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Erica Barris
This is Planet Money from NPR.
Mary Childs
Ten years ago, Mike Purcell was on one of his missions on a ship in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Colombia. And for about a week at every night, he had been sending out his autonomous underwater vehicle to search the sea floor.
Mike Purcell
I bet if you go along that coast of Columbia, every four miles, there's.
Erica Barris
A ship, a sunken ship. This autonomous vehicle that Mike helped develop is like a little underwater drone. It would scan the bottom of the ocean and record whatever it came across. And one day, it came across a very, very big object.
Mike Purcell
Yeah, we see something in the sonar.
Erica Barris
That is a possible yes, a possible yes. Mike gets called in for all kinds of jobs like this. He was once asked to find Amelia Earhart's plane. No luck. Another time, to locate this Air France plane that went down between Rio de Janeiro and Paris. That one they did find.
Mary Childs
This time, a private group and the Colombian government wanted his help finding a 300-year-old shipwreck that was the stuff of legend. The span, the San Jose. It was one of the most famous shipwrecks and maybe the most valuable one of all.
Erica Barris
Time to investigate. They sent the drone back down to take pictures. And when the images came back up, Mike and his team crowded around this one guy's desk to see what they'd found.
Mike Purcell
You know, we're down in this, you know, pretty old ship in this room that's a big. Probably smaller than your closet. And he's at his desk here, and we're just looking at it. And I'm behind him looking down at the pictures.
Erica Barris
And as they look at these grainy black and white underwater images from a few meters off the seafloor, they start to make things out.
Mike Purcell
There is part of the hull, the wood Hall. There's 100 teacups sitting on the surface.
Erica Barris
A hundred teacups just lying there, nestled into the sand next to the fish and crabs.
Mike Purcell
Well, we saw cannons. We saw the anchor. We start taking the pictures and put them together, like, in a little bit of a mosaic. You can see an outline of the ship.
Mary Childs
And they see, no joke, a bunch of gold coins.
Erica Barris
I feel like my, like, image of what a shipwreck looks like is literally that, like, a chest with gold coins spilling out of it. And that's. Yeah, you're telling Me. That's actually real. That's actually what the picture showed you?
Mike Purcell
Yeah. Well, they weren't really spilling out, but they were there.
Erica Barris
Maybe not in a chest, but scattered about the sea floor. Mike and his team were pretty sure this was the San Jose.
Mike Purcell
We found it. We knew we found it.
Mary Childs
The San Jose was a Spanish galleon that sank in 1708 with billions of dollars worth of gold and silver and teacups aboard.
Erica Barris
They sent the big news back about a week later. When they returned to port, they were told they had a visitor.
Mike Purcell
Then the president. And they came on board, and we chatted with him briefly about finding it.
Erica Barris
Wait, you chatted with the president of Columbia?
Mike Purcell
Yes.
Erica Barris
So was he so excited? Yeah.
Mike Purcell
He was very happy it was found. There's no doubt about that.
Erica Barris
This was 10 years ago. And that shipwreck is still sitting on the bottom of the sea floor. Because while the Colombian government is clearly invested in this ship, they are not the only ones. The battle that sank the San Jose was fierce, and so is the battle over who deserves control of its shipwreck and all its billions of dollars of treasure.
Mike Purcell
Maybe it turns out to be 20 billion, maybe it's 5 billion. I don't know. But it seems to me that they're lining up to fight over who gets it. So who will make out in the end here?
Mary Childs
I'm not sure, but are you in line? Do you have a seat?
Mike Purcell
All I want is a teacup.
Mary Childs
Just a teacup.
Erica Barris
Hello, and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Erica Barris.
Mary Childs
And I'm Mary Childs. So the San Jose shipwreck was found, but it is not clear who it actually belongs to. Turns out shipwrecks with billions of dollars worth of stuff on them can get pretty confusing and contentious. Colombia, Spain, American financiers, South American indigenous groups. Everyone wants a say in what should happen to the San Jose.
