Searching for the lost ships of Cortés

Divers with the research team explore the centuries-old anchor located off the coast of Mexico. Photo: Jonathan Kingston/National Geographic Image Collection Divers with the research team explore the centuries-old anchor located off the coast of Mexico. Photo: Jonathan Kingston/National Geographic Image Collection The discovery of a centuries-old anchor may help a UM researcher find the fleet the Spanish conquistador scuttled before conquering Mexico. In July of 1519, in a brazen act that would upend history, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés ordered his men to sink all but one of the 11 ships they sailed from Cuba to Mexico on a supposed exploratory mission. Nearly 500 years later, the fleet's final resting place remains unknown. But members of an international team of underwater archaeologists who are conducting the first modern-day search for the scuttled vessels, as well as 16 others that Cortés sank a year later, have found an anchor that provides the first compelling clue to the location of the lost ships. They made their discovery by combining archival and historical data about Spanish conquistadors and the Aztec empire with the best available science, technology, and local community knowledge to survey the seafloor for remains of his fleet. "Cortés had two mutinies to quell from men who wanted to return to Cuba, so scuttling those ships was his way of sealing their fate and forcing their allegiance,” said Frederick "Fritz” Hanselmann, director of underwater archaeology at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. "So we know why. But how and where would he do it?