Around the World: Coin Evidence of Port Famine Location
A single Spanish cob discovered in Patagonia is helping archaeologists pinpoint the site of a failed 16th-century colonial settlement at the Strait of Magellan.
Sometimes, the finding of a single coin can be of more significance than that of a treasure ship. Such happened with the discovery of an undated real de a ocho of Philip II of Spain that features the Jerusalem cross on the obverse and the monarch’s coat of arms on the reverse.
At the time this article was written, the coin’s mint was identified as from Potosí, and the estimated year issued had not yet been determined. Potosí, the town whose mint struck the recently discovered coin, was at one time the richest city in South America. Between 1573 and 1773, the Potosí Mint supported the local silver mines in what is today Bolivia. The minting facility was built on the site of the Casa de Jusicia in 1572.
An image of the coin indicates the coin is a cob, which is a crudely fabricated piece from planchets that were produced from a roll similar to a corn cob in appearance. The weight of each coin was more important than its finished product appearance. The coins have been nicknamed “pieces of eight” as they hold the value of eight reales. They were sometimes cut into eight pie-shaped pieces to make change.
The coin was recently discovered at an archaeological dig site meant to identify the location of a failed Spanish colonial American colony at what English navigator Thomas Cavendish named Puerto del Hambre or Port Famine. Cavendish made up the name following his rescue of the only survivor of the ill-fated colony in March 1584.
Port Famine goes by the name Ciudad del Rey Don Felipe today. The former settlement is on the north shore of the Strait of Magellan in the forbidding Region de Magallanes y la Antártica Chilena in Patagonia, Chile. The port is situated between Chile’s southern border with Argentina and the South Pole.
Spain was concerned that Sir Francis Drake had successfully navigated the Strait of Magellan and decided to fortify the Strait. Storms prohibited the initial attempt to move ships and men to the location in 1581. Three years later, Spain established the settlement of Rey Don Felipe with about 300 settlers. The harsh climate and poor soil conditions led to the entire settlement either freezing or starving to death. Cavendish encountered the last survivor, taking him aboard as well as six cannons.
The coin is being used as physical evidence to identify the exact place where representatives of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa established the Spanish settlement.
Gamboa arrived in Mexico from Spain in 1555. It is known that he was later flogged by orders from the Inquisition due to some transgression involving the church. He was exiled to Peru, where in 1580, he was appointed governor and captain-general of the Lands of the Straits of Magellan.
The large amount of silver discovered at Potosí was challenging to mine because of the location's remoteness and high altitude. While it is well known that much of the silver was converted into coinage and then shipped to Spain, a significant amount of the local coinage was used in domestic circulation. Despite Potosí being more than 2,700 miles north of the site at which the coin was found, it makes sense that the coin could have circulated that far away from the place of its origin. The mint at Lima, established in 1568, was closer.
Potosí would be the last of the mints in Spanish colonial America to strike cob coins. Potosí struck milled coins simultaneously beginning in 1767. The shield-type cob coins, such as the example discovered at Port Famine, were produced until 1652, at which time they were recalled and replaced with the so-called pillars and waves type cobs following a debasement scandal.
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