Erica Barris
And because the laws that govern this stuff can overlap and the jurisdictions can be so murky, every single group kind of has a valid argument. Today on the show, the fight for the san Jose. What 1 300-year-old shipwreck can teach us about just how hard it is to untangle the legacy of colonialism?
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Mary Childs
Market trends tend to tell us that time is on the side of the investor. Remaining invested through periods of highs and lows is generally one of the better ways to build wealth over the long term.
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Erica Barris
Colombians, the ship that Mike Purcell found plays a huge role in the country's cultural imagination. To them, it was another El Dorado, the lost city of gold. The great Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez even wrote about the ship. In Love in the Time of Cholera, one of the characters wants to recover the San Jose so the woman he loves can bathe in gold.
Juan Manuel Santos
I quite frankly thought it was a legend.
Mary Childs
This is Juan Manuel Santos.
Juan Manuel Santos
So I really didn't give that importance to the San Jose until we found it.
Mary Childs
He was the president of Colombia from 2010 to 2018, the one who shook Mike Purcell's hand after they found the San Jose in 2015.
Erica Barris
President Juan remembers vividly when he found out that Mike's team had located the shipwreck.
Juan Manuel Santos
The minister called me and woke me up, and when I said, listen, I think it's 2:00 in the morning, oh my God, Mr. President, I'm so sorry, but I have good news. And she told me, how did you.
Erica Barris
Feel at that moment?
Juan Manuel Santos
I thought, my God, God is in our side. And I started to say, how are we going to rescue it? How are we going to sell it to the world? Also, the type of legal fights that.
Mary Childs
We were going to have, he could see the legal fights coming. But President Juan, he was pretty confident that Colombia would win those fights because for years people had been beating down his door trying to work with the government to search Colombia's waters for the San Jose. Finally, one group got through, the group that Mike Purcel was working with, and they made a deal to work together and find it. And then they could figure out what to do with whatever profits.
Erica Barris
And then they found it. So President Juan says, it's theirs. That's how it works.
Juan Manuel Santos
I remember because I studied, worked and studied in Great Britain, and I'm not a lawyer, but I remember something from the British law that the British had always applied that principle that said finders keepers. So if you find it, you keep it. So I'm going to apply that law to the galleon. Finder keepers, the galleon is ours.
Mary Childs
Okay, so you're already doing all these machinations in your head.
Juan Manuel Santos
Yes, yes, yes. I mean, I didn't sleep that night.
Mary Childs
And finders keepers is a legitimate legal argument. It's called the law of finds. If someone finds a shipwreck or cargo, they have the rights to it so long as that thing was abandoned.
Erica Barris
And Colombia did find it because Mike Purcell and his Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, his group was working with the Colombian government. And the San Jose has been sitting at the bottom of the sea for over 300 years. That sounds abandoned.
Mary Childs
Now, the law of finds mostly applies to ships found in international waters. This ship was in Colombia's territorial waters. And According to the UN's Convention on the Law of the Sea, countries have some jurisdiction over a certain area off their shores and over the removal of archaeological and historical objects found in there.
Erica Barris
Not long after he heard the news, President Juan gave a speech standing at the naval base in Caltagena about how Colombia was bearing witness to one of the greatest discoveries in the history of humanity.
Juan Manuel Santos
Si nona historia de la humanidad.
Mary Childs
President Juan is no longer the president, but he says the nation wants to salvage the San Jose and to build a museum. That's the plan.
Juan Manuel Santos
This is a Colombian galleon, and we will do with the galleon what we think we should do.
Erica Barris
But historically, it's kind of not a Colombian galleon. It was a Spanish Spanish ship from Spain. To learn its history and learn about Spain's claim, we called up a Spanish expert in these types of artifacts, Ricardo Sans Marcos. Muy bien. Muy bien. Como estas?
Mary Childs
The San Jose was built in the late 1600s, and this ship was fancy. It weighed more than 1,000 tons. It was built of wood that could withstand the salty seas and was reinforced with iron. It had three masts and 64 brass cannons which were etched with dolphins. Ricardo says the San Jose was a state of the art ship.
