Spain formalized convoys of galleons sailing between Seville and the Americas twice yearly, using the Gulf Stream and trade winds to create the most regularized transatlantic travel schedule of the early modern world.

The establishment of the Spanish Treasure Fleet System (Flota de Indias) in 1566 shaped colonial American literary culture, producing a genre of shipwreck narratives. Baroque poets in Spain and the Americas wrote of gold, distance, and empire, using the fleet as a structuring symbol to reflect on themes of wealth, adventure, and the moral complexities of colonialism.