Capitana Shipwreck 1651 Countermarked 8 Reales Cob from Potosi, Bolivia

Description

This 1651 8 reales cob of
King Felipe IV
was struck in Potosi, Bolivia. It has a Crowned F countermark indicating that it has the value of 7 1/2 reales.   Capitana
sank in
1654 off Chanduy, Ecuador
The wreck was the largest loss ever experienced by the
Spanish Pacific Fleet. The
Jesus María de la
Limpia Concepción
was the
capitana
“captain’s ship”
hence the name of the wreck. The registered cargo was 3 million pesos of
silver composed of 2,212 ingots, 216 chests of coins, and 22 boxes of wrought
silver. The official cargo might have been only 1/3 of the total cargo.
T
he
entire
annual silver production of Potisi at that time
was only about 6 million pesos. Potosi was a notorious minning area where as many as 8 million Inca slaves died mining silver for the Spanish invaders. T
he
Capitana
sank due to
pilot error, which drove the ship onto the reefs south of the peninsula
known as Punta Santa Elena, a geographic feature the pilot thought
he had cleared. Twenty people died in the disaster. For eight years
afterward, Spanish salvagers
officially
recovered over 3 million pesos
of coins and bullion (with probably much more recovered off the
record), leaving only an unreachable lower section for divers to find
in our time. Ironically, the main salvager of the
Capitana
in the 1650s
and early 1660s was none other than the ship’s silvermaster, Bernardo
de Campos, who was responsible for the ship’s being overloaded with
contraband in the first place.
Thanks,
Peter Scherff
ANA Life Member 4085