Sixteenth-Century Manila Galleon Cargos on the American West Coast and a Kraak Plate Chronology

Abstract

The eastbound Manila galleons sailed far to the north-northeast after leaving the Philippines. They crossed the Pacific Ocean at a high latitude, then turned to a south-southeast course for an extended longshore run toward their port of Acapulco in southern New Spain. During the two-and-a-half centuries of the trade, three galleons are known to have been wrecked on the shores of North America: a ship of late 1570s on the Baja California peninsula, the San Agustín of 1595 at Drakes Bay in Alta California, and the Santo Cristo de Burgos of 1693 at Nehalem, northern Oregon. In addition, Francis Drake in his Golden Hind visited Drakes Bay in 1579.  Three of these events occurred within twenty years of each other, which made comparative studies of their material remains possible, with emphasis on the numerous Chinese porcelains.  Four shipwrecks from the early seventeenth century filled out the story of the porcelains and made it possible to create a chronology of a key porcelain type.

Note:  The name of the ship found on the shore of Baja California appeared to be the San Felipe of 1576, based on the evidence available at the time of the conference a few years ago.  Newly uncovered documentation shows that the San Felipe was not wrecked in the New World but in an attempt to return to the Philippines after storm damage in the North Pacific, so a search for missing-without-trace ships is under way, with the San Juanillo of 1578 a possible but not certain identification.  Some of the monographs in this bibliography give the name San Felipe.  The information in them is valid.  The ship's name and date need to be changed.