| The Spanish Plate Fleet and Florida's Shoals |
|
|
| August 24, 2009 |
|
When I heard the term “plate fleet” at the Archaeology Institute of the University of West Florida, I had a funny vision of Annette Bening and Michael Douglas in the White House China Room from the movie The American President. Chuckling privately, I asked the archaeologist to explain the term.
The plate fleets were the armed convoy system devised by the Spanish to transport silver (called plata in Spanish) from the New World. Ships carrying plata thus became "the plate fleet." Laden with vast quantities of gold and silver, these ships were under constant threat from pirates, other countries’ marauders and our shallow shoals.
Sandbars like those just off Key Biscayne make wonderful aquatic playgrounds for children, but they mean peril for ships. Today in Florida, we can appreciate this unique history at the San Pedro Underwater Archaeological Preserve in Islamorada, where you can see remnants of the 1733 plate fleet that sank just south of Indian Key.
A little further north is the Urca de Lima Underwater Archaeological Preserve near Fort Pierce, which hosts a 1715 wreck about 200 yards offshore. It’s easy to don a mask and fins and view the wreck in 15 feet of water. Get there via Pepper Park.
If you’d rather stay on terra firma, check out the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West. The brilliant gold there rivals any King Tut exhibit.
As the saying goes, please remember to "take only pictures and leave only bubbles" when you visit these important sites.
There's a tremendous amount of history on Florida's newest heritage website, www.VivaFlorida.org. For more details on the plate fleets, use this link.
|
|
|
|
|
 Forward to a Friend |
|
|
|
| The San Pedro by artist William Trotter |
| Credit: Courtesy of Pineapple Press; provided by Florida Department of State, Bureau of Archaeological Research |
|
|
|
|
Post a Comment