Rediscovering the Pilar Galleon Collection in a Chamoru Context

Recently the Guam Cultural Repository, which is located on the campus of the University of Guam, officially became a part of the Guam Museum and the Department of CHamoru Affairs. We have been preparing for this transition for a while, and despite some bumps in the road, it remains exciting in terms of what it will means for the museum and also allowing the many collections and artifacts from our island's past to be rediscovered and researched anew. Last month, we welcomed one such collection to the Guam Museum that really exemplified this.   

On June 2, 1690, the Spanish treasure galleon Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Zaragoza y Santiago sank in the lagoon near Cocos Island, off the coast of Malesso’. All on board survived, and despite some conflicting accounts, nearly all the treasure on board, which included perhaps 2 million silver coins, was assumed lost.

 

In 1991, a salvage operation began, seeking to recover the galleon’s lost treasure and any artifacts from the wreck. After a decade of searching, around 2,000 artifacts were found, including cannon balls, iron nails, an anchor, but only a few dozen silver coins. For decades these artifacts have been in the care of the Micronesia Area Research Center (MARC) at the University of Guam. 

Last month, we transferred the Pilar Galleon collection to the Guam Cultural Repository. The team at the repository, led by Nicole Delisle Dueñas and Vinessa Dueñas, with the help of Guam Museum Assistants Tonya Dee McDaniel, Eddie Acfalle Jr. and Madison Orland set up an artifact viewing for the media as well as some special guests such as Dr. Mike Carson and emeritus MARC Director Dr. Hiro Kurashina and former UOG Anthropology faculty Rebecca Stephenson.

Looking back into the history of the salvage of the Pilar Galleon it reads like a tale of lost love. For years treasure hunters searched and ultimately didn’t find the trove they hoped for. There had been hopes within the Government of Guam that if hundreds of millions of dollars worth of silver had been found, the share the government was set to receive would be a huge economic boon for the island. Even Joe Murphy at the time in his Pacific Daily News columns was commenting on how the artifacts and any silvers or jewels from the sunken treasure ship, if sufficiently amazing in their value or appearance could be a game changer to Guam’s tourism industry. People might come from around the world to see the treasures of the Pilar if they were elaborate and ornate and expensive enough.

Since none of this materialized, the Pilar was quickly forgotten by most people. But for me, as someone who has dedicated much of my life to Guam and Chamoru history, while there may not be much silver or gold amongst the artifacts, you will find, plenty of exciting artifacts. And in fact, if we are focusing our historical lens not on the dollar signs of today or the Manila-Acapulco Galleon trade route, but instead on what Chamorus of the 17^th century would have prized, then the collection is very precious. For me, what is very exciting is the iron nails.

 

For our ancient ancestors, those who traded with Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries, nails such as these would have been worth far more than gold and silver. Chamorus took them, and with some help eventually tools such as higam/gachai or kamyo, which has used shell or stone before, with metal as the blades.

 

This is particularly important for me, since one of the things that my grandfather said he learned from his father, Tun Mariano L.G. Lujan, a well-regarded blacksmith, is that "manmalåte' i Chamoru." The Chamorus were smart, they know what was valuable. When Magellan first came, they didn't care for their religion, their flags, their promises. But their metal, that what worth something.

This also doesn't touch upon the historical context for the Pilar and when it sunk that is lost when the focus is on the treasure and whether or not it was recovered. When it went down in Malesso' in 1690, this was when Guam had been pacified during the Chamoru Spanish Wars, in its closing years. Those who continued to resist the Spanish and their presence simply left Guam for the northern islands or for other islands in Micronesia. When the Pilar sank, there were proposals that the wood be used to create a boat for the isolated Spanish mission and garrison, so that it could travel to the rest of the Marianas to put down any remaining rebel Chamrous. 

 The lack of connection to the ocean was even apparent for the sinking of the Pilar since it was Chamorus in canoes who saved the crew when it ran aground.  

As the curator for the Guam Museum, it is exciting to accept this collection and others with it from MARC, and help find ways to reintroduce it to the island community, in a Chamoru context.