Shipwrecks and Lost Treasures of the Seven Seas

The explanation for this involves various geographical and historical factors. The River Plate and its tributaries form one of the three great hydrographic systems of South America, having a catchment area of 3 million square kilometers. It extends for some 280 kilometers from the lower end of the Parana Delta in the west to a line drawn between the points of Santa Maria (Uruguay) and San Antonio (Argentina) in the east, marking the estuary’s mouth. The bed is covered by alluvial mud washed down by its rivers, a phenomenon which has made the Parana Delta grow by some nine kilometers toward the east during the last 150 years.

The Plate has posed serious problems for navigators owing to several factors: its vast expanse, a lack of deeper channels, the permanent cloudiness of its waters, a profusion of dangerous sand banks and rock shoals, violent and unstable winds and sudden tidal fluctuations. In the early part of the Hispanic period inadequate knowledge of the river simply made matters worse. When great riches in the form of precious metals and stones were found in Mexico, Peru and Columbia, commercial traffic with Spain became established from 1526 through the Caribbean ports of Cartagena, Portobello and Veracruz. Great fleets weighed anchor twice annually, sailing in convoy with fully armed galleons which protected them on the voyage through pirate-infested waters. This arrangement placed the River Plate on the fringes of the trade routes, and the area survived by dealing in contraband. Yet in 1740, within twenty years of Montevideo’s foundation, and when Buenos Aries was but a small town, the Fleet System was abandoned as a result of Admiral Vernon’s raid on Portobello during the 1739 to 1748 war with England. A new route between Peru and Spain via Cape Horn was approved, making both River Plate communities indispensable ports of call. In 1767 it became the terminus of the sea-mail line known as the Buenos Aries Run.

In 1778 King Charles III introduced free trade between the Americas and Spain, thereby sanctioning numerous ports including Buenos Aries and Montevideo, where customs facilities were established in the following year. This led the Spanish Crown to establish the Viceroyalty of the River Plate and the naval station of Montevideo in 1776, controlling the whole of the South Atlantic as far as Antarctica. This activity gave rise to numerous wrecks, whose remains still rest on the bottom of what natives called the parana guazu meaning river as big as the sea.”


The History of the Treasure

The immodestly named El Preciado, a nickname for an unidentified treasure galleon of fabulous wealth, was reputedly sunk by a British pirate ship off Montevideo in 1792. Legend has it that an Irish gunner by the name of Little Red accidentally fired his cannon directly at the Preciados ammunition store with the catastrophic result that the ship exploded and became a total loss. In their wrath the pirates are said to have slaughtered all the survivors and to have banished Little Red to the Isla de Flores, with a bottle of fresh water and a few slaves for company. The treasure, reported to include a life-size gold statue of the Virgin Mary, disappeared without a trace and so the liberated slaves on the Isla de Flores became the beneficiaries of the engagement.