Manila galleons

[cuzcosquirrel]

As far as I can ascertain, all the Manila Galleons likely to off California would be carrying silks at that time.

There was a sub-route from one of the other islands or ports (Cebu) that only operated for a few years. Bruce Cruickshank only lists the San Pedro in 1598 as its last voyage.

It has previously been established on this site that the ship was lost, from the letters of the new govenor of the Phillipines, I think Govenor Tello in 1599, after the second Dasmarinas govenorship ended with him getting killed while trying to conqueror another island in the archepeligo by a native armed with a katana.

There were a number of friars on the galleon coming back to New Spain after working for about a decade in the Phillipines. The merchants put a lot into the ship, because the line had been stalled out and been intermittant for several years. There was probably silk on it, though it had been decreed previously that it should not carry this merchandise and only the manilla galleon should carry silk.


It was lost, at heavy burden, and the sub-line was ended.

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[bronzecannons]

Justintaylor:

Tell me I'm wrong, but it sounds like you wish to do an illegal activity. If so, I'm not the person to ask for information. If you're still serious about your intentions, I hope you first contact the USCG and ask about their regular patrols in that area with their boats, cutters and aircraft; then inquire about the fines and possible jail time that can be 'awarded' for stealing galleon artifacts from those waters.
Don.....

Talk about jumping to conclusions. I didn't see him writing anything anywhere here that even slightly mentions he plans on doing some illegal activities on any of these wrecks.
TW

[Klems]

Did some more research this morning and found the book Spanish Exploration in the Southwest: 1542-1706 edited by Herbert Bolton published in 1916.

It has both Cabrillo's and Vizcaino's expeditions retranslated into English.

Here is what I found on the sources for Vizcaino.



And here is the story of the wrecked Manila galleon.




This is a very interesting book and I think I'm gonna spend the rest of the day reading it. it looks like the closest I'm going to get to a primary source.

God, I love doing research like this! Now if we could only find the remains of the ship and prove the story is true.

[Tom_in_CA]

As far as I can ascertain, all the Manila Galleons likely to off California would be carrying silks at that time.

Tom, you are right. The galleons coming back from Manilla, on their way to the mother county of Mexico, only had items like silks, porcelains, wax, etc.... The precious metals (gold and silver) would have gone east with them for the purpose of buying up those trade goods. But on their return trip west (where the reached the central CA with the currents, and then headed south back to Mexico), they had only the raw goods. Not gold, silver, etc....

There was a case of one of the galleon wrecks found off Baja CA, and it was strictly broken up porcelains, wax, etc.... Utterly boring (unless you're an archie who gets off on such things). Not at all like the Atocha stuff in the gulf of Mexico, where ............ it was only precious metal heading back to Europe.

So you have to ask yourself, in all this fascination with the manilla galleon traffic, at least as far as it concerns the possibility of wrecks on the CA/ West coast ......... so what?

[Trembull]

Contraband, Contraband, Contraband

[cuzcosquirrel]

Contraband, Contraband, Contraband

There were a lot of expensive items and some gold and silver coming back on the ships. The Conception wreck on Saipan will give you an idea of what usually went on. There were also tax payments and some gold buying that went on, and these came back and were never messed with or adjusted on books.


Yeah, you have found the source of the story. There is also a story that people exploring Catalina Island in the 17 or 1800's found a grave marked 1600.

It seems there were some ranchos and missions placed on the islands from early on. Maybe the "rancho" they describe is just an indian village.

[hobbit]

Click to enlarge

Well, any ship that grounded on Catalina would be more than likely right on top of the island. The water is extremely deep until right next to shore, where it is foul with boulders in many places. The water is cold year around and supports tremendous vegetative growth. The island is surrounded by massive kelp forests. In short, there could easily be a wreck almost right on shore and no one would know about it because it would be overgrown with kelp, eelgrass, etc. Add to this the fact that the island is extremely mountainous and the shore completely unapproachable from the land side in most areas and you have a place where a wreck-- probably wrecks-- could certainly be hiding. There is no doubt that a Manila Galleon would be carring much less precious metal than a galleon of one of the plate fleets, but there would be lots of goodies nonetheless. Boring--no way. I am sure you have seen the Chinese porcelain recovered by Reale 8 and others from the 1715 fleet...it came to Mexico or Panama via a Manila Galleon, and that is just part of the story... The ship's ballast pile would probably be impossible to spot visually for several reasons, but if a 16th century Manila Galleon is there, and her skipper did not jettison his canons, they are probably lying very close to shore and covered in seaweed and mussels. The anchors could be there as well... but maybe not...so are you looking for bronze or iron
One wonders whether the ship (if wrecked) fell victim to a typical winter storm sweeping down from the Gulf of Alaska, or was caught in a Santa Anna...winter storms in the area start with strong northwest winds that clock to the south with the passage of the cold front, while Santa Annas spring up very suddenly (and sometimes incredibly strongly) from the east...
In any event, Catalina is a wonderful place to dive...I have actually used a metal detector there around several of the small kayak camping beaches administered by the Conservency...I am sure I was seen by the rangers on at least one occasion and received nothing but a smile as a rebuke. I detected the beach at Avalon (much to the chagrin of my girlfriend) in open view of the police and they said nothing to me, either. By the way, even though that beach is small, I found lots of stuff that afternoon...I don't know about submerged lands jurisdiction around Catalina, but I don't think it would be illegal to detect in the water and hand fan...and if a wreck is there, it is probably NOT covered by a great deal of overburden...there is just not that much sediment washing down from the island...And Avalon is a great drinking town...LOL...And the Zane Grey Pueblo Hotel has fantastic rates in the offseason...very quaint with a nice swimming pool and a fantastic view of the harbor and surrounding mountains...altogether a beautiful place...

