goods from that fleet got unloaded in Acapulco, were schlepped overland to Veracruz, and from there went on different boats to Spain.)
Portobelo "Beautiful Port" and not "Large Mushroom" is a deep natural harbor at the skinny part of the Isthmus of Panama. It's about 20 miles northeast of the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal and it was an Important Port not because of the particular riches of what is now the COUNTRY of Panama but because it was used to ship back the riches from the west coast of South America. (Recall, the south part of South America contains Cape Fucking Horn which is (A) horrible and (B) a bazillion miles more the long way 'round.) The Spanish sailed Inca-empire-territory loot up the west coast of South America, unloaded it off the boats at the Pacific port city called Panama (I am sorry there are so many Panamas here, but I was not in charge of naming things), schlepped it OVERLAND ACROSS THE NARROW ISTHMUS OF PANAMA to Portobello, reloaded it onto different boats, and thus got it back to Seville.
Cartagena is in modern-day Columbia. By 1540, it was a notable port for the West Indies. It mostly shipped South American loot back to Spain and was fortified against pirate attacks. By the 1600's Cartagena had also become an important port for the trade of enslaved persons from Africa under the asiento system, about which we will have to speak sometime soon, probably even while it's still Black History Month.
Despite the delights of having Pirates of the Caribbean, the Spanish Treasure Fleets did ok. There were three fairly well-documented instances of serious pirate-or-privateer losses from the Spanish Treasure Fleet, to wit:
1. In March 1579, Francis Drake captured the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción en route from Peru to Panama on the PACIFIC side of South America. This capture made Drake allegedly the richest man in England. (He was a privateer, with a Letter of Marque and Reprisal from Elizabeth I of England to attack Spanish ships FOR ENGLAND (cue Rule Britannia!). Privateers are basically licensed pirates or maybe a self-financing Somewhat-Irregular Navy. They procure their own boats and crew, attack Enemies-of-the-State, get to keep the stuff they take, and do not face prosecution in their home country for their very-like-piracy efforts on the high seas. They do risk life and limb FROM THE ENEMIES while they're out there privateering, though.)
2. In 1587, Thomas Cavendish (also a privateer) captured the Manila galleon Great Santa Ana. This was a ship from Spain's Pacific Treasure Fleet.
3. In September 1628, Admiral Piet Pieterszoon Hein (and fleet) captured the entire New Spain treasure fleet on its way to Havana. (The treasure fleets were "New Spain" by which they mean "Veracruz and Portobelo" and "Tierra Firma" by which they mean "Cartagena".) This one happened IN the Caribbean but the pirates were, obviously, Dutch and not English. And, also, they were not pirates. When they call you Admiral you are clearly part of an official navy, especially if you have a FLEET with you.
A bigger problem for the ships of the Spanish treasure fleets was that they were crappy ships, poorly maintained, frequently overloaded, and utterly useless in the slightest hint of bad weather. If they hit bad weather, they suddenly acquired the buoyancy characteristics and general seaworthiness of twice-cooked bread.
I am not MAKING SHIT UP here. I know that in many Age of Sail entertainment things, the Spanish Armada boats with the big red crosses on the sails are the Impressive Bad Guys or whatever, but in reality, these boats kinda sucked for sailing purposes. I'm sorry. I wanted them to be awesome, but history does not support the Spanish Treasure Fleet being made up of awesome boats. It just wasn't like that. My information on this comes from Trade and Navigation between Spain and the Indies in the Time of the Hapsburgs by C. H. Haring, three hundred and thirty pages of fairly dry nonfiction from 1918. He has an entire chapter on the boats and navigators and it is not a flattering chapter.
Vessels crossing the Atlantic for Spain were of several types but the common Atlantic ship from the middle of the 16th century (1550's, I always get confused about "century" but it's Year Plus 100) was the "galeon". Haring calls the galeon (or "galleon" if you're doing modern spelling) notoriously unseaworthy and goes on to say Constructed with keel and beam in the proportion of three to one or less, and with towering "castles" at either extremity, its sailing qualities were of the very worst. There isn't really any other way to read that besides "These boats were shit." There were also (as seen in The Pirate Show) "urcas" ("hulk" or "cargo ship") which were easy prey to contrary winds and useless for defense against a foe.
The Spanish knew their boats were shit and they tried for a better boat, the galleas but it also sucked and was described as mas de buen parecer en los puertos que de desempeño en la mar (roughly, according to my high school Spanish, "They do a lot better staying in the ports than they do sailing upon the sea"). After the galleas, shipbuilders lengthened the keel in relation to the beam (made a a longer, skinnier boat) and called this new design the galoncetes. These galoncetes were much better at being boats and were the first step of boat evolution en route to the frigate (which became a Standard Type of Boat for many navies after 1650). By the time we get to Philip-the-Pious (1598-1621), they are building 500-ton ships that draw less water (can sail in shallower water) than the old-style shitty galleons of 250 or 300 tons.
