Santa Leocadia

The final voyage

The frigate Santa Leocadia departed Callao, the port of Lima, on 7 November 1800 under Captain Antonio (Gómez) Barreda, carrying royal treasury funds destined for Panama — declared at more than a million pesos in gold and silver coin, alongside privately shipped silver [1](https://thomasnumismatics.com/actualites/tresor-santa-leocadia/). Late on the evening of 16 November 1800, her pilot ran her onto a shoal near Point Santa Elena, close to shore; the ship sank with roughly 140 lives lost.

The loss occurred against a backdrop of British privateering activity threatening Spanish Pacific trade, a context examined in scholarly naval history of the period [2](https://ijnh.seahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2012/01/article_guerra.pdf). Spanish colonial authorities, who knew the wreck's location, mounted salvage operations; later accounts describe most of the declared treasure eventually being recovered, though this report treats such recovery percentages as historical tradition rather than an audited figure.

What was aboard

Spanish colonial correspondence documents a declared treasury shipment of more than 1,000,000 pesos; no itemized public manifest breaking this down coin-by-coin has been located, and this report does not adopt unverified recovery-percentage claims as fact.

Royal treasury silver: The bulk of the declared cargo, over 1,000,000 pesos consigned to Panama for the Spanish crown.

Lima-minted 8 reales: Milled portrait ('bust') dollars of Charles IV struck at the Lima mint — the correct coinage type for this 1800 loss, not the earlier Pillar-type dollars discontinued decades before.

Private silver: Additional coin and older, worn Potosí-type pieces shipped privately and not included in the crown's declared total.

How to collect

Expect bust dollars, not Pillar dollars: By 1800 the Lima mint had long since switched from Pillar-type to portrait ('bust') milled coinage; correct any listing that describes Pillar dollars from this wreck.

Ask for Ecuadorian recovery documentation: Material said to be from this wreck should carry a stated recovery history and any applicable Ecuadorian export authorization.

Be skeptical of precise recovery-percentage claims: Figures describing what share of the treasure was recovered historically are traditional estimates, not verified accounting.

Distinguish from the nearby Consolación wreck: Two separate Spanish losses occurred near this stretch of coast more than a century apart; confirm which wreck a given coin is attributed to.