[cuzcosquirrel]

Grounded or wrecked close to shore due to mishap. Survivors and silk tells you that.

[hobbit]

Speaking of Manila Galleons, does anyone have any information on the Nuestra Senora de Ayuda, a Spanish galleon that supposedly wrecked on Catalina in 1641? I can only find one cryptic reference to it in Duro's Armada Espanola...other than that, nothing but the same parrotted reference to it sinking "on rocks west of Catalina"...typical treasure magazine stuff...and very strange since there are no rocks west of Catalina until you are a stones throw from shore...unless the "rocks" are Santa Barbara Island, 25 miles or so from Catalina...

[Klems]

Speaking of Manila Galleons, does anyone have any information on the Nuestra Senora de Ayuda, a Spanish galleon that supposedly wrecked on Catalina in 1641? I can only find one cryptic reference to it in Duro's Armada Espanola...other than that, nothing but the same parrotted reference to it sinking "on rocks west of Catalina"...typical treasure magazine stuff...and very strange since there are no rocks west of Catalina until you are a stones throw from shore...unless the "rocks" are Santa Barbara Island, 25 miles or so from Catalina...

Hobbit, sorry I haven't come across anything else in my reasearch on the Nuestra Senora de Ayuda and there isn't much on the internet about her either. It seems the most information out there is on the pre-1602 wreck.

Speaking of which I found another fragment of research this time from 1978 on Jim Muche lending more credence to the idea that there is a galleon wreck around here somewhere. Funny he mentions "16th century".

[bronzecannons]

anyone have a link showing treasure found in the Phillipine waters?

A nice wreck with Ming dynasty Blue and White porcelain was found off of Roxas City (Panay Island) earlier this year.

A couple of ancient Chinese bronze 'hand guns' were also recovered off of this wreck (the wood was completely gone but the barrels are still in good shape).

TW

[cuzcosquirrel]

There is a lot of trade that went on there in the Phillipines. There were 30 to 40 junks that delivered the main galleon cargo from China and Japan, and then there were other ships and countries trading around the area also.

[Klems]

In following some more of my leads on the San Pedro, I ordered the book In the Realms of Gold: The Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Underwater Archaeology. I had originally wanted to find it in a library but UCSD "lost" it when they were moving the Scripps archives. No matter, Amazon had 2 copies left.

In it are the subsequent search findings by James Muche from '75-'77. I won't go into too many details, but what he found looks like the right wreck. Muche and his team managed to recover pottery shards, cannon shot, a crucifix, several medallions, and curiously quite a few depressions in an organized pattern. Tell me what you think, but it looks like the cannons were recovered before Muche found the site. Kenworthy's claim that the CIA lifted the site may be right after all.

[Klems]

I found the side scan sonar map of the area I'm looking at from the California State University Seafloor Mapping Project. So if anyone is any good at reading side scan sonar images, let me know if you see anything out of the ordinary or what looks like the ballast pile in the post above.

http://arcims.csumb.edu/DATA_DOWNLOA..._Blk02_sss.zip



As a second note, I've been looking high and low for my last lead. Does anyone know where I might be able to find a copy of SEARCH: The Journal of Undersea Archaeology, Maritime History, and Related Fields of Study Vol 1, No. 2. Fathom Eight, San Marino.

[bronzecannons]

Tom, you are right. The galleons coming back from Manilla, on their way to the mother county of Mexico, only had items like silks, porcelains, wax, etc.... The precious metals (gold and silver) would have gone east with them for the purpose of buying up those trade goods. But on their return trip west (where the reached the central CA with the currents, and then headed south back to Mexico), they had only the raw goods. Not gold, silver, etc....

