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La Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion struck the Los
Abrojos reef, 60 miles north of Haiti after being severely
damaged in a hurricane in 1659. Her cargo: one hundred tons
of silver and gold coin and bullion.
A survivor of wreck passed the
location of the Concepcion's resting place to an Englishman
named William Phips.
Phips, sponsored by King Charles II, set off to locate
the wreck of the Concepcion in 1683. Arriving at Los Abrojos
reef he realised that he wasn't the only person searching
for treasure, other ships were already there.
Realising that his small ship and crew would be unable to
fight off the other ships that had gathered in search of the
treasure, Phips returned to England to try and secure a
heavily armed war ship to escort him back to the Los Abrojos
reef. He found several wealthy backers including the Duke of
Albemarle who provided him with
a total of three ships, two of which were heavily armed.
The three ships reached Haiti in 1686. One of the ships,
the Henry, was sent to the search area immediately,
the others stayed behind at Porto Plata. On the first day of
the renewed search at the Los Abrojos reef, a member of the
diving team paddling a canoe over the site spotted a strange
looking sea plant amongst the coral below him, diving down
to retrieve it, he saw several bronze canon. Search
operations ended and salvage began.
In the days that followed the divers recovered thousands
of silver coins and a number of silver bars.
The Henry returned to Porto Plata with the
treasure and Phips ordered all three ships to the site to
begin full scale salvage of the Concepcion's precious cargo.
When Phips eventually returned to England, he carrying
treasure worth £300,000. That's £300,000 in the money of
1687, it would be countless millions today. The bulk
of the Concepcion's treasure was still on the sea bed, Phips
had only managed to recover one third of the Concepcion's
registered cargo.
Phip's primitive tools were not up to the challenge of
cutting through the growth of coral that had covered the
wreck site. Try as he might, he couldn't break into the
Concepcion's Plate Room - where the vast majority of the
silver was stored.
Ted Falcon-Barker
In 1967, Ted Falcon-Barker, an Australian treasure
hunter and two companions arrived at the site to try their luck at locating the
wreck and breaking into the Plate Room with modern
explosives. They found 96 gold
gold coins (all the coins were from the reign of Ferdinand &
Elizabeth 1497-1516), a solid gold crucifix and a life sized solid gold finger, possibly from a
statue the Concepcion was believed to be carrying.
The treasure hunt ultimately ended in disaster. Whilst on
route to Port Royal for repairs to their boat and to pick up
supplies, the crew dropped anchor over night
in a small bay on the coast of Haiti where they were boarded by
thieves. One of the crew, Hugh MacDonald, received a stab
wound that would later prove fatal.
Falcon-Barker shot one of the boarders with a harpoon gun
before firing on the rest of the would be pirates with the
shotgun he had onboard, but it was too late for poor Hugh,
the damage was already done, the knife had punctured his
lung and so far from proper medical care he didn't stand a
chance.
Falcon-Barker wrote a book about his attempts at
salvaging the treasure of the Concepcion (Devils Gold,
Nautical Publishing Company, 1969) which is well worth
getting, if you can find it.
Alexandre Korganoff
Alexandre Korganoff was another treasure hunter who went
in search of the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion...
Further Reading
Devils Gold by Ted Falcon-Barker, Nautical Publishing
Company, 1969.
Buy on Amazon.co.uk
Buy on Amazon.com
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