San Pedro, 1596
Country: Bermuda
Place: Western reefs of Bermuda, in a sand hole surrounded by coral, about 25 ft (7.6 m) deep
Coordinates (approximate): 32.4408, -64.8405
Type: Merchant nao
Identified: Tentatively, as the San Pedro, a 350-ton merchant nao of the New Spain fleet lost in Bermuda in 1596
Dated: 1596
Beam: Unknown.
Keel Length: Unknown.
Length Overall: Unknown.
Number of Masts: Unknown.
History of the wreck
The wreck was discovered by Teddy Tucker and Donald Canton in the 1950s and became known as the “Tucker Canton Treasure Wreck”. Tucker and Canton recovered several artefacts and guns and sold them to the Bermuda Monument Trust; they were kept at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo and later transferred to the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Tucker and Mendel Peterson of the Smithsonian Institution revisited the site in 1957, 1960 and 1961.
In 1966 the Bermuda National Geographic-Smithsonian Expedition surveyed the western reefs with a surface-towed magnetometer and revisited the wreck, which was tentatively identified as the San Pedro, a 350-ton merchant nao of the New Spain fleet lost in Bermuda in 1596.
In 1987 the staff of the Bermuda Maritime Museum began studying Tucker’s collection, which contains artefacts from many wrecks whose provenance was not recorded. A field season mapped the site and tried to locate hull remains; apart from some wood fragments, none were found in a test trench (Hoyt 1972; Peterson 1972, 1973; Smith 1978).
Description of the site
The site is a sand hole surrounded by coral, about 25 ft (7.6 m) deep. Ceramics, ostrich eggshells and iron concretions helped the researchers relocate it in 1987.
Figure 1. Site plan (source to be confirmed).
Cargo
Tools: a claw hammer and an axe. Navigation instruments: a mercury hourglass, two pairs of brass dividers (10.8 cm long) decorated with an X pattern on the upper legs, and the remains of three small sandglasses, probably filled with black marble dust, one of them blown as a single piece. Health and hygiene: a Dutch bronze mortar and a pewter clyster syringe.
Other objects: the carved staff of office of an Indian chief, black palmwood bows and arrows, a ground-stone mace head, gold bullion (cigar-shaped bars and disc ingots), French and Spanish silver coins (of more than a thousand, only one survives in the museum), some found in a pigskin pouch, jewellery, Swatow porcelain, stoneware, earthenware, glazed wares (Seville blue-on-blue, Santo Domingo blue-on-white, green-glazed Mérida type), ostrich eggshells, bronze and pewter ware, and large flat-bottomed and egg-shaped olive jars.
Personal possessions: a hexagonal lead box with reliefs of a man in armour and a woman in a dress, an inkwell, a gold reliquary cross set with six emeralds and engraved with Moresque designs on the back, three sets of pearl dress jewels, glass jewellery (higa), and pearl-studded buttons.
Ballast
Flint ballast, analysed by the British Museum, apparently from France or Cornwall, England.
Anchors
An anchor was raised in the 1950s and sold to the Bermuda Monument Trust.
Guns
Six cast-iron guns and four wrought-iron swivel guns (versos) were raised and sold to the Bermuda Monument Trust. Only one cast-iron gun, a falcon 186.7 cm long with a 5.7 cm bore and trunnions below the centreline, was conserved; its carriage was not treated and is lost.
Four breech chambers for swivel guns of two types were found: almost cylindrical with a stepped neck and shoulder and a handle attached at both ends, and almost conical with a handle open at one end. One was still loaded with powder (carbonaceous, with hardwood charcoal), flint pebbles and a tow wad.
Six types of shot were identified: round shot of 3.64-6.25 cm, average weight 680 g; boduques (lead- or brass-covered iron dice) of 4.50-6.74 cm, average weight 907 g; cross-bar and langrel shot. There were also brass grenades and personal weapons: six wooden stocks from matchlock weapons (probably harquebuses and muskets), a copper pot full of musket balls, linked shot, a soldier’s steel helmet and breastplate, a cutlass and a boarding axe.
Iron concretions
Many iron concretions were found and left on site in 1987.
Hull Remains
No hull remains have been reported, apart from wood fragments, the flint ballast and ship’s fittings. More than ten complete spikes, 10-24.3 cm long, with flat square heads and square shanks, were recovered.
Rigging and fittings: three lap-welded fiddle-shaped deadeye strops, one with a wrought-iron chain link still attached; an eyebolt and swivel fitting with eight chain links ending in a ring; a bronze sheave from a block; and an iron gudgeon strap 33 cm long, with flared ends 15 cm wide narrowing to 10 cm at the hinge, a hammer-welded ring 8.5 cm in diameter, and seven fastener holes apparently made before the ring was welded.
Keel, keelson and mast step
Not reported.
Frames
Not reported.
Planking
Not reported.
Ceiling, thick stuff, and wales
Not reported.
Caulking
Not reported.
Size and scantlings
Not reported.
Wood
Not reported.
Bibliography
Hoyt, C. A. 1972. “Bermuda in the age of exploration: preliminary report on artifacts from a late 16th-century shipwreck.” Bermuda Journal of Archaeology and Maritime History 2: 25-60.
Peterson, M. L. 1972. “Buried treasure beneath the Spanish Main.” Unesco Courier: 23-27.
Peterson, M. L. 1973. “Bermuda underwater expedition, 1966.” National Geographic Society Research Reports, 1966 Projects: 213-218. [Pages to be checked; the source gives 213-128.]
Smith, R. 1978. New World Shipwrecks 1500-1800: A Compendium of Sites Salvaged or Excavated: 18-19.