The Concepción was a large galleon built in Spain in 1620.  It sailed from Cadiz on April 21, 1640 with the New Spain and arrived safely at Veracruz two months later, on June 24. The only incident during the voyage was an   attack by pirates that was promptly driven off by the ship’s 40 guns.

Already an old ship, the Concepción was much affected by a decision to keep it in the New World for an entire year.  Before sailing to Havana and Spain the ship was repaired and careened, and then loaded with a large cargo of silver.  The voyage to Havana was a difficult one that lasted 35 days due to contrary winds.  Repaired once again, and loaded with new and fresh provisions,  the Concepción left Havana with the remaining fleet, bound for Spain, on September 20, 1641.  Nine days later the entire fleet was caught by a hurricane.  The Concepción, greatly damaged,  tried to sail to Puerto Rico.  Lost in the ocean the ship struck an uncharted reef north of Hispaniola on October 31.  The violent sea broke the hull.  The crew built a number of rafts and many managed to sail to Hispaniola.

All the attempts to find the wreck and rescue the treasure failed, and the news of the lost galleon spread.  It was only about 45 years later that the treasure of the Concepción would be salvaged.

A lumber trader from Massachusetts named William Phips managed to get financial support from the king of England, James II, and in 1687 found the wreck with the help of a Spanish survivor.  With two vessels, the James and Mary and the Henry, and a crew of native divers,  he managed to salvage 68,511 pounds of silver and a small quantity of gold – of which 10% reverted to the king .  Phips paid his backers and kept a large sum.  Almost immediately Phips sailed back to salvage more treasure but upon arrival he realized that the site had been extensively salvaged by other parties and gave up after a few days.  His partner in this venture, Sir John Narbourough, died on the site and was thrown overboard wrapped in an hammock and weighed with some cannon balls.  Phips, now the rich and famous Sir William Phips, eventually became the governor of Massachusetts, and military leader of the colony.  After failing both these commitments, he went back to treasure hunting in 1695 but never found anything else, and died soon afterwards of a fever, exactly 8 years after he found the first silver on the Concepción.

The site of the loss of the Concepción eventually became known as the Silver Bank, but the story of its treasure was soon forgotten.  After World War II, however, the development of diving equipment brought new treasure hunters to the reef.  In 1952 a man named Alexandre Korganoff failed to find the hull of the Concepción.  The same fate waited the efforts of Edwin Link in 1955 and Jacques Cousteau in 1968.

Another attempt was made by a treasure hunter named Burt Weber, backed by a group of Chicago bankers.  He spent 250,000 dollars and found 13 wrecks, but not the one of the Concepción.  A new attempt was made in 1978, this time backed by 30 investors who eventually gathered 2,5 million dollars, and the help of an historian who had found the log of the Henry, one of Phips’ ships.  Burt Weber was successful, finding the remains of the Concepción deeply embedded in the coral reef.  Weber found silver in bulk, in coins, and worked into several kinds of artifacts.  He also found a few gold chains, and Ming porcelain from the Manila Galleons.