There was a case of one of the galleon wrecks found off Baja CA, and it was strictly broken up porcelains, wax, etc.... Utterly boring (unless you're an archie who gets off on such things). Not at all like the Atocha stuff in the gulf of Mexico, where ............ it was only precious metal heading back to Europe.

So you have to ask yourself, in all this fascination with the manilla galleon traffic, at least as far as it concerns the possibility of wrecks on the CA/ West coast ......... so what?

Sorry but you should check your facts again: Manila galleons heading OUTBOUND TO South America were also known to carry intricate GOLD JEWELRY that was all hand made in the Far East. Gold has been mined in Asia even before the Spanish went to South America. It's the SILVER that was not available and highly sought after in Asia.

TW

[PhipsFolly]

TW is correct...

They were carrying some of the most exquisite worked gold items and jewelry pieces from the Far East ports to Acapulco, etc. That is why we find gold items with Far Eastern themed motifs like dragons, etc. and much of the intricate gold filagree items were from these incredible Eastern artisans. And large shipments of those beautiful export porcelains... Good stuff!!

[ivan salis]

HOWS ABOUT THE "BEES WAX" WRECK ?

THE CHINESE HAD GOLD AND COPPER BUT NEEDDED SILVER TO MAKE "SMALL MONEY" LARGER VALUE THAN COPPER COINS BUT SMALLER VALUE THAN GOLD --IT WOULD BE LIKE AMERICANS HAVING NOTHING BUT PENNIES AND 100 DOLLAR BILLS TO DO BUSSINESS WITH ---THE CHINESE NEEDED THE SILVER TO BE ABLE TO MAKE THE "IN BEWTEEN" COMMON EVERDAY DAY TO DAY BUSSINESS VALUE COINS ( LIKE OUR 1, 5 , 10, 20 BILLS OF TODAY )

[cuzcosquirrel]

You would have to go over the report and try to bracket the things they found into the years that could attribute them to one or another of the lost trade galleons.

[Jolly Mon]

Speaking of Manila Galleons, does anyone have any information on the Nuestra Senora de Ayuda, a Spanish galleon that supposedly wrecked on Catalina in 1641? I can only find one cryptic reference to it in Duro's Armada Espanola...other than that, nothing but the same parrotted reference to it sinking "on rocks west of Catalina"...typical treasure magazine stuff...and very strange since there are no rocks west of Catalina until you are a stones throw from shore...unless the "rocks" are Santa Barbara Island, 25 miles or so from Catalina...

The myth of Nuestra Senora de Ayuda sinking off what is now Santa Catalina Island, California in 1641 can be laid to rest. It is usually included in the list of "sunken Manila Galleons"...apparently because certain documents list it as having sunk off an "Isla de Catalina"...

In reality, the Ayuda sank off another Santa Catalina Island---a small island next to Providencia Island near Nicaragua...

[Klems]

I've been following up on some more research leads and came scross these in Explorers Ltd. Guide to Lost Treasure in the United States and Canada:

San Sebastian
(shipwreck)
Gold and Silver, 1754

Los Angeles County
Santa Barbara Islands,
San Clemente Island,
Northwest Harbor
Lat. 33^o00'N Long. 118^o40'W
NOS Charts: 5101, 5111, 5118

Spanish galleon, sank on January 7, 1754, carrying two million dollars in gold and silver. The San Sebastian was fleeing from a pirate vessel commanded by George Compton when she struck a reef two miles off Northwest Harbor, San Clemente Island, and it sank in forty fathoms. Compton is said to have vented his rage at losing so rich a prize by capturing the survivors who had reached the safety of land and torturing them to death. approximately $1,000,000 was salvaged from the wreck in 1924 with another million still remaining.

I've searched everything I could for the 1924 salvage report but couldn't find anything. Now having a good location on this, there is no way in hell I am going to look for this one. I am a LT in the Navy and I know all too well what goes on at San Clemente Island, heck I've had to chase a few sport fishing boats away myself before some of our gun exercises.


Santa Cecilia
(shipwreck)
Gold and Silver, 1852.

Los Angeles County
Santa Barbara Islands,
Santa Catalina Island
Lat. 33^o20'N Long. 118^o30'W
NOS Chart: 5112

Flag and type of vessel unspecified, sank in 1852, approximately three miles off Ship's Rock, Santa Catalina Island, carrying gold and silver. The total value of the loss is placed at $700,000 and this apparently includes the value of the ship itself.

I found this unusual because the CA State Land comission database had it to the NW of the island as well as the NOAA AWOIS database had it 4.5 miles to the NW of Isthmus Cove.