07/02/2022
For centuries, beeswax and Chinese porcelain have washed ashore on Nehalem Spit, on the north Oregon Coast. After years of research in archives around the world in combination with archaeological evidence, scholars were able to point to the Santo Cristo de Burgos, a seventeenth-century Manila galleon owned by the kingdom of Spain, as the mysterious vessel commonly known today as the “Beeswax Wreck.” On June 16, National Geographic announced that state officials had confirmed the recovery of timbers from the Santo Cristo de Burgos near Manzanita. In summer 2018, the Oregon Historical Quarterly, published a ground-breaking special issue on this research, a powerful combination of archaeological and archival evidence solving this centuries-old mystery. In light of the recent discovery of remains from the wreck, OHS has recently made this special issue of OHQ, “Oregon’s Manila Galleon,” available for free online.
“Our understanding of the history of the Beeswax Wreck is because of the knowledge and scholarship shared by dedicated individuals from across disciplines and centuries; everything from Native oral tradition to archival research to maritime archaeology has brought new information to the public about one of Oregon’s most fascinating mysteries,” said Oregon Historical Quarterly Editor Eliza E. Canty-Jones. “With this exciting discovery of timbers from the ship itself, OHS is proud to make this scholarship accessible to all to provide a more complete narrative of this fascinating piece of Oregon history.”
Read the full issue online at ohs.org/beeswaxwreck.
Image Credit: Cover, Sumer 2018 issue of the Oregon Historical Quarterly. The painting on the cover of the issue, by Tom Lovell, shows the destruction of a Spanish treasure fleet by a hurricane in July 1715 as it traveled from Havana, Cuba, to Spain. Eleven of the twelve ships in the fleet wrecked near present day Vero Beach, Florida. Recovery of timbers from the Santo Cristo de Burgos prove the ship suffered a similar fate. Image courtesy of Tom Lovell/National Geographic Creative.