Gold Hidden under the Ballast

[jeff of pa]

Been noticing Comments like this Pretty Often while going through Old Papers
with the Keywords "Gold Hidden"


Iron County register. (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.), 01 Nov. 1900.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...=&proxValue=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=22

Apparently a Well Known Practice Back Then ?

Odd they would Advertise it Though.

 

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[ivan salis]

Spanish folks often hid gold when bringing it back from the new world to avoid paying the 20% kings tax upon any gold being brought back to Spain ..,.that's why the king's men recovered more gold from salvaging the 1715 fleet than what was listed on the ships manifest in the first place ...needless to say the king was very displeased to find out that gold smuggling was so totally out of hand on the 1715 fleet vessels and the Captains had a lot of explaining to do ..

 

[Mackaydon]

Before we discovered and salvaged the Spanish galleon, 'Capitana' (1654), we did the research and noted the same--that the numbers of manifested reales was only a fraction of what was actually on board.
Don......

 

[Boatlode]

I read somewhere that the Spaniards often smuggled gold bars in barrels of indigo dye. The customs inspectors in Spain didn't like to stick their hands in the blue stuff.

As pointed out above, there usually was more contraband treasure than was registered.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Spanish folks often hid gold when bringing it back from the new world to avoid paying the 20% kings tax upon any gold being brought back to Spain ..,.that's why the king's men recovered more gold from salvaging the 1715 fleet than what was listed on the ships manifest in the first place ...needless to say the king was very displeased to find out that gold smuggling was so totally out of hand on the 1715 fleet vessels and the Captains had a lot of explaining to do ..

Yep, more recovered than manifested for the whole fleet, but there were entire ships unfound, and they couldn't get 100% of what went down with the ships they did salvage. I've read that it was estimated the amount of smuggled gold exceeded the total declared value. Also read reports of cannon and anchors cast in gold then painted black in effort to smuggle them. Snitches got 20% for ratting on people so there was incentive both ways.

 

[Tom_Restorer]

Couldn´t it also be that they simply tried to hide gold from beeing looted by pirates?
I mean if someone will hide something under the ballast stones, the captain or crew members would have knowledge of it and must be involved.
Can someone tell more about??
I remember this small bars without any marks wich was found and wich was indeed smuggled gold but they wasn´t found under the ballast.
Regarding the manifests and the stuff wich wasn´t noted in it - when someone ship back from south america to spain, was his entire baggage checked like in this days on airports ??
Specially from high ranking people? I guess they would have seen it as heavy insult in this times if someone checking their entire private stuff.
Would be happy to get any more infos about!!

 

[Chagy]

Don, actually the Capitana is probably the Spanish galleon with more contraband ever found....

 

[TRG]

The Capitana of the 1641 fleet, which made it back to Spain but ran aground on some shoals outside the harbor and had to be salvaged, was also carrying many things not described in the manifest. The court proceedings and testimony concerning the undocumented cargo are one of the sources of information about this fleet.