16th-century silver coin discovered near Strait of Magellan marks the spot of a doomed Spanish colony
Archaeologists have discovered a Spanish coin placed on the shore of the Strait of Magellan in southern Chile as part of a ceremony held by settlers more than 400 years ago.
The coin is a vital clue for archaeologists investigating a colonial settlement there, because it matches a surviving 1584 account of the Christian ceremony involving the coin, a common practice during the founding of Spanish colonial settlements. The discovery also validates an ancient map of the long-lost colony.
“This discovery represents a rare and powerful point of convergence between written sources and archaeological evidence,” Soledad Gonzalez Diazlead researcher of the project and historian at the Bernardo O’Higgins University of Santiago, told Live Science.
Article continues below
“This not only helps confirm the location and layout of key structures within the colony, but also opens up new possibilities for reconstruction. [its] spatial organization,” she said.
The piece “8-real” (“real de a ocho” in Spanish and the original pirate “piece of eight”) was struck in silver in the 16th century. It was discovered in March during archaeological digs at the site of Ciudad del Rey Don Felipe, a doomed Spanish colony founded on the northern shore of the Strait of Magellan in 1584.
The coin was found atop a stone in the underground foundations of the colony’s first church. (Historical reports suggest there may have been more than one church.) González Díaz said that all of Spain’s colonies in the New World were founded with similar ceremonies and that an account of the exact location was given in the writings of Spanish navigator Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, who had placed the coin on the stone.
Many of these same researchers had used Sarmiento de Gamboa’s writings to locate two bronze cannons at the site in 2019, and the latest discovery is further evidence of its accuracy, she said.
Condemned colony
The Spanish crown founded the colony Rey Don Felipe in 1584 in response to reports that the English privateer Francis Drake had used the Strait of Magellan to sail between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in 1578. (The English were Spain’s enemies at the time.)
The strait had been explored in 1520 by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who was then sailing to Spain, and for many years it was the only known passage to the Pacific. Spain claimed land on both sides of the strait and hoped to fortify them so enemies could not pass through.
But the colony founded to support the fortifications – nicknamed Ciudad del Rey Don Felipe, after the Spanish King Philip II – was a disaster. Most of its approximately 350 settlers died of disease, hunger, and extreme cold within a few years of the colony’s founding. Spain had attempted to resupply the Rey Don Felipe colony. But the ships were destroyed by storms and the idea was abandoned after the capture of Sarmiento de Gamboa by the English in 1586. The crew of an English ship in 1587 reported that the colony was in ruins, with only a few survivors.
Historical discovery
During their investigations of the doomed settlement, archaeologists mapped it using metal detectors and geolocation instruments, which allowed researchers to precisely pinpoint the location of the underground stone and coin. Francisco Garridoarchaeologist at the National Museum of Natural History of Chile in Santiago, told Live Science.
The location allowed the team to better understand the layout of the 16th-century settlement. “Now we can know for sure that this is the place where the church stood, and from there it is easy to know where all the other structures were built,” Garrido said.
Another member of the research team, an archaeologist from the University of Southern Chile Simon Urbinatold Live Science that the piece helped validate Sarmiento de Gamboa’s map of the colony but that other structures still need to be verified.
“Evidence for cabins, churches and defensive stockades is not yet entirely clear or confirmed archaeologically,” he said in an email, adding that further excavation was needed to confirm the existence of these structures.
The team’s work showed that the site had been populated by indigenous people before and after the colonial era, suggesting that it was chosen by the Spanish in the hope that they would have a chance of surviving there.
But the Spanish quickly ran out of food. “The first winter must have had a heavy impact on the adult population that arrived from Spain and was expected to hunt in unfamiliar territory,” Urbina said.
