Mystery of 1563 Spanish Fleet

[Vox veritas]

Hi Bob .....
negative, I didn't receive your message. I'm available for any question about shipwrecks.
Cheers

 

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[signumops]

In answer to those of you who would like to read Claudio's work in English, Bobadilla and I are working on a translation together, and will print it in a black and white edition sometime in the next 12 months. I will produce it under the Signum Ops imprint as I did the "Rainbow Chasers In The Great Florida Treasure Hunt" and Bobadilla's (Lubos Kordac) work, "Hidden And Lost Treasures In The Domican Republic".
(These volumes are available from Abebooks, by the way, if you are hunting them, or you can get full leads from www.signumops.com.)

Claudio has been working on this type of research for many years and is well known in European circles for his discoveries. Bobadilla is doing the primary translations and I am doing the post-editing, formatting and so forth. As Bobadilla sends me translated pages, I am completely fascinated by what Claudio has written. There are a lot of treasure hunters, archaeologists and historians here stateside that will really love this book! In fact, Claudio had included a chapter about the Mercedes (the book was copyrighted in Spanish in 2007... I wonder if Greg Stemm had an advance copy!!). I don't even read that much Spanish, and my copy of the Spanish edition is already well dog-eared. Its hard to put the thing down!

 

[Bobadilla]

Guys, I am working on the translation of Claudio´s book like hell, believe me! It´s fascinating reading!! I promise you, I will not take advantage of it, and I do not go after the treasure tracks from this book before it is published in English to have the same starting line like everybody else...........
Lobo

 

[jeff k]

Claudio has been working on this type of research for many years and is well known in European circles for his discoveries. In fact, Claudio had included a chapter about the Mercedes (the book was copyrighted in Spanish in 2007... I wonder if Greg Stemm had an advance copy!!).

Terry... Please name one discovery I think it's now obvious that he never found the Mercedes.

No advanced copy, but they did receive a letter trying to extort money from Odyssey.

 

[Vox veritas]

Jeff,

Odyssey denies Spain

http://www.ideal.es/granada/20080510/sociedad/odyssey-deny-espana-20080510.html

About the "extortion", from when a proposal of collaboration is called extortion?

Cheers

 

[ivan salis]

when folks ofter to help "out" on a hot find its often themselves they seek to help out $$$ at your expense

everyone wants to help eat the cake after all the works is done -- ala henny penny the fable *** who will help me carry the grain? not I says the cat ,dog ,pig ect --- grind the grain same answer--- mix and bake it --same answer ---finally who will help me eat ithis fine cake? --Oh I will everybody says -- so now henny penny says --get lost youse buncha bums

 

[Chagy]

I believe that Claudios book is one of the best TH books out there....He supports all the information with the archival source it even has copies of the old documents.....

As always thats just my humble opinion....

 

[Vox veritas]

Chagy,
I have always tried to demonstrate with documents what I affirm. This is a rule that I apply for everything and in the life.
The history has memory!!

 

[Chagy]

Claudio,

I'm glad to hear that Terry and Lubos are helping translate your book in English (both of them are great friends of mine) I'm sure the English speaking people will enjoy all the fascinating information on your book.....

All the best,

Chagy....

 

[ivan salis]

everyone should show their "source" of info when making claims -- it helps to filter out garbage and baseless claims and greatly farthers more good research Ivan

 

[signumops]

Jeff K:

You threw me a curve ball... what did I miss?

 

[jeff k]

Terry... No curve ball, just a question since I never heard of any of his "discoveries."

 

[Vox veritas]

Jeff,
says a wise proverb: At the end of the battle the deads are counted!
The battle didn't still finish!

 

[Salvor6]

Claudio, did you discover the Columbus Bell? What happened to that?

 

[Vox veritas]

For an article that I published in 1990, the Italian diver Mazzara "located" the bell in Portugal. Portugal claimed it and finally it was returned to Mazzara. I had a contract with the him to have the copyright, but Mazzara it got a loan giving the bell like guarantee garment. This operation could not have made it without my authorization.
Finally I got tired and I gave up warning him of not using my information. All this comes in my book, chapter San Salvador shipwrecks of 1555.

