CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — It was April 29, 1554 when three Spanish treasure ships wrecked off the coast of Padre Island due to a storm.
The wreck happened near present-day Port Mansfield, according to the Texas State Historical Association. It is believed that half or more of the people on board drowned before they could reach the beach.
The San Esteban, the Espíritu Santo, the Santa María de Yciar, and the San Andrés had set out from Mexico on April 9, bound for Spain.
San Esteban, Espíritu Santo, and Santa María de Yciar were swept off course and ran aground on the sandbars off Padre Island, about 50 miles south of Corpus Christi Bay. More than 300 people died during the event which has become known as “The Wreck of the Three Hundred.” Only the San Andrés escaped the storm, historians said.
The group of survivors thought they could take a short journey back to Mexico by land but soon after came across a group of local Karankawa Indians, which would end their journey, historians said. Only one survivor, Fray Marcos de Mena, reached Pánuco.
A Spanish salvage expedition arrived at the site of the wrecks within two months and managed to recover less than half of the 1 million ducats (a gold coin used in trade) the ships were carrying.
The remains of the three ships were then undiscovered until the late 1960s. Artifacts recovered from the San Esteban are now in the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History.
Information from the Texas State Historical Association.
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