A recent trip took me to La Palma in the Canary Islands off the northwestern coast of Africa. At one point, La Palma (also known as La Isla Bonita – the Beautiful Island) served as an important trading post on the way from Spain to the New World. Santa Cruz de la Palma, founded in the spring of 1493, is a pretty little town on the northeastern side of the steeply rising island. A life-sized model of Christopher Columbus’ Santa Maria located in the town center serves as the unique maritime museum for the town. Evidence of the once flourishing Spanish galleon trade.
JOURNEYS
La Palma was not alone in being an important port involved in Spanish maritime trade. We also visited the ports on Tenerife and Lanzarote. Tenerife also importantly involved itself with trade to the New World. The Canaries also served as major ports involved in the Spanish slave trade between Africa and the New World.
My journeys have also taken me to Cádiz, Panama and the Philippines and herein lies the vast extent of the Spanish trade routes. Those routes held incredible profits for ship owners and the royal government enabling the constant wars Spain found itself involved in throughout the 16th to 18th centuries.
WEST INDIES FLEET
The Spanish Empire stretched from Europe to the Philippines by the late 1500s. Trade between Spain and their new possessions became highly regulated by the Crown. In order to better protect this trade, a convoy system began in 1564 in order to protect the shipping – especially around Cuba, the Canary Islands and the south coast of Spain – from enemy navies and freeloading pirates.
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés organized the Flota de Indias – West Indies Fleet – so two convoys would depart from Seville. Seville was one of the main financial and administration centers for the Spanish overseas empire. Merchants paid the quinto real – royal fifth – on all precious metals coming into Spain here. The convoys are best known for carrying the silver – plata – from the New World mines of México and Peru but agricultural and other exotic goods (gems, pearls, spices, sugar, tobacco, silk) all flowed back to Europe. Think of all of the foods alone previously unknown in Europe which today seem to be the heart of many European culinary traditions today – corn, tomatoes, potatoes, color dyes being just a few in a long list. Goods going in the opposite direction were European exports in high demand in the Americas and beyond.
MECHANIcS OF THE FLEETS
Two convoys set out a year from Seville with the main destinations in the New World being Veracruz, Portobello (Panama), and Cartagena. The fleets would then congregate at Havana for the return voyage to Spain. Military vessels would accompany the fleets – meaning more taxes for the merchants – though the Spanish galleon carrying the goods also armed themselves for defense.
Of the two fleets – fifty galleons or more – setting out, one would sail to Veracruz while the other ventured to Cartagena and Portobello. They travelled together until they reached the Caribbean where they split up. Their route took them from Seville or Cádiz down the African coast to take on provisions in the Canaries. Ships going to Cartagena loaded up on silver from the mines of Potosí in today’s Bolivia – among other South American products. Those galleons going to Portobello filled up on Peruvian silver.
To get to Portobello, other ships sailed from Callao, the port of Lima, up to Panama City. Mules then transported the Peruvian goods – again, more than just silver – across the jungles of the Panamanian Isthmus on the Camino Real to Portobello. Loaded up, both fleets would rendezvous for the return trip to Spain. Crossing times needed a couple months east or westbound from Spain to the Americas.
pirates, enemy fleets and weather
With all of the print that pirates receive, only a very few of the Spanish galleon fell prey to pirates or enemy naval vessels. The one large exception was in 1628 when half of the year’s entire flota was captured by a Dutch fleet at Matanzas Bay in Cuba. Monies taken in the haul helped fuel Dutch war efforts in Europe for eight months.
Many more ships wrecked because of weather, accidental fires or running aground on reefs. One particular flota had started out from Havana later in July running into a hurricane which sank the fleet off Florida with great loss of life.
CANARY ISLANDS
Also included in the goods of New World-bound galleons, slaves acquired from Africa. The Canaries became the main transshipment center for slaves gathered up. Fleets stopping off in the Canaries led to single crop cultivation on a large scale. It took Spain almost the entire 15th century to conquer all of the Canary Islands. The locals – Guanches – joined other slaves brought in from North and Sub-Saharan Africa to serve as the labor force. The first crop concentrated upon was sugar cane. Profit from the development of sugar and the islands serving as a stopping off point for Spanish traders and conquistadors made those in charge of the plantations very rich. Grapes for wine became a second important crop. Wine – most famously, from the Malmsey grape varieties – and sugar offered very valuable merchandise for trade both to the Americas and back to Europe.
On Tenerife, the port town of Garachico – founded shortly after the 1496 conquest of the island – served as the most important port on the island during the 17th century. An eruption of the Arenas Negras volcano in 1706 devastated parts of the town and covered the port. The little sea pools locals and tourists swim at today, formed from the lava flows. No lives were lost but with the loss of the port, international trade shifted north to Puerto de la Cruz. With time, both Puerto de la Cruz and Garachico have morphed into tourism – Garachico maintains much of its former colonial mystique – as Santa Cruz de Tenerife became the most important port as well as the capital of the archipelago.
LA PALMA
On the neighboring island of La Palma, here the main port Santa Cruz de la Palma (1493) developed and remains the most important port on that island today. Again, Santa Cruz served routes to the Americas exporting sugarcane and serving the fleets before they set off to the New World.
Like many of the ports along the Spanish trade routes, Santa Cruz, as well as Garachico, suffered from the occasional pirate attack with fortifications developing to afford better protection. Santa Cruz remains the only major port on La Palma today.