Being able to sail in shallower water was important because Seville, the port where BY LAW all NWL had to be processed, was, as I have mentioned, a SHITTY PORT on a river, way the hell inland. You may wonder, at this point, if Spain HAD TO use the port of Seville for its NWL because it didn't have any other port options. Nope. That wasn't it. Heck, let's get a map and actually look at how FUCKING DUMB the Seville option was because, seriously, understanding the dumbness here will help you to understand the tenor of Spain's overall management practices with respect to the NWL and the New World Colonies, which we will get into next time.
You can see Seville, with the red line of misery representing the Guadalquivir River that connects Seville to the ocean at large. Seville is, because of the way rivers work, UPSTREAM from the ocean. Your sailing ships have to SAIL UPSTREAM against the current to get to Seville. You can also see a red circle around Cadiz, which is ON THE DAMN OCEAN and represents a PERFECTLY VIABLE PORT that they could have used instead if, y'know, they had been even remotely interested in efficiency. But no. Spain made every damn boat with New World Loot sail up the fucking river against the current to get to Seville. Because #reasons.
From 1503 to 1717, all New World Loot had to go through the House of Trade in Seville. In 1717... they moved the House of Trade because the sand bar problem on the Guadalquivir River had become completely and totally unworkable instead of just mostly-unworkable. When they finally moved the House of Trade, they moved it to Cadiz, the aforementioned red circle. They moved the House of Trade from Seville to Cadiz after TWO HUNDRED YEARS of doing it wrong. Better late than never, I guess.
Anyway, back to boats. WEATHER was more of a problem for the boats than pirates. Pirates were an issue, but weather got more boats than pirates ever did. I mentioned that the boats sucked, and one way of telling that the boats sucked is seeing how many of them were lost to weather.
They wrecked a lot. From the aforementioned Haring book, p. 294, and Imma blockquote here because he says it better than me.
To cite but a few instances in the period following 1550, when the India Navigation was well organized: four vessels were wrecked upon the shores of Florida in 1554. In 1555 the flagship of Cosme Rodriguez Farfan was cast away on the Andalusian coast. His fleet had been scattered by a storm in the West Indies, and three ships driven in to San Juan de Porto Rico. In 1556 an armada of three was sent to San Juan under Gonzalo de Carvajal to collect the bullion from these ships, and on the return two of the three were wrecked on the coast of Portugal. In 1563 were destroyed by a storm seven vessels of the flota lying in the harbor of Nombre de Dios. And in the same year, of the Vera Cruz fleet five were cast away on the dangerous reefs in the Gulf of Campeche. Two vessels of the Tierra Firme squadron were lost in a hurricane in 1564, and several upon the islands of Dominica three years later. Four ships of the New Spain flota were wrecked on the Tabasco coast in 1571, and five more in 1572. In 1581, on the voyage to Nombre de Dios, one ship sank in the Caribbean Sea, and two more off the coast of Spain on the homeward journey; while in 1590 fifteen vessels of the flota of Antonio Navarro were destroyed by a "norther" in the harbor of Vera Cruz and two hundred men drowned. In the following year the flagship of the New Spain flota went down in a storm with all on board, and sixteen of the fleet were stranded on the island of Tercera in the Azores. The difficult sand bar across the mouth of the river at San Lucar (This is where the Guadalquivir River FROM SEVILLE hits the ocean and it is part of why Seville is such a shitty port at this time) also provided its quota of disasters. The flagship and two other vessels of the Mexican fleet were wrecked there as they were departing in 1579, and another vessel of the same fleet in 1580. In 1587 six ships from Tierra Firme were cast away on the bar a they tried to enter but the crews and treasure were saved. In the harbor of Cadiz, fifteen were driven ashore in a terrible storm, just as the fleet was about to sail in 1563, and a similar accident occurred there eleven years later in 1574.
And these are the crappy boats that you are making sail UPSTREAM to Seville. Because that's a good idea. Mmm-hmm. (While I have basically been mean to the Port of Seville this whole time, that's only partly because it was a crappy port for sailing ships to get to. But, Spain picked Seville as the site for all New World Loot not JUST for political reasons but also because it was SAFE -- well inland means SUPER easy to defend against pirates -- and had good roads and lines of communication to the capital. Also, in modern times, the river has locks and modern dredging to remove the tidal water-level problem and the sand bar problem, respectively. These days it is a fairly workable, busy river port for NON SAIL POWERED cargo.)
So, for today. Loot was acquired, by conquest and mining. Fleets of not-super-seaworthy ships were organized to sail from Spain to the New World Ports on a yearly basis, travelling in groups or "flotas" for safety reasons. For the return trip, they gathered in Havana before setting off across the Atlantic. Some sank, but most of them made it back to Seville, where they ran face-first into the Casa de la Contratación de las Indias, the House of Trade, which was established in 1503 to handle the trade with the New World Colonies.
Hoo boy, The House of Trade, it is amazing, and we will get to it next time.
