Florida’s Forgotten Shipwreck Treasures
Nearly Five Centuries of Storms, Shipwrecks, and Lost Treasure
Florida’s coast was repeatedly where Spain’s convoy system met its limits.
Florida’s coastline has claimed a very large number of ships over nearly five hundred years. Spanish vessels carrying New World silver, French and English merchantmen, Civil War-era steamers, schooners and later steel ships have all gone down in Florida waters, and the state’s reefs, shoals, currents and hurricanes have taken a steady share of the traffic. This overview introduces the layered history of what those waters swallowed, and of the people who have spent centuries trying to bring it back.
Why Florida’s Waters Took So Many Ships
The Florida Keys are fringed by the only living coral barrier reef in the continental United States, an ecological treasure and one of the most hazardous stretches of water a sailing ship could meet. The Straits of Florida lie in the path of the Gulf Stream, a current strong enough to carry a vessel toward the reefs before its crew understood its position. Above all loomed hurricane season, when Spanish fleets sailed home. During the sixteenth century the crown organized its American trade into armed convoys with escort warships, partly to guard against privateers. That system sustained transatlantic trade for generations, but it could not defeat a hurricane.
Emanuel Point
Florida’s documented shipwreck history reaches back before any treasure fleet disaster. In 1559 Tristán de Luna y Arellano led a Spanish expedition to settle Pensacola Bay. According to the University of West Florida, a hurricane struck about five weeks after the expedition arrived and sank several ships, and the colony did not last. The first of the wrecks, Emanuel Point I, was found in 1992 by a state team led by Roger Smith; University of West Florida archaeologists later located Emanuel Point II (2006) and III (2016). The Luna expedition predates the 1622 loss of the Tierra Firme fleet by about sixty years.
1622: The Atocha and the Margarita
In September 1622 the Tierra Firme fleet, sailing home to Spain, ran into a hurricane in the Florida Keys. Sources give its size as 27 or 28 ships and the number lost as seven or eight. The Nuestra Señora de Atocha and the Santa Margarita were among those lost, carrying silver, gold, emeralds and other cargo. One educational source reports about 380 lives lost on those two ships, while the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum describes the toll across the fleet only as hundreds. Modern dollar valuations vary and are not given here. Mel Fisher’s company found the Atocha’s main cargo site in 1985; its story is told in FLH-0129.
1715 and 1733: Two Disasters, Two Coasts
In late July 1715 a hurricane destroyed a Spanish fleet off Florida’s east coast, in the area later called the Treasure Coast (FLH-0125). Less than two decades later, a second fleet met disaster in the Keys. According to Indiana University’s Center for Underwater Science, a fleet under Captain-General Rodrigo de Torres left Havana on July 13, 1733, and a hurricane struck within a day or two (accounts differ on July 14 or 15). Sources differ on whether 21 or 22 ships were involved but agree that nearly all were lost, scattered along a stretch of the Keys that accounts measure at about thirty to about eighty miles. Spain recovered part of the cargo in the 1730s, and educational sources report that wrecks were burned to the waterline to deter looters.
The San Pedro, one of the lost 1733 ships, lies in shallow water near Indian Key and is now a State of Florida Underwater Archaeological Preserve. According to NOAA, it was heavily salvaged by treasure hunters before state and federal laws protected it.
Wrecking: Florida’s Salvage Trade
After Florida became a United States territory in 1821, salvaging wrecked cargo became a major business centered on the Keys. Wreckers brought salvaged goods and ships to Key West, where courts and auctions settled the awards. By custom, saving lives came before saving cargo. Wrecking faded as navigation, lighthouses and ship design improved.
What Came After
Modern rediscovery followed: Kip Wagner’s work on the 1715 sites (FLH-0128) and Mel Fisher’s Atocha find (FLH-0129). The Florida Department of State’s Museums in the Sea program lists a dozen shipwrecks as Underwater Archaeological Preserves, from the San Pedro and Urca de Lima to steamships and vessels sunk as artificial reefs.
Quick Facts
Earliest wreck discussed
Emanuel Point I, from the 1559 Luna expedition on Pensacola Bay (found 1992)
Hazards
Coral reefs, shoals, the Gulf Stream and hurricanes
Spain’s response
Armed convoys with escort warships in the sixteenth century
1622
Tierra Firme fleet hurricane in the Keys; counts of ships and dead vary
1715
Hurricane off the east coast; see FLH-0125
1733
Fleet left Havana July 13; hurricane next day; 21 or 22 ships, nearly all lost
Wrecking
Regulated salvage trade centered on Key West after 1821
Modern era
Wagner on the 1715 sites; Fisher’s Atocha find in 1985
Protected sites
State preserves, including the San Pedro near Indian Key
Did You Know?
* A Pensacola Bay wreck from 1559 predates the Atocha by about sixty years.
* Sources disagree on how many ships the 1733 hurricane destroyed: 21 or 22.
* Under wrecking custom, saving lives came before saving cargo.
Vocabulary
Wrecker: a person who salvaged cargo and ships from vessels wrecked on reefs.
Convoy: a group of ships sailing together under armed escort.
Underwater Archaeological Preserve: a state-designated shipwreck site protected and open to visitors.
Discussion Questions
1. Why did Spanish fleets keep sailing during hurricane season?
2. What makes some wrecks better documented than others?
Related Articles
* FLH-0125 — The Lost Treasure Fleets of 1715
* FLH-0127 — The 1733 Treasure Fleet
* FLH-0128 — The Treasure Hunters of the Treasure Coast
* FLH-0129 — The Atocha and Mel Fisher
Sources
Indiana University Center for Underwater Science. “1733 Shipwrecks of the Florida Keys.” underwaterscience.indiana.edu
NOAA Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Shipwreck Trail, “San Pedro.” floridakeys.noaa.gov
University of West Florida. News on the Luna settlement and the Emanuel Point wrecks. news.uwf.edu
Florida Division of Historical Resources. “Museums in the Sea.” museumsinthesea.com
University of South Florida, Florida Center for Instructional Technology. “Florida’s Shipwrecks and Treasures.” fcit.usf.edu (educational resource; secondary)
Mel Fisher Maritime Museum. “The 1622 Tierra Firme Fleet” (read via a mirror host)
National Park Service. “The Spanish Treasure Fleets of 1715 and 1733” (cited via secondary description; not independently examined)
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