Shortly after Columbus’ historic voyage establishing contact between Europe and the Americas, the Pope brokered an important agreement between Spain and Portugal designed to prevent these two powerful maritime nations from battling over their expanding trading empires. Under the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, the Spanish agreed to keep their ships on the west side of an imaginary line dividing the world in half, while the Portuguese kept their ships on the east side of the line.

This agreement prevented the Spanish from sailing their ships around southern Africa to the trading port of Asia. And with the establishment in 1565 of their first colony at Cebu in the islands that would later be called the Philippines, the Spanish desperately needed a different way to maintain connections with their expanding empire. The Pacific is relatively easy to cross sailing from the Americas toward Asia on the prevailing currents and winds just above and below the Equator, but it is very difficult to sail from Asia toward the Americas on the same route. In order for Spain to maintain a colony and trading outpost in Asia, it needed to find a return route to New Spain, in the Americas. Fortunately, a Spanish mariner named Andres de Urdaneta soon piloted a successful return voyage across the Pacific by following the Kuroshiro current north from the Philippines, past the islands of Japan where he picked up westerly winds and where the ocean current flows east across the Northern Pacific, then down the west coast of North America. Urdaneta was on several earlier expeditions and had probably picked up knowledge of Pacific winds and currents from indigenous sailors. With Urdaneta’s successful navigation across the North Pacific to Acapulco in New Spain, the Manila galleon trade was born. Until 1815, Spanish ships sailed regularly between the Philippines and America.

One of the strongest motivations for these global transactions was the difference in the prevailing price of gold in Europe and China. In the last quarter of the 16th century, Europeans bought and sold an ounce of gold for about 12 ounces of silver. At the same time, Chinese merchants were willing to sell an ounce of gold for between six and seven ounces of silver—about half price compared to the going rate in Europe. This price disparity made it very profitable for the Spanish to swap silver mined in the newly conquered areas of South America for Chinese gold in Manila. And it was precisely because of the disparity in commodity prices that the great Spanish galleon Santa Margarita set sail on its ill-fated voyage from Manila on July 1, 1600 heading for the port of Acapulco, and a trade fair to exchange Oriental goods and gold for the silver of the Americas.

The bay of Manila

The Santa Margarita pulled away from its dock that fateful morning dangerously overloaded and poorly ballasted, literally overflowing with treasure and Chinese manufactured luxury goods. She led a smaller ship, the San Geronimo, also destined for Acapulco. But problems beset the ships from the moment they raised their anchors. The winds were not favorable and the poor ballasting combined with overflowing trade goods spilling out onto the decks made the ship difficult and dangerous to sail. It took the ships six days simply to sail their way out of Manila Bay.

The Last Voyage of The Santa Margarita

Bad winds weren’t all that plagued the voyage. In an effort to make the ship more seaworthy, several passengers were ordered off the ship, together with their personal property. Those ordered off the Santa Margarita included its chaplain, Fray Geronimo de Ocampo. The chaplain was so annoyed at the ship’s commander, General Juan Martinez de Guillestigui, that he excommunicated him on the spot, and prophesied that the voyage would not end well because the ship was so full of sin. After the Santa Margarita was lightened by the removal of several passengers and their belongings, the ship proceeded on its journey, but was still overloaded, and took several slow and difficult weeks to sail through the Straits of San Bernardino. Finally, on the first of August the ship came into the open waters of the Philippine Sea and caught the trade winds, which would aid it on its journey north and then eastward.

The first nine days on the open ocean were surprisingly smooth for the Santa Margarita. But that good fortune did not last. The ship was caught in a series of storms, and was dismasted and lost her rudder. Many of the crew were swept overboard or died of exposure in the cold climate of the North Pacific Ocean. The badly battered ship was reballasted, a mainmast was jury rigged from a beam of the ship, and a plank served as a rudder. The ship was barely serviceable, but was afloat, though it had drifted far off course. The ship’s commander wanted to return to a harbor in Japan to replenish its food and water, but the crew opposed such a plan because they feared the Japanese would slaughter them and take their ship, as they had taken another Spanish galleon a few years earlier. As the Santa Margarita’s crew and captain continued to fight over what course to take—and use up its precious supplies of food and water—the ship slipped to 38 degrees North latitude. Soon both the captain and the crew realized they would never reach Acapulco on this voyage.

