NASSAU, Bahamas – New historical research into one of the world’s richest treasure galleons, the Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas that was wrecked on January 4, 1656, has discovered a link between the wreck and the rise of the notorious pirates of the Caribbean.
Bahamas Maritime Museum PhotoThe researchers say the link has placed the port town of Nassau on the island of New Providence.
“The Maravillas means different things to many people. To 17th-century Spain it was a heavy financial hit and personal tragedy. To AllenX it’s a treasure chest of scientific knowledge. But 300 years ago, to the pirates of the Caribbean it was a chance of a generation to get-rich quick,” Carl Allen, the director of Allen Exploration told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
In the 1710s and 1720s, the pirate republic of Nassau was home to Benjamin Hornigold, Blackbeard, Calico Sam Rackham, Stede Bonnet, Black Sam Bellamy, Anny Bonny, Mary Read and the Flying Gang. Nassau was where pirate expeditions were planned and where loot was brought back to and divided among crews and sold.
Previous studies were convinced that the pirates settled in Nassau to use New Providence as a convenient launchpad to plunder the Spanish treasure fleet wrecked off southeast Florida in 1715.
In the new historical study by Allen Exploration, licensed by the Bahamas government to explore the Maravillas off the western Little Bahama Bank, the team discovered proof that it was the salvors’ need for supplies while diving for treasure on the Maravillas that led to Nassau’s development. And for the rise of Nassau as a lawless town for pirates.
Bahamas Maritime Museum Photo
The AllenX team has examined historical evidence that reveal how in 1682, at least 33 years before the 1715 Spanish fleet sank, Nassau was described by Sir Thomas Lynch, the governor of Jamaica, as “peopled by men who are intent rather on pillaging Spanish wrecks than planting.”
Nassau’s own governor, Robert Clarke, was even arrested in 1682 for selling illegal commissions to pirates to prey on Spanish shipping and settlements.
“Early pioneers to New Providence found the soils rocky and barren,” says Dr Michael Pateman, the Director of The Bahamas Maritime Museum and Ambassador for History, Culture & Museology in The Bahamas.
“Unlike the fertile plantations of Jamaica and Barbados, it wasn’t going to grow profitable sugar, tobacco or coffee. The answer to making big bucks was the sea. The Bahamas, at the heart of a major maritime crossroads between the Americas and Europe, was a ‘Bermuda Triangle’ for the wrecking of ships. And wrecks attracted salvors with dubious intentions,” he added.
