History
San Esteban was a Spanish cargo ship lost in the Gulf of Mexico on 29 April 1554 off present-day Padre Island National Seashore, one of three vessels wrecked there in a storm while sailing from New Spain toward Cuba with treasure, silver, passengers, and missionaries. The disaster, remembered as the Wreck of the Three Hundred, killed most of those who survived the wrecks but then died from exposure, starvation, thirst, or violence while trying to reach safety. A Spanish salvage effort recovered only part of the cargo. Rediscovered in 1970 and excavated in the 1970s, the site yielded major artifacts and became important to Texas marine archaeology and historic wreck protection.
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