 

[signumops]

Bobadilla and I have an interest in the Menendez fleet as he believes that it is closer to him in the Dominican Republic than to me at Cape Canaveral. My thoughts are based upon remarks supposedly made to the French at Jacksonville by Hawkins who supposedly claimed he saw the wrecks of "the Mexican Fleet" at the cape. Meanwhile, both Bobadilla and I are working on the translation of Claudio Bonifcaio's work "Galleons con Tesoros" and Claudio covers this wreck within his book. Here's part of the translation dealing with one of the vessels long reputed to be in the vicinity of Great Inagua. Please be aware that this ASCII posting does not feature the italics formatting that offsets the actual Spanish text, but you will get the idea. I think Claudio pretty much scraps my theory and puts testimonial legs under Bobadilla's assertions... Here it is:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pedro de Arana was an accountant of the royal financial institution in Cuba. He probably had some inside information, because he sent a manuscript to the Council of the Indies wherein he wrote, as reported below in third person tense: 9*

Sir,
Pedro de Arana, accountant of the royal finances of your Majesty in Cuba gave a petition in the Council, where he says he has the information of certain treasure of great value that is close to the island of Hispaniola, and he offers to discover it and guard it, and he was explaining this business to doctor Pedro Gutierrez in detail. The above mentioned Pedro de Arana stated to the Council that forty years ago two ships coming from the Indies were caught in a bad storm in the Bahama Channel , around the islands that are located on the northern coast of Hispaniola Island and Cuba and they were lost among them and they landed on one of them where the people got to shore where they could build a frigate from the timbers of the lost ships; and they could also recover the treasure from them and put it inside a yard they had made from stones, which they divided in two parts and they placed the riches from each ship into one part of that yard and after that the people that were able, boarded the constructed frigate; said frigate being lost sailing for Cuba and everybody drowned except a black woman and a sailor from whom this information had been obtained; and also after knowing that some persons went out to find the treasure but they could not find it because the island was too small. The above mentioned accountant says that he knows a person who could take him to that island….. Madrid, 7th of May, 1592.

Consider the evidence presented in this document…
1) The whereabouts of the treasure is somewhere close to the actual Dominican Republic – Haiti, maybe Cuba.
2) A time span of forty years provides a possible dating to the ship that could be la capitana of Menendez, because 1592 minus 40 is 1552 with an approximate plus or minus of ten years.
3) Why two ships? Five ships were separated by the storm before reaching the area of Bermuda. Three of them made it to Montecristi, the fourth one was la capitana and the fifth one was the second ship mentioned by Arana. It is certain that they were sailing together and the reader might deduce that they could easily strike a reef or cay in the present-day Bahama Islands.
4) The persons on board of the makeshift frigate were sailing for Cuba. This corresponds to the fact that they were lost between Hispaniola and Cuba.

9. AGI. Santo Domingo, 4.

Attested by a royal document issued in Valladolid on the 6th of July of 1592, Arana was authorized to go and look for the treasure. Among other things it was stipulated therein that:

1) Arana had to look for the treasure on his own account
2) In the event he found the treasure amounting to 50,000 ducats or less, 60% would be the Crown’s share and 40% would be Arana’s share. If more than 50,000 was found the share would be 50% for each party.
3) He was authorized to take some black slaves from Puerto Plata with him as labor for the venture.

He was also authorized to charter a ship (patache or saetia) of up to 40 tons with all the necessary provisions and foodstuffs valued at up to 1,000 ducats. 10*

Regarding this treasure hunter, the governor of La Habana, Juan Maldonado, wrote a letter to the king wherein he informed him, among other things, that Arana had left for Santo Domingo to get married and then he would go to an island of the Bahamas to look for the treasure. 11*

This bit of information gives us new solid evidence about the possible, general area where the treasure might be found, but...

Things did not go well for Arana as he authored this note from La Habana on the 12th of April of 1600 regarding his franchise:

…..I left from this harbor on the 8th of July of 1595 but the voyage went badly because I was caught, robbed and held as a prisoner by pirates.

Subsequently, the governor of Cuba deprived him of his position. 12*

Being so disgraced, Don Pedro desisted in any further attempt to locate the treasure. It was almost forgotten, but…

10. AGI. Santo Domingo, 1.122
11. AGI. Ibidem, 99
12. AGI. Ibidem, 119


Yet another person stumbled across the evidence of the treasure that Pedro de Arana could not find, or perhaps did not know how to find. This latest thread begins with a legal complaint. And remember, where there is gold, evil is always lurking! This document is very important in regards to a complete understanding of where the rest of the shipwrecks were to be found.