Erica Barris
Ricardo says it had all the latest technology for the 17th century. It was like a rocket built to go to Mars. Spain was a global superpower, and the route the San Jose took was iconic. La carrera de Indias, the maritime network that connected Spain to the Americas and Asia and created what is often called the first era of globalization. The period when Spain helped to establish.
Juan Manuel Santos
This global network of trades de Mexico.
Erica Barris
He says Spain was sending ships all over the world, moving porcelain and silk that came from China, gold and silver from the Americas. Great for Spain.
Mary Childs
But not everyone liked it, including the English. England and Spain were at war over trade and colonies. And In June of 1708, the San Jose was going from what is now Panama to the coast of Cartagena. Before starting its journey to Spain, an English ship showed up to seize what was on board. They shot a cannonball into the San Jose, but that ball hit the ship's powder reserves, so boom, the ship sank, along with nearly 600 men, which makes.
Erica Barris
This shipwreck site a Spanish war grave.
Mary Childs
This ship was never abandoned. Spain says it's theirs, and that is why they also have a claim to the San Jose.
Erica Barris
The San Jose was flying the Spanish flag when it sank. And warships generally have something called sovereign immunity, which means they fall under their country's jurisdiction no matter where they are.
Mary Childs
So our expert, Ricardo, who does not work for the Spanish government, says the San Jose does not belong to Colombia. It belongs to Spain.
Erica Barris
No Cabeduda. Without a doubt. Ricardo likens it to a sunken embassy.
Mary Childs
And also he says it's a piece of history, Spain's history. It's like a time capsule from the day it sank.
Erica Barris
He says it has information about how the boat was constructed, what they ate, what they carried, where that stuff came from.
Mary Childs
And Spain has successfully made this argument before. Ricardo says about 20 years ago, different Americans found a different Spanish boat sunk by the English. Apparently, that happened a lot. They recovered more than 500,000 silver and gold coins. And a US court said the Spanish boat had sovereign immunity, so Spain ended up getting the coins. Ricardo says the same law should be applied to the San Jose.
Erica Barris
Now, Spain has tried to insert itself into other recent legal proceedings around this galleon, but to date, it hasn't brought its own legal case based on sovereign immunity. Spain did put out a public statement that described the San Jose as an underwater tomb that, quote, cannot be subject to commercial exploitation, end quote. In other words, don't just haul off the silver and gold and dump the rest.
Mary Childs
So that is Spain's claim to the San Jose. It is an historical claim, but if.
Erica Barris
We'Re talking historical claims, there's another group with a claim that goes south slightly further back in history, because while the ship itself may have come from Spain, that was not true of everything on board. To hear this claim, I called up Tata Samuel Flores Cruz. He was in Potosi, Bolivia, which he says is in the jurisdiction of the indigenous Cara Cara nation. He's one of the leaders of the Cara Car.
Mary Childs
He says his interest in the San Jose began back in the 1990s.
Mike Purcell
Cuando saluda penicula Titanics.
Mary Childs
The movie Titanic had just come out. There were documentaries about it. And one of those documentaries made a reference to the San Jose, and he Was like, wait, that's a ship that we, the Cara Cara, have a connection to. He says a lot of the silver and gold on the ship came from their land.
Erica Barris
The Potosi.
Mike Purcell
Si de Potosi.
Erica Barris
Potosi is home to mines, gold and silver. One of the world's largest silver deposits was in Potosi. Tata Samuel says he became kind of obsessed with the San Jose.
Mary Childs
He says his community had documents dating back to the 1500s, including ones that showed what was on board the San Jose when it left Potosi. A whole lot of silver and gold that was mined by his ancestors. Possibly the same coins that Mike Purcell spotted scattered about the seafloor.
Erica Barris
The circumstances under which this mining took place were terrible. Spain had a horrific system of forced labor, mucho maltrato, supremient mistreatment, suffering, humiliation, human exploitation.
Mary Childs
There are estimates that over 8 million indigenous and African people died there as they worked the mines during Spanish colonialism.
Erica Barris
What Tata Samuel wants is an acknowledgment that the silver and gold mined in Potosi belongs to them. If there's any financial gain that comes from what's onboard the San Jose, he wants to be sure that the Caracara benefit.