As the days wore on and the ship sailed southward away from Japan, starvation and scurvy continued to take its toll. Yet General Guillestigui showed no mercy toward those who fell ill, ordering that they should not be fed until they were back at work. As more men died, discipline among those still fit to sail the ship worsened. Guillestigui’s response was to severely punish anyone who even slightly disobeyed him.

Just after the first of January 1601—nearly six months after leaving Manila Bay, Guillestigui and the crew agreed to seek refuge in the Mariana Islands. But the General soon succumbed to scurvy and died before the Santa Margarita made its landfall in the Mariana Islands.

The Santa Margarita’s new commander, Don Rodrigo de Peralta, wanted to stay only a few days at Rota, but the ship’s pilot spoke up to say that he and the few survivors needed a longer rest before they would be healthy enough to set sail again. A group of the sailors took a rowboat to Rota’s shore to look for a mainmast for the ship and a house in which they and their compatriots could rest and recuperate. Neither the rowboat nor the men were ever seen again. Later evidence showed the party had been murdered by islanders

In the next few days the fate of the Santa Margarita was sealed. On the sixth day, the anchor rope parted, either severed by Spanish sailors or by native Chamorros, who, until then were employed by the Spaniards to man the bilge pumps, the pay being iron objects such as nails and iron barrel hoops. The Spaniards were unaware the anchor rope had parted (or been cut) until the ship struck the reef. The six to eight foot waves pushed by the trade winds repeatedly lifted the ship in the swell and smashed it onto the coral reef. The natives at that point took over the violently rolling ship. They superficially looted the upper decks for iron, which they prized above all other metals. The few surviving Spaniards were thrown overboard, either to drown or to be pulled into an outrigger which took them to shore. If the survivors were healthy, and lucky, they were held as hostages to be ransomed to the next ship; if they were unhealthy or unlucky they were murdered in the killing spree which followed. The natives seemed to compete for the most inventive way of killing their captives. Some Spaniards were buried alive, others were buried except for their head, which then served as a target for native sling contests (see the artifacts section for examples of recovered sling stones). Eyewitnesses reported other methods of killing, such as strangulation or stoning. In one case the mob grabbed a Spaniard and threw him like a spear, headfirst onto sharp rocks.

Despite its great weight and massive dimensions, the Santa Margarita could not stand up to the forces of nature. The ship soon began to break up. The ship, already a derelict kept afloat only by bilge pumps, was pinned to the reef by waves and windage, rolling violently in the surf, with the bow in forty feet of water and the stern in fifteen feet of water. Broken beams from the ship littered the shore, together with cargo which could float. Its cargo of gold jewelry, gems, ivory and porcelain fell into the sand and broken coral, where it was soon covered over and remained hidden for 400 years.

Compared with other Spanish galleons crossing the world’s oceans in 1600, the Santa Margarita was enormous. While there are no records currently available to exactly substantiate the ship’s size, it is believed that the vessel may have weighed as much as 1,400 tons. In comparison, historians have only found records of two Spanish galleons built before 1610 that weighed more than 600 tons. By the time the recovery of the Santa Margarita is completed, much more will be know of its size, construction and final wrecking process.

During the 250-year span of the trade, ship design changed considerably. At the beginning of the period, galleons and naos were the preferred type. Naos had similar lines to galleons but were slightly larger and were more lightly built because they carried fewer guns. By the end of the 16^th Century, galleon lines were becoming more streamlined and the high fore and aft castles had been cut down.

To date, there has been excavation work on two other Manila galleon sites.