Andres de Samaniego presented the complaint against Jeronimo Martin and Hipolito de Fuentes. Here it is as written in royal form:

Don Felipe in the grace of God, King of Castilla of Leon, of Aragon, of the Sicilia, of Toledo, of Valencia, of Galicia, of Mallorca, of Seville, of Cerdena, of Cordoba, of Corcega, of Murcia, of Jaen, of the Algarve, of Gibraltar, of the Canary Islands,of the Oriental and West Indies, islands and Tierra Firme and of the Sea and Ocean, Duke of Austria, Duke of Borgona of Brabante and of Milan, Count of Absburg, of Flanders, Tirol and Barcelona, Sir of Biscay and Molina, and so on, so on…. I would like to inform you, my president and judges that are in Seville in la Casa de la Contratacion in Seville, that the complaint is placed in the royal Council between Hernando de Catillo, neighbor in the villa of San Salvador de Bayamo, and Andres de Samaniego, neighbor of the above mentioned city, from one part, and Jeronimo Martin, cosmographer and pilot with experience of the Carrera de las Indies, and Hipolito de Fuentes from other part, about certain matter which both parties pretend to perform with my real person, regarding the discovery of a treasure that is on some uninhabited islands, and other things that this complaint contains, because of which Hernando de Castillo and Andres de Samaniego presented themselves in the following position….

I ask to the reader to excuse me for being so boring with such a long list of titles, but it serves to provide some insight as to the actual size of the Spanish Empire.

The whole story began there, in 1599.

Back to our story, where the above mentioned persons filed a complaint against Martin and Fuentes and the others accused in this matter:

because Hernando de Castillo was supposed “to see with his own eyes” a treasure of much gold and silver that was on a small cay. There were other items apart from gold and silver there and he went on to give the notice to his sovereign in order to secure a signed document which would authorize him to lay his hands on part of the treasure. When Martin and Fuentes heard this story in Seville they determined to exploit the situation, somehow, for profit. They declared that Fuentes was the person who saw the treasure and therefore he applied for the license to go and recover same, and was given the permission by the crown.

Before long rumors circulated throughout Seville that the “the fruits did not come from his garden (Fuentes)” and that he (Fuentes) had heard the entire story from another person. He was damned, because, among other declarations, he stupidly revealed that he did not really know where this already famous treasure was hidden!

Many details regarding this fraud come to light in this important document simply because so many people were called in to testify.

The first witness who was called to the defense of Samaniego and Castillo was Captain Andres Garrucho and he appeared in front of the court seated in la Casa de la Contratacion on the 16th of February of 1599. After being sworn in he said:

…..he has known the mentioned Castillo and Samaniego for one year and that when Samaniego was present in la Casa de la Contratacion in September of 1598, he told him that there was a man in the city who had come from the Indies telling people that he had seen the treasure in so called Inagua, because while sailing, lost, around some uninhabited islands, he had come upon a cay where he had found the treasure and he had seen it….

This individual who made this discovery told Samaniego that he would like to meet Castillo and pass on this information. Samaniego and Castillo went to the house of this witness on the day of Saint Miguel in September of 1598, and he told them about the treasure and he also produced a naval chart and he showed them the island of Inagua with this chart at hand. Castillo told him that the treasure was not on that island, because he (Castillo) was lost on that island with his small boat and he survived from the shipwrecked nao and that he, with two other persons went from one cay to the other looking for water and for something to eat, and that on one of these cays, which was in the vicinity of the above mentioned Inagua island they found the treasure and bronze pieces of artillery, wooden timbers from naos that had been lost there, along with pitch caldrons and many other things that the alleged witness already did not remember. The witness asked Castillo on which cay the treasure was hidden and its distance and direction from Inagua Island. Castillio only indicated Inagua island was three days sailing from the treasure cay, and said no more.

Later the captain added that he had told that story to Martin and he asked him if he would be interested in going with Castillo to look for the treasure taking into account that he as a pilot, knew that area very well, and he answered yes, he would go there. Later on Garrucho knew that Castillo went to Madrid to get permission to recover the treasure. Garrucho was 60 years old.

Next witness was the pilot of Ayamonte, called Juan de Zamorano, who declared the following on the same day as Garrucho.