Mary Childs
He says the Caracara owned the silver and gold mined during the years of colonialism. If it's silver from Potosi, it has to come back or it has to fund reparations for the Caracara.
Erica Barris
Tata Samuels traveled to Colombia to meet with government officials to make his case, and he says they seem open. As for Spain, he says if they want to, they can claim their cannons, their wood, if it even still exists.
Mary Childs
This isn't just about the San Jose. In his research, he's found that there were all these other sunken ships with silver and gold that he says the Cara Cara have a right to. This ship could be an example, could set a precedent.
Erica Barris
Last year, some other indigenous groups in Bolivia said they have a claim too and wanted to be part of his cause. Tata Samuel was like, yeah, great. The more the merrier.
Mary Childs
So the Colombians, the Spanish, the Caracara, they all seem to have pretty valid claims to the San Jose. But guess who else also has a claim to the San Jose? A bunch of American businessmen. That's after the break.
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Erica Barris
So far we've talked about three groups who are claiming the San Jose shipwreck, Colombia, Spain and the Caracara. But there is this other group whose claim is throwing a wrench in the proceedings of all the others. They call themselves the Sea Search Armada.
Mary Childs
And their claim goes back to the 1980s when shipwreck treasure hunting was kind of having a moment in all of the bodies of water wear, wooden chests full of gold coins might be found. All these private companies were out there searching for treasure.
Erica Barris
And one of those groups out there searching was a pair of American businessmen, both named Jim, who pulled together millions of dollars from investors to look for the San Jose in 1981. They say they found pieces of wood that looked like they'd been blown up. Cannons, artifacts. So they told Columbia the secret coordinates where they had found evidence of a shipwreck.
Mary Childs
Now, their impression was under Colombian law at the time that entitled them to 50% of whatever they found. They find it, they get to keep it, right?
Erica Barris
But almost immediately, they say, the Colombian government started changing the rules. So Csearch Armada sued all the way to Colombia's supreme court.
Mary Childs
But in 2020, Colombia passed another law saying actually, everything on that ship is cultural patrimony. No one can sell it. Which means Cesar Jarmada would get 50% of nothing. So Cesar Jarmada sued Colombia anew. Yeah, the public transmission has started.
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Mary Childs
Last year, more than 40 years after they say they found the San Jose, they took their case to the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
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This is the first of two days.
Mary Childs
Of public hearing on jurisdiction between Sea Search Armada LLC and the Republic of Colombia. This court exists to resolve international disputes. It's the place the world goes when a government and a business interest disagree. In this case, Sea Search Armada is arguing that Colombia is in violation of the free trade agreement between Colombia and the United States.
Erica Barris
And the fight in this court kind of encapsulates the four decades of Sea Search Armada's dispute with Colombia. Sea Search Armada's lawyers say Colombia gave us permission to search a little area, and we found the San Jose in that area, which entitles us to half of what we found.
Mary Childs
The rights.
Juan Manuel Santos
And the Supreme Court confirms this.
Mary Childs
The right to treasure is acquired by its discovery. Columbia's lawyers say what they have been saying to the Sea Search Armada, you never found it. There was nothing in your coordinates or anywhere close, by the way. Columbia's lawyers declined to comment for this story. There's this one exchange that I really love between first one of Columbia's lawyers and then one of the arbiters. Columbia says Sea Search Armada is trying to claim a zone that is way too big, miles wide.
Sea Search Armada Lawyer
They're saying that they are entitled to the discovery area. Right. Which includes the Galileo San Jose, but may include other of the hundreds of shipwrecks that are supposed to be located in that particular area. Because it is well known that it's an area full of shipwrecks and mermaids and other.
Mike Purcell
And everything and other underwater species.
Mary Childs
I don't know why I'm hunting.
Sea Search Armada Lawyer
We have beautiful ribs, which is the reason why there are so many shipwrecks as well. But our position is that even if it is true that the Galeon is locating those coordinates, this is not how it works.
