The Manila-Acapulco Galleons : the Treasure Ships of the Pacific: With an Annotated List of the Transpacific Galleons 1565-1815 by Shirley Fish

Author:Shirley Fish [Fish, Shirley]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781456775438
Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
Published: 2011-05-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Officers and Crew

The men, who were recruited to work on the merchant vessels and the warship galleons in Spain, generally came from the towns and villages of Andalusia and from the Cantabrian coastal areas of the country. In particular, the mariners of the Basque region were highly sought after for work on the vessels as shipwrights, master carpenters and crew members.

If the ship was built in Cavite, then men in Manila, and its surrounding areas, would have been required to man the vessel. Filipinos made up the majority of the men conscripted for work on the ships, while Chinese, Japanese and other Asians in Manila would have joined a ship’s crew as hired employees. As so many vessels arrived in Manila from Asian ports, to sell or buy goods, there would have been sailors aboard those vessels who chose to stay and work in the city. It is clear that the men in charge of the operation and the construction of the vessels were Spaniards, but there were many Mexicans of Spanish descent that chose to work on the galleons for one reason or the other. Perhaps they worked on the ship in return for a free passage home or simply due to the fact that they were professional mariners. Moreover, young Filipino children would have been recruited to work as cabin boys, while slaves were also part of the cultural scene of Manila until the early eighteenth century when Spain banned the practice of slave ownership. They too would have been part of a ship’s crew.

In Spain, the number of men needed to man a warship was initially about 70 (not including soldiers), while a merchant vessel such as the Manila galleon would have required approximately 60 to 100 men or more depending on the size of the vessel. The number of crew on any given vessel would also have fluctuated if the vessel was involved in combat. This was the case with the San Diego galleon when it was involved in a conflict with Dutch enemy vessels in Manila Bay. In December 1600, the vessel carried approximately 300 men, who were mainly soldiers and Spanish dignitaries from Manila.

As example of the number of men needed to crew a Spanish convoy from Spain to the Caribbean, the fleet under the command of Francisco de Coloma in 1594, embarked from the peninsula with twenty vessels and 7,149 crew members distributed amongst the warships and merchant vessels. This meant that on average, each vessel carried 350 men. As a result, a tremendous number of men had to be found in Spain to man the enormous fleets. A similar situation also existed in Manila, but on a much smaller scale. Given the fact that the number of vessels involved in the Spanish fleets ranged from twenty to as many as fifty vessels in some years, the Manila galleon in comparison traveled alone from the Philippines to Mexico. However, the problem of finding suitable crew members was apparently a continuous problem in Manila.

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