…..pilot of the Carrera de las Indias has known Castillo, Samaniego for one year and he has known Martin since he had been a child. Approximately two years ago, when he was in the harbor of San Juan de Ulua in the New Spain, he heard the story about a treasure on the island of Inagua, and that so called Hernando del Castillo had found it, and that Castillo was in La Habana because the governor put him in a jail until he would give him back a golden chain that was supposedlyrecovered from the treasure. This witness went later to La Habana but when he arrived there, Castillo had already left. When inquiring of his whereabouts, he was told that he (Castillo) had left for Spain. A year ago he met him here in Seville, and Castillo told him that he had been lost with one English ship on the island of Inagua and that he and other two Spaniards escaped, sailing from one cay to the other in a small boat, spending every night on one cay. They discovered treasure on one of these cays, which consisted of a large quantity of silver and gold bars, chests with coins and pieces of artillery apart from other things. They sailed to Cayo Romano in Cuba Island from there and when they landed there they walked for twelve days on land until they reached a village and then they proceeded to La Habana. They informed the governor in La Habana about this event and he put him in jail because he (Castillo) wore the golden chain that he had taken from the treasure.

Zamorano continued on declaring that he knew that Martin went to Madrid to try to get a license for treasure recovery. Zamorano opined that it would be impossible for him (Martin) to discover it, because Martin had not been to sea for more than six or seven years.

Gaspar (his family name is not legible), merchant, resident of Seville, the Triana neighborhood, testified on the same date:

….having this witness the information that Hernando de Castillo was present in this city, giving the information about the treasure they said it was from Inagua, and that he was saying that he had discovered it and that he had been on the island where the treasure was, this witness(Gaspar) decided to go and talk to Castillo and he saw him and talked to him through an introduction by Juan Martin, carpenter, a resident in the city of Triana; in the house of this Castillo he stayed, and this witness talked to him(Castillo) about the treasure, and Castillo told him that he had seen it and had discovered it on the day of Saint Miguel, last year of 1597, when he had spent three days on some uninhabited island where that treasure was hidden. When he asked him how he had discovered this treasure and where it was, Castillo told him that one English corsair vessel robbed him and another two Spaniards sailing in a frigate from La Habana, and then after imprisoning him and taking him with them, they were surprised with a furious storm that forced them to make port in Inagua Island and they lost their ship there and Castillo, these two Spaniards and some English managed to escape on that island. One night they seized a boat that had been spared and he went with two Spaniards in this boat from one cay to the other, and these cays were uninhabited and after four or five days sailing from one cay to the other, they landed on a cay where they found and saw the treasure, that consisted in quantity of silver bars and golden discs and pieces of artillery and other things, and that the pieces of artillery were in about one and half brazas of water from the sea bed and that the treasure was on land. And that they left from there leaving visible signs behind them in order to be able to come back and find it, and they sailed to La Habana….. and Castillo was begging this witness that because he was poor and he could not go to Madrid to organize the salvage operation, he asked him (Gaspar) to find a person that would have been able to secure him the license of His Majesty, authorizing him to go and recover this treasure and bring it to that kingdom. Gaspar entreatied with Samaniego, on this matter, and he(Samaniego), Castillo and this witness (Gaspar) devised a document, and signed it in front of a public notary of this city, and that document obliged this witness and Samaniego to secure the license for the recovery of the treasure, arranging and paying everything that was necessary to secure it …… and he declared it to be more than 50 years old.

Gaspar added that Garrucho passed all of this information on to Jeronimo Martin, because Martin was skilled in the navigation of these islands, that were in the Old Channel.

The following witness testified on the same day like the others. His name was Juan de Roa, a beach carpenter (exact meaning lost in translation a the moment) and resident of Triana. His testimony did not differ very much from the others, emphasizing that he had known Castillo for a year or so and Samaniego and Martin for numerous years. He also stated that Castillo had been working with him as a beach carpenter for about seven months, because it was his job, and he (Castillo) told him the story about the treasure and why he was afraid to go to Madrid. Because he was a poor man, the officials would not have believed him. He knew that sailing from Cuba to Santo Domingo they met a ship of English corsairs who captured their vessel and held them captive almost two months as they sailed the waters of Cuba. The English corsair’s ship was lost on Inagua Island because of strong storms and many persons drowned with only twenty-two survivors. He also told them how they escaped in a small boat and that they sailed for five or six days among the cays and islands that were there. Roa also stated that Castillo told of finding a large number of coins there, but aside from this detail, Roa’s testimony differed very little from the other witnesses.

The following witness testified on the 19th of February. His name was Diego Gonzales. He was a carpenter, the same as the former, from the vicinity of Triana. His testimony was in lockstep with the other witnesses. He stated that he knew that Castillo had arrived from La Habana in 1598 with the fleet of General Juan Gutierrez de Garibay, (which was true). He gave us another hint in his testimony, stating that he knew that Martin had not been sailing in the Old Channel for four years.