Erica Barris
Sea Serge Armada says, yeah, that is how it works. The ship blew up, and it's been floating around on the seafloor for 300 years. It's gonna be spread out by now.
Mary Childs
Sea Serge Armada's case before the tribunal court will reconvene at the end of this year. This whole thing is now going on year 44.
Erica Barris
Okay, so everybody has a claim. Colombia and the group that financed Mike Purcell's voyage Spain, the Caracara. Sea Search Armada. Because since the San Jose sank in 1708, power has shifted so much the way we think about territory and land and ownership has shifted. And we are left trying to use today's tools to resolve something that started hundreds of years ago. This is all really complicated.
Mary Childs
And if you're wondering why nobody has just gone and brought the San Jose up from the seafloor, it's partly for legal reasons. The Sea Search Armada has an injunction, but also because in the years after it was found, there was a giant Colombian naval ship floating over the San Jose, guarding it. Maybe the simplest possible way to claim it. This episode of Planet Money was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kessler with help from Willa Rubin and edited by Keith Roemer. It was fact checked by Ciara Juarez and engineered by Neil Rauch with help from Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.
Erica Barris
Thank you to Nicolette Khan, Karla Ron Phillips, Leonardo Moreno Alvarez, Jose Maria Lancha, and Mariano Javier Gomez.
Mary Childs
And before we go, we just want to say a big thank you if you are one of the listeners who answered the call in the last few months and supported our show by signing up for npr. That support is so important to keeping our work going. So thank you. And if you heard about NPR but aren't supporting us yet, it is really easy to sign up. Just go to plus.npr.org I'm Mary Childs.
Erica Barris
I'm Erica Barras. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.
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Planet Money: The Fight for a Legendary Shipwreck's Treasure
Episode: The Fight for a Legendary Shipwreck's Treasure
Release Date: February 7, 2025
Host: NPR's Erica Barris and Mary Childs
In this riveting episode of Planet Money, NPR delves into the tumultuous and multifaceted battle over the ownership of the legendary shipwreck, the San Jose. Discovered off the coast of Colombia, this 300-year-old Spanish galleon has ignited fierce debates among governments, indigenous groups, private financiers, and legal experts. The episode explores the intricate web of historical claims, legal battles, and the lingering legacy of colonialism that complicates rightful ownership of the treasure.
Mary Childs introduces us to Mike Purcell, an expert in underwater exploration, whose autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) played a pivotal role in locating the San Jose.
Mary Childs [00:22]: "Ten years ago, Mike Purcell was on one of his missions on a ship in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Colombia."
Mike Purcell recounts the moment of discovery:
Mike Purcell [00:37]: "We see something in the sonar."
The AUV, akin to a sophisticated underwater drone, sent back grainy black-and-white images revealing parts of the ship's hull and scattered artifacts, including 100 teacups:
Mike Purcell [02:13]: "There is part of the hull, the wood hull. There's 100 teacups sitting on the surface."
The sheer abundance of treasure suggested that the San Jose might indeed be the legendary shipwreck, laden with billions in gold and silver.
Upon the discovery, President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia was informed, expressing immediate enthusiasm and asserting Colombia's claim.
Juan Manuel Santos [07:08]: "I thought, my God, God is on our side. And I started to say, how are we going to rescue it? How are we going to sell it to the world?"
President Santos invoked the law of finds, a principle from British law stating that the discoverer of an abandoned shipwreck owns it:
Juan Manuel Santos [08:02]: "Finder keepers, the galleon is ours."
Colombia maintains that the San Jose lies within its territorial waters and, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, holds jurisdiction over objects found therein. President Santos advocated for salvaging the ship and establishing a museum, emphasizing Colombia's cultural and historical stake.
Contrary to Colombia's assertion, Ricardo Sans Marcos, a Spanish expert on historical artifacts, presents Spain's unwavering claim over the San Jose. He likens the wreck to a "sunken embassy," emphasizing its identity as a Spanish warship:
Ricardo Sans Marcos [12:30]: "It belongs to Spain... It's a piece of history, Spain's history."
