Spanish Treasure Fleet
- Edward Thatch: "Was the haul aboard as rich as men are saying?"
- Edward Kenway: "A thousand times that. I reckon a million pounds worth of reales were sunk that day."
- —Edwards Thatch and Kenway, on the Treasure Fleet's cargo, 1715.
The annual Spanish Treasure Fleets were convoys of Spanish warships that departed Spanish New world ports such as Havana, Cuba, in the Caribbean, after receiving mule loads of trade goods such as gold, silver and jewels from South American colonies such as Peru, and were destined for the ports of Cádiz and Seville, Spain. Some of the most notable were the Treasure Fleets of 1622, 1715, 1733 and 1750 which were all decimated by hurricanes, spilling a fortune in Gold Reales into the ocean.
History
Seven days after their departure, the fleet hit a tropical storm which destroyed eleven of its twelve vessels. The surviving ship was a brig known as El Dorado, which had been stolen by the pirates Edward Kenway and Adéwalé during their escape from imprisonment aboard one of the fleet's other ships. Following the escape, Kenway took the ship as his own, and rechristened it the Jackdaw.[1]
Word of the fleet's sinking quickly spread throughout the region, with wild variances on the details. Edward Thatch at one point expressed an interest in diving the wrecks. Edward Kenway, on the other hand, dove to the wreck of the San Ignacio in order to recover medicines for the citizens of Nassau, although the cures he recovered were "quite spoilt".[1]
In November 1716, another Spanish Treasure Fleet was attacked by the pirates Alonzo Batilla, Olivier Levasseur and Samuel Bellamy. The fleet decided to flee after noticing the pirates, and Alonzo Batilla attacked the ships, but could not find Samuel Bellamy's "treasure", which was a Fragment of Eden. One frigate of the six ships survived, which the pirates had to let go since they were confronted by Francis Hume.[2]