Pirates and the Gulf Stream and World Conquest
Oh my.
In the land where rum was born, there lived a man who sailed the seas. He told of us his life, in the land among smugglers and thieves.
Actually, he did not tell us of his life. The captain’s logs are lost to the ages and history shrouded the gritty details of Caribbean marauders. The story is notable because it took two hundred years for any European power to mention his discovery on a map. This story is pieced together from ship logs.
There is one man on all the boat registries from the most famous explorers in the Western world. Did anyone else know there was a dude who sailed with Columbus, Cortez, Velazquez and Ponce de Leon? He piloted most of the major discoveries of the Caribbean coasts. He was the first documented use of the Gulf Stream, which became part of the major thoroughfare to exploit the Americas. Alas, modern day is without a complete story. The dude kinda got obscured by the megalomanics slave-running and machete swinging in the name of the Spanish crown. This is a shame because what he discovered, all treasure-laden ships passed to deliver silver, emeralds, sugar and slaves home. All from a sneaky-sneak boat race. More on that later.
This storied captain was named Anton de Alaminos.
In a nutshell:
- Born in the mid-1480s on the Southern coast of Spain.
- Marital and birth records indicated he was absent from the Caribbean conquests, 1505–1513
- It is hard to find anything written on him in English.
- Most coveted pilot in the Caribbean
Anton de Alaminos was an expert at reading water. He came of age on ships sailing from the Canary Islands down the coast of Africa. It was well known amongst sailors at the time to avoid the heavy North Equatorial current because it was neigh impossible to navigate against. Alaminos would have absorbed early on the navigational cues of deep underwater currents.
1502: Ship logs show him on Columbus’ Second Voyage
1513: First European landing in “La Florida” with Ponce de Leon
1514–1517: Documents name Alaminos on the Ortubia expedition piloting slave boats
1518: Famously steered Hernandez Cordoba along the Yucatan Penisula, an expedition that at one point was thought to be lost at sea.
1519: Anton de Alaminos running Grijalva’s second exploration of Mexico’s Yucatan.
Look past the dates: look at how much sea and land this pilot covered. One of the most prestigious pilots in all the land.
1519: Piloted Hernan Cortes conquest of Mexico slash fall of the Aztec Empire
Again, a lot of history. A lot of sea covered.
A quick note on Columbus’ Second Voyage. Before the Age of Exploration. Before the pirates arrived. The advent of slavery in the New World descended as a party of twelve hundred on board seventeen ships. The egomaniacs would disperse, ping-ponging violent conquests in the name of the Spanish crown around the islands. It was a bloodbath. The roster of the second voyage included Diego Velazquez de Cuellon, Ponce de Leon and Aton de Alaminos. (Hernan Cortes was stuck in Spain from a womanizing incident- a habit that will haunt him). It was 1502. The vast empires of the Mongols-specifically the Golden Horde- were fracturing to the East of Europe. Western powers that be-or soon to be-were looking to sea for alternate trade routes.
In a nutshell, over the years: Velazquez de Cuellon became a notrious, violent governor of Cuba while Ponce de Leon would be demoted from governorship in Puerto Rico by Christopher Columbus’ son, Diego. A time of mutiny, betrayal, secrecy and power voids. Perfect set-up for piratey beginnings.
Between Columbus, Velazquez and Cortez, the native populations of the Caribbean would painfully crumble and relations in the New World power void inevitably soured.
Fast forward:
July 1519: Hernan Cortes blatantly disobeyed Governor Diego Velazquez de Cuellon and amassed ships and muscle to conquer Mexico. Velazquez had revoked Cortes privileges to the mission after Cortes got caught with his pants down, again. Cortes recruited Alaminos and together they launched the expedition that would demolish the Aztec Empire…with the eventual blessing of the Spanish crown. Between Cortes and his dreams was Velazquez, who had eyes patrolling the all main Caribbean exits.
Cue Alaminos with a big booty of gold from Aztecs on board an unauthorized ship. Velazquez was notified of the ship headed for the then unamed Straits of Florida. He deployed his fastest ships to detain Alaminos. A lethal game of capture the flag ensued. Alaminos de Aton navigated the boat onto the undocumented massive underwater river which sling-shot him out of harms way and in record time to Spain.
This was first documented use of the Gulf Stream. Alaminos would die in Spain shortly after this voyage.
So how did a famed pilot at the precipice of the Age of Exploration, who utilized revolutionary oceanography skills, die relatively forgotten? It was in the Spanish crowns interest to keep the Gulf stream a secret. For the next two hundred years, all of Spain’s fleets followed this trade route. No one mentioned on a map the massive current.
The first mention of the Gulf stream on a printed map came out in 1769.
It is a lot of water to keep secret. Thirty million cubic meters of water surge past South Florida per second. To put that in perspective, all of the rivers emptying into the Atlantic amount to combined volume of 0.6 million cubic meters per second. It makes sense the Spanish quietly guarded their aquatic highway. It is astounding it took humanity producing Benjamin Franklin to start documenting the phenomenon. In 1845 the USGS began studying the Gulf stream and in 1855 reported:
‘There is a river in the ocean.”
A river of warm water bordered by colder oceanic waters and full of fish and nutrients and a fast, easy current. Before knowledge of this current, half of all Atlantic expeditions were lost at sea. Thousands of ships wrecked off the coast of South Florida yet, Alaminos expertly circumnavigated the straits at speed. It takes a love of the sea to learn her wills and ways intimately. It it with great irony that the Age of Discovery closely guarded its best stories and secrets, like those of Navigator Alaminos de Aton.