Spain argues that the San Jose was a sovereign vessel, flying its flag when it sank, thus granting it sovereign immunity. This principle was previously upheld in a similar case where Spain successfully reclaimed a sunken galleon’s treasure from American salvagers.
Ricardo highlights the ship's significance as a "time capsule" offering invaluable insights into 17th-century maritime technology and the broader context of Spain's global trade networks during the era of the Carrera de Indias—the maritime route that played a crucial role in early globalization.
Adding another layer to the dispute, Tata Samuel Flores Cruz, a leader of the indigenous Cara Cara nation from Potosi, Bolivia, asserts that much of the San Jose's treasure originated from their ancestral lands. This claim is rooted in the dark history of Spanish colonialism and the exploitation of indigenous labor in the silver-rich mines of Potosi.
Mary Childs [15:20]: "Mike Purcell: Cuando saluda penicula Titanics."
Tata Samuel Flores Cruz [16:39]: "If there's any financial gain that comes from what's onboard the San Jose, he wants to be sure that the Caracara benefit."
Tata Samuel emphasizes that the silver and gold on the San Jose were mined under oppressive conditions, resulting in the death of millions of indigenous and African people. He seeks acknowledgment of the Cara Cara's rights to these resources and advocates for reparations or the return of the treasure to benefit his community.
Complicating the scenario further is the Sea Search Armada, a group of American businessmen who had initially discovered fragments of the San Jose in the 1980s. Their claim is now entangled in legal disputes with the Colombian government.
Sea Search Armada Lawyer [22:58]: "They're saying that they are entitled to the discovery area. Right. Which includes the Galileo San Jose..."
The Armada had previously received permission to search specific areas but faced legal setbacks when Colombia redefined cultural patrimony, nullifying claims to a share of the treasure. This led to a protracted lawsuit lasting over four decades, which was recently escalated to the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
Sea Search Armada contends that under the original agreement, finding the San Jose entitles them to a 50% share of the treasure. Conversely, Colombia disputes their claim, arguing that the geographical area cited by the Armada is unlawfully extensive and overlaps with Colombia's jurisdiction.
The episode highlights the complexities of maritime law, especially when ancient shipwrecks intersect with modern legal frameworks and historical injustices. The conflicting claims of Colombia, Spain, the Cara Cara, and Sea Search Armada underscore the challenges in reconciling sovereignty, historical ownership, and ethical considerations related to colonial exploitation.
Mary Childs aptly summarizes:
Mary Childs [23:55]: "Colombia and the group that financed Mike Purcell's voyage Spain, the Caracara, Sea Search Armada. Because since the San Jose sank in 1708, power has shifted so much the way we think about territory and land and ownership has shifted. And we are left trying to use today's tools to resolve something that started hundreds of years ago."
As of the episode's release, the legal battles remain unresolved. Colombia continues to enforce its jurisdiction over the shipwreck, maintaining a naval presence to deter unauthorized salvage operations. Meanwhile, Sea Search Armada's case proceeds in international courts, while indigenous leaders like Tata Samuel push for recognition and restitution.
The San Jose's fate serves as a microcosm of broader issues, including the enduring impact of colonialism, the complexities of international law, and the moral questions surrounding the ownership of cultural heritage.
"The Fight for a Legendary Shipwreck's Treasure" masterfully intertwines history, economics, and law to shed light on the San Jose's enduring legacy. Planet Money not only narrates the gripping story of a sunken galleon but also provokes critical reflection on how we navigate the remnants of a colonial past in today's globalized world.
Notable Quotes:
Mike Purcell [02:13]: "There is part of the hull, the wood hull. There's 100 teacups sitting on the surface."
Juan Manuel Santos [07:18]: "I thought, my God, God is on our side."
Ricardo Sans Marcos [12:30]: "It's a piece of history, Spain's history."
Tata Samuel Flores Cruz [16:58]: "If there's any financial gain that comes from what's onboard the San Jose, he wants to be sure that the Caracara benefit."
Mary Childs [23:55]: "We are left trying to use today's tools to resolve something that started hundreds of years ago."
This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the Planet Money episode, providing an engaging and informative overview for those who haven't listened to the podcast.