In 1264, after Sanlúcar de Barrameda was seized from the Moors by King Alfonso X of Castile, it was reconstituted, and became during the 15th and 16th centuries one of the most important ports for trade connecting the Atlantic coast with the Mediterranean.
After the discovery of the New World, Sanlúcar developed as a port for refitting ships, and was the point of departure for various Spanish conquistadors. On 30 May 1498 Christopher Columbus left for his third voyage from Sanlúcar. Another historical departure was that of Ferdinand Magellan on 10 August 1519, who with a fleet of five ships under his command left Seville and traveled down the Guadalquivir to Sanlúcar de Barrameda at its mouth, where they remained more than five weeks. Sanlúcar also witnessed the arrival in 1522 of the last surviving ship of Magellan's expedition, the Nao Victoriacommanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano, which was the first ship to circumnavigate the world.
Alonso Fernández de Lugo, conqueror of the Canary Islands, of La Palma (1492) and Tenerife(1495), and subsequently the governor of the islands, was born in Sanlúcar
