The Spanish treasure fleet, also called silver fleet, plate fleet (from the Spanish plata meaning "silver"), or West Indies Fleet from Spanish Flota de Indias, was a convoy system adopted by the Spanish Empire from 1566 to 1790. The convoys were general purpose cargo fleets used for transporting a wide variety of items, including agricultural goods, lumber, various metal resources, luxuries, silver, gold, gems, pearls, spices, sugar, tobacco, silk, and other exotic goods from the Spanish Empire in the Americas to Spain. Manufactures such as tools and other everyday items as well as Spanish colonisers were transported in the opposite direction.
Read more about Spanish Treasure Fleet: History, The Flow of Spanish Treasure
Famous quotes containing the words spanish, treasure and/or fleet:
“The Bermudas are said to have been discovered by a Spanish ship of that name which was wrecked on them.... Yet at the very first planting of them with some sixty persons, in 1612, the first governor, the same year, “built and laid the foundation of eight or nine forts.” To be ready, one would say, to entertain the first ship’s company that should be next shipwrecked on to them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have had no other treasure in this world than to see you once perfect and complete, as much in virtue, honesty and wisdom, as in all free and honest learning, and so leave you after my death like a mirror representing my person—your father—if not as excellent in fact as I would wish, certainly so in desire.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“They ... fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)