Universidad de los Mareantes de Sevilla

The seamen's corporation of the Carrera de Indias. Begun as a Triana confraternity, it founded a house and hospital in 1569, ran a mutual fund out of a levy on every ship's freight that cured sick sailors, ransomed captives and relieved the imprisoned and the orphaned, won the crown's order that a dead sailor's wages go straight to his widow, sat and voted at the pilots' examinations — and gave no vote to the sailors whose wages paid for it.