PANAMANIAN TRANSIT
Founded in August 1519, Panamá la Vieja survived until destroyed by Henry Morgan in 1671. The site is found on the south side of the main part of today’s Panamá City. It is a UNESCO site since 1997, the oldest European settlement on the Pacific coast of North America.
Panamá served as a transshipment center for trade to and from Peru. The Spanish galleon connected Panamá with Callao bringing much of the silver mined from Peru. Panamá lie connected to the Caribbean port of Portobello over the Camino Real and later, the Las Cruces Road. The “road” dated to 1517 when Gaspar de Espinosa used 4,000 natives to enlarge a native trail to about one meter width with smooth river rocks laid out covered with clay to make a smooth surface. The Rio Chagres was bridged with large boulders and tree trunks shaved flat.
The rains of Panamá made going on the trail slow and tedious during the wet season – April to December. Another route became established in 1527 – still using cobblestones – which went from Panamá Vieja to Venta de Cruces on the Chagres River. Water transport followed up the mule trains heading down the Chagres to the Caribbean and then east to the port of Portobelo. Because the water section remained exposed to pirates, precious metals still went by mule on the older path.
PORTOBELO
Initially, the main Spanish port on the Panamanian Isthmus was at Nombre de Dios. This port soon passed in favor of the harbor at Portobelo further to the west along the Caribbean coast. More importantly, the terrain at Portobelo laid itself out better in terms of defense. This port became founded in 1597. Near here, Sir Francis Drake was buried at sea in a lead coffin in 1596 after dying of dysentery. Supposedly, the bay was discovered and given its name by Christopher Columbus in 1502.
The port suffered capture by Admiral Edward Vernon with a force of six ships in December 1739. That capture stymied the growth of the port in the short term.
Two years later, Vernon was defeated at Cartegena and forced to withdraw back to England losing 18,000 men to disease (mostly) and battle. 3,600 American colonists were members of his invasion force lured by land and gold. Most of them died of disease or starvation. One who survived, Lawrence Washington, the older half-brother to George, returned to Virginia, naming his home Mount Vernon after his former commander.
With the war which saw Spanish re-capture of Portobelo – War of Jenkins’ Ear – they switched their convoy system from large fleets and few ports to small fleets and a variety of ports. The change made them less subject to attack.
TODAY
As a major port for the Spanish galleon treasure fleets, the town became a goal for many pirate expeditions. 1601, 1668, and 1680 all were dates of capture and sack. An official British fleet proved unsuccessful in 1726 due mainly to decimation due to tropical disease. Again in 1739, Admiral Edward Vernon captured the town.
The fortifications of Portobelo lie in ruins today but they remain easily visited as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site – Ten fortifications eventually were built around Portobelo bay from 1600 until 1753. With the removal of the Spanish treasury to Portobelo in 1597, Fort Felipe became the first of the forts. The fort sited at the entrance to the harbor had 35 cannons set up inside. Fort San Jeronimo went up on the eastern side and Fort Santiago de la Gloria on the western side. With the end of the Spanish era, the forts and the town underwent a long period of neglect before Panamá decided to restore the forts at Portobelo and as San Lorenzo – this fort guarded the mouth of the Chagres River, a few miles to the west of the Gatun entrance to the Panamá Canal.
visiting today
Visiting Portobelo today, you find the forts in their later constructions from the 18th century. Over time, the fortifications were built and rebuilt. Cannons lay pointing out over the bay, their wooden carriages rotted away long ago. Fort Santiago is on the western end – earlier Fort La Gloria sits in ruins on the hill behind. Fort San Jerónimo is on the bay next to the jetty sticking out near the old treasury building – Casa Real de la Aduana – which today serves as a museum. The ruins of Fort San Fernando lay in three levels – the main fort on the sea level, an upper battery and a storehouse atop the hill for munitions and powder.
MEXICAN TRANSSHIPMENT CENTERS
Two major ports stand out for forwarding treasures extracted from New Spain – México – Veracruz and Acapulco. Acapulco served as the American transfer center for the Manila galleons. Those galleons took mainly millions of silver pesos – thrown in with passengers and a few odds and ends from the Americas – cochineal dyes, wines, cocoa, bananas – which served to allow merchants in Manila to buy up shiploads of goods from Asia, highly in demand in both the New and Old Worlds.
Acapulco was New Spain’s primary port on the Pacific coast. Goods then transferred across the breadth of México on a mule track serving as one of the main Camino Reals of New Spain. The road was in two parts. First, was the road from Veracruz to México City, the most important road in New Spain connecting the capital with the rest of the world through the main port. This section of road ran for about 412 kilometers, taking travelers 22 days to cross. Second, was the road connecting the capital with Acapulco through Taxco – 408 kilometers and another 20-day journey. Other routes skipped México City making a more direct push for Atlixco, Puebla and on to Veracruz
veracruz
Both ports were heavily fortified, especially in lieu of the treasures flowing through each. Veracruz was New Spain’s umbilical cord to Spain. Acapulco featured similarly for the Philippines. Political control for New Spain came from México City where one of the four viceroys was created by the king to rule over Spain’s overseas domains. The Philippines remained under a governor general appointed by the New Spain viceroy. Far flung and isolated, Spanish in the Philippines were dependent on New Spain for all monies and soldiers to attempt to maintain control over the archipelago, a control far from absolute.
The Napoleonic Wars brought chaos to Spain. The signing of an 1812 constitution in Cádiz established a constitutional monarchy. This would be abrogated when Fernando VII regained power – he had abdicated in 1808 – in 1814 setting off a century of conflict between conservative and liberal groups seriously affecting the country and its colonial empire.