On the 20th of February, the following day, Antonio de Barrios testified, he being a sailor in the Carrera de las Indias trade, and a resident of Seville. He stated that approximately one and half year ago, when he was in the harbor of San Cristobal in La Habana, where his ship had arrived from New Spain, he met and became friendly with the half-brother of Castillo and his stepmother. He became aware of the treasure that was located on an uninhabited island in the Old Channel from them. Barrios confirmed that Castillo arrived at Spain in 1598 and that the public notary was (Pedro) Menendez Marquez. He also stated that Martin had not been sailing for a long time in the Indies and therefore he could not be the person that had discovered the treasure on the cay.

The last witness, Francisco de Miranda testified on the 25th of February. He was another carpenter from the vicinity of Triana. His testimony did not differ much from the others that testified before him. He also confirmed the information about the Old Channel. 13*

Knowing all these details, let’s examine thoroughly all the possible clues that these testaments produce for us.
1) Our starting point of investigation is the island of Great Inagua which is situated in the archipelago of the Bahamas and is the place where Hernardo del Castillo shipwrecked and escaped with two Spanish fellows in a small boat. The finishing point is Cayo Romano (Cuba) where he finally ended his shipwreck adventure.
2) He went from cay to cay. A small sandy island refers to a cay. The Spanish expression is cayo.
3) The treasure cay was three days sailing from Great Inagua. We could assume that a standard vessel would be faster than a small boat and would cover the same distance in shorter time. The distance of note, by small boat, was 5-6 days, landing every night.




13. AGI. Contratacion, 4.802


ORIGINAL SPANISH DOCUMENT


Andres de Samaniego. I present before Your Lordship this letter and royal document of Your Majesty issued in royal Council of the Indies, where Your Lordship is given this information that I have presented to you, to Your Majesty, which contains the complaint, telling that Jeronimo Martin and Hipolito de Fuentes were cited in the above mentioned complaint….(AGI. Contratacion, 4802)

4) An official document concerning this matter was attested before a public notary of this city. I tried to locate this document in the Archive of Notary Protocols of Seville, but, because these archives are so vast, containing more than 20,000 files (some of them quite large), I exhausted all my available time without success. There were 14 public notaries in Seville and each one generated heaps of documents every year. We must recall that Seville was “gateway” harbor of the Indies for a long time.
5) What geographic area corresponds to the Old Channel? It is described by Baltasar Vellerino Villalobos who wrote his book Luz de Navegantes in 1592, a couple of years before Hernando del Castillo discovered the treasure. His description of how to navigate through the Old Channel to La Habana gives us a clear idea about the characteristics of the Old Channel, to wit:

……from the cape of San Nicolas it is good to sail to the west till Maisi can be seen, which is the point made by the island of Cuba on its western side,. From this point you can sail alongside the coast in a direction of west-north-west till Barracon, the place which has one mountain and one sandy beach….

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, according to this translation, one of the few major slip-ups would be the route from Havana to Santo Domingo (?), and the number of years involved in the recollections: 40 years or 50 years. All that smoke aside, if Castillo did not fabricate the entire episode, Great Inagua and its immediate environs would be the place, not Cape Canaveral. So what's sunk at Cape Canaveral? Anybody else got 2 cents?

 

[Vox veritas]

Well, I believe that my source of information is a first hand source.
When the moment arrives to finishing the "battle" I will also have a lot of privileged first hand information (and many intelligent will understand).
Vox veritas (the voice of the truth)

 

[ivan salis]

in vino vertias

 

[Vox veritas]

Ivan, is not a matter of wine (vino) it is to make justice !

 

[ivan salis]

ah truth a slippy subject if there ever was one --- I like this "story" -- ask a man who's looking downward from the top of a mountion who only sees down what he sees --he will say a deep valley ---ask another man at the bottom of the same mountion who only sees up what he sees --he will say a high mountion --- now march them to the middle and ask both of them the "truth" of what they see -- each will answer based on his point of view* --- so who is right and who is wrong? both--- but by their point of veiw they are right and many are willing to fight to the death over their "veiw" of world or the things in it -- no matter how limited or wrong that "veiw" maybe.

the point of all this "talk" is --- what you see as the "truth" often depends on your point of veiw and your point of veiw upon where you stand.

look up truth / fact --- a commonly held belief* (check it out)-- so at one time since about all the people thought it was so --- it was a "fact" that the world was flat * since everyone "knew" it .

Ivan