In 1747, English pirates, who made their fortune by plundering French or Spanish ships, accidentally freed the Sevillian Miguel Atocha from the rape of his wife Francisca Muñoz. “Husband and my dear (…) I would like to know what (sic) the reason is that I have written you thirteen letters without these and none of them have received a reply. I would like to know if there is no paper or pens or ink to even see writing…”
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The letter from the outraged Doña Francisca was intended for the city of Veracruz in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. He traveled aboard the La Ninfa, a commercial sailboat that traveled between that city and Cadiz. It never reached its destination.
It is part of the thousands of documents confiscated from about 130 Spanish ships captured by the British during the War of the Seat (1739–48) and the Pragmatic War of Sanctions (1740–48), in which the Bourbons conquered France and France crowned Spain They allied themselves against Great Britain.
The Prize Papers, the “Prize Documents” or the “Captured Documents”, are all texts in the form of letters, navigational charts, logbooks or commercial lists and inventories contained on enemy ships and captured from British military vessels by both privateers and pirates Capture (price or prize was the captured ship). It is estimated that nearly 35,000 ships were intercepted and plundered and more than 160,000 documents, written in twenty different languages, ended up in English hands.
“The dam documents are fundamental to understanding the first moments of globalization and colonialism,” explains German professor Dagmar Freist, director of the Prize Papers Project. “They are a treasure for the study of topics as diverse as botany, medicine, naval technology, sea routes, diplomacy, trade missions, the slave trade, family relationships, situations of poverty, migrations… “everyday topics.” in a world that has historically become increasingly globalized,” says Freist.
Among the ships captured was the galleon Nuestra Señora de Covadonga, which transported silver worth almost 70 million euros from Acapulco to Manila and was hijacked in the Pacific by British ship captain George Anson. Documents confiscated from the ship included descriptions of daily life on board, the techniques and uses of these galleons, and private letters whose final destination was the Philippines.
Even when looting there is order and discipline. Nothing more British. On the basis of the seized documents, a decision was made before the High Admiralty Court as to whether the seizure was in accordance with the law, whether the captured ship belonged to an enemy power and whether the privateers could therefore dispose of the seized property. All of these papers – as well as personal items such as jewelry, amulets and even toys – were collected into neat files and packages and eventually lay dormant in the United Kingdom’s National Archives for decades. “They were interested in proving who the cargo belonged to. “If it belonged to a neutral merchant in Italy, in Genoa… in any principality, they had to return it, otherwise there would be a legal conflict,” says passionately Elvira Barroso, a Spanish scientist who has been involved in the project for several years volunteer work. “Some letters are sealed. They were never opened. They could have destroyed her and yet they kept her. First in the Tower of London, as part of the Admiralty Historical Archives,” he says.
Religious calling… and passionate love
There’s some juicy gossip in an exercise that simultaneously demands the highest levels of historical and academic accuracy. Immersing yourself in the longings and concerns of family members, lovers, husbands and wives, children and mothers separated by an ocean opens access to special places of intimacy. Elvira sighs as she recounts the letter that Baltasar Moreno wrote to his mother from Lima in 1779 to inform her that he had finally been ordained a priest and that therefore “with all the pain in my heart, I may never do it .” See her again.
More exciting is the text that Alejandro Salamanca, historian at the European Institute in Florence, read from the first to the last line until he almost knew it by heart. Doña Francisca Sevinier writes with passion to her husband Francisco Álvarez, “my dear Panchito”: “However many fortunes and riches you may acquire on these journeys, to my comfort and satisfaction there is nothing that stands out except to give you a thousand. “Kisses (…) Panchito of my life, loving husband of my loins, is it not true that I enjoyed you little and that after our wedding you did not even give me a kiss of your own free will?” Doña Francisca laments in love.
Alejandro Salamanca, historian, shows one of the love letters confiscated from Spanish ship Rafa De Miguel
“This opens up very important research opportunities, since we already know that history often had to be interpreted because there were too many gaps and missing information,” explains Enrique Torres Piñeiro, director of the Institute of Naval History and Culture and vice admiral of the reserve London came to attend the presentation of the project. “These prison papers contain a lot of private correspondence, and here you learn much more about what really happened than in the official documents,” he emphasizes.
The project promises unimagined and surprising research opportunities. The texts, which researchers can access in detail through the portal created by the National Archives, cover relationships and exchanges as wide-ranging as the globalization that was then beginning. Ms. Sasportas, who was part of the Sephardic Jewish community that left Spain and landed in Holland, tells her cousin (or husband?) Aaron, who lives in Salé (Morocco), how much they experienced the hardships of a war-torn city in poverty and depression until she had to hire a wet nurse because her breasts had dried out. The letter never reached its recipient. The Dutch sailing ship Gooede Hoop was captured by the British in 1702 during the Battle of Vigo Bay.
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