From fragments of wreckage long hidden in Gulf waters ethnologists expect to piece together a more complete story of the life style of those venturesome Spaniards who were the first Europeans to set their stamp upon the New World. What was the fate of those on board when the treasure- filled vessels foundered and sank not far from Padre's shore? The story of the lost treasure fleet trickled down through the centuries-kept alive by occasional finds of gold coins, uniform buttons and other relics on Padre-but the tragic saga of the passengers and crew is less widely known.
Of the 300 who reached the shore safely, only two survived to tell the grisly story of torture and death as the party was pursued by Indians down Padre's barren sands. Not knowing that water could be obtained by digging in the sand, they were probably doomed even if the Indians had spared their attack. In the group were Spaniards of noble birth, priests, sailors and a number of women and children.
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At first the Indians appeared friendly and gave the wreck victims food, but the Spaniards were distrustful and prepared to use a crossbow which they salvaged. The Indians attacked with bows and arrows and their victims began their hopeless flight down the island, praying to reach Panuco, the first settlement. Their tormentors pursued from a distance and the group stumbling southward grew smaller and smaller. Children were killed before their mothers' eyes.
Thinking it might appease the savages, the Spaniards took off their clothes and left them in piles. The red jackets were torn into strips which the Indians plaited into their hair but they soon resumed their attack. Sunburn increased the victims' suffering from wounds and thirst. The Indians could have been Tonkawas or Camones or perhaps Karankawas, tribes who roamed the coast in search of food.
An accident spelled complete disaster for the survivors. The men constructed a raft to cross a channel cutting across Padre beach from the sea, and in the crossing their only weapon, the crossbow, was lost. With it, they had been able to keep the Indians at some distance. (The inlet or channel probably was Yarborough Pass or possibly Brazos Pass.) Now they were completely at the mercy of the savages. Yet records indicate a few made it across the Rio Grande.
A priest was the sole survivor of the long ordeal on the beach. Unconscious, with an arrow in one eye, and seemingly mortally wounded,
he had been left to die after members of the crew buried him up to his head in sand to give some protection from ants and mosquitoes. Miraculously he came to, was able to dig out of his tomb and wander southward until he was rescued. The only other shipwreck survivor was a sailor who returned to the site of the wrecked ships. He reasoned that Spain would make an attempt to recover the lost cargo and managed to live a year by fishing and using the ship's stores. Authenticated records, which relate experiences of both survivors, state that the Spanish salvage fleets did not succeed in recovering all of the riches in silver and gold, since several ships went down.
Platoro Ltd. apparently exploited the remains of one of four ships comprising the Silver Fleet that sailed from Veracruz in 1553 for Spain. Through Spanish government files at Seville three of the vessels have been identified as San Esteban, Santa Maria de Ysasi and Espiritu Santo. A stiff Antiquities Act passed by the Texas Legislature in 1969 now protects known sites of other buried ships from exploitation.