In 1708 a small fleet of Spanish ships loaded with treasure obtained from mines in South America was attacked by a flotilla of British warships that aimed to take their cargo. After two hours of fighting, one of the Galleons, the San Joquin, escaped without forfeiting its cargo. Another one, the Santa Cruz, was captured by the British with its cargo thereby confiscated. The third galleon, the San Jose, sank after a large explosion, taking its huge treasure supply with it to the bottom. Recently, some 307 years later, the wreck of the San Jose was located. The story now turns toward who gets to keep the treasure.
The War of Spanish Succession: In November, 17, 1700, King Charles II of Spain died without leaving a clear successor to the throne. He chose to nominate Philip of Anjou, the grandson of King Louis XIV of France, who represented one European political faction lead by France and most of Spain. However, to prevent what would have been a clear upset in the balance of power in Europe, another political faction sought to have the Archduke Charles of Austria, sponsored by the Grand Alliance of the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic, and Great Britain, installed as the new King. What was at stake more than any other cause was trading rights and trade routes. When Philip was proclaimed King, war between the two factions broke out. After over a decade of fighting and more than a million combatants dead of war or disease, the whole thing was finally settled by a succession of treaties in 1713/14. Phillip remained King of Spain, but certain concessions were made by countries on both sides. However, both the San Jose and San Joquin were caught up in the fighting in 1708, in the Battle of Baru Island off the coast of what is known today as Colombia.
About the San Jose: Launched in 1698, the three masted galleon San Jose, was armed with 64 guns. She was built along with a sister ship, the San Joquin with the same armament and dimensions of about 128 feet in length and about 40 feet across the beam. Although officially classified as a merchant ship, the San Jose and San Joquin as well as other Spanish Galleons were well armed owing to the nature of the cargo they carried, and the warring times at sea in the still growing Western Hemisphere. Both ships were assigned to the Armada de la Guardia de la Carrera de las Indias, or what was known to be the Spanish treasure fleet. The British ship HMS Expedition was the largest warship in the battle. It closed to within about 60 meters of the San Jose with both sides slamming each other with canon balls. As the Expedition prepared to board and capture the Spanish treasure ship, the San Jose’s powder magazine suddenly exploded sending the ship down in 10 minutes time with nearly all of its 600 crew (only 11 survivors were rescued). At the time of the battle, the San Jose was carrying emeralds, silver, and as much as 200 tons of gold coins from the mines in what is now known as Petosi, Bolivia. In today’s terms the treasure could be worth more than $18 billion dollars. Because of this amount of treasure, the San Jose has been called the “Holy Grail of Shipwrecks.”
The First Sighting of the Wreck: In 1981 an expedition named Sea Search Armada (SSA), operated by a group of U.S. investors, claimed that they had discovered the wreck of the San Jose. When SSA went to the Colombian Government offering a 65/35% split of the recovered cargo, the government refused, and the Colombian Parliament passed a law requiring that all the treasure from the wreck belonged to Colombia, and SSA was entitled only to a 5% finder’s fee that would be taxable in Colombia at a 45% rate. SSA sued in Colombian courts, and the Supreme Court decided that any treasure recovered would be split 50/50 between the government and the organization that conducted the recovery. Still not satisfied, SSA tried suing in the U.S. Court system two times to no avail. The parties to the legal action grew to include the governments of Spain, Peru, and Bolivia, along with New Granada, whose ancestors were the slaves that mined the precious gems and ores. After the second U.S. suit was dismissed in 2015, the wreck and its contents were declared to be the property of the Colombian government.
The Second Sighting of the Wreck: In November, 2015, another expedition sponsored by the Colombian Navy discovered the wreck at a spot different from the one claimed by SSA over two decades earlier. The shipwreck was identified from photographs made by a Remus 6000 autonomous underwater vehicle that showed the San Jose’s bronze canons cast with Dolphin markings. For security purposes the government has classified the exact co-ordinates of the shipwreck as a state secret.
The Dispensation of the Goods: With that second discovery location and the favorable legal outcomes of the bevy of lawsuits, the Colombian Government claimed the wreck and all its contents to be its submerged patrimony, obliging the country to act to preserve as much of the wreck and contents as possible for posterity. As the operation to recover the ship and treasure was set to begin in 2024, the Colombian Inspector General required that accurate and thorough records be maintained of the recovery process and turned over to the Ministry of Culture. Further, the Inspector General determined that the part of the treasure that would be repetitious and not necessarily considered patrimony must be taken to the Banco de la Republica, or the Colombian central bank. The president of Colombia announced that a museum would be built in Cartegena to house some of the recovered items.
Conclusions: The news of the ships multi-billion-dollar treasure being designated specifically for cultural purposes and not for a massive profit surely broke the hearts of those who had envisioned gigantic monetary gains from their part of the recovery. But consider this other turn of events: after the San Joquin escaped and then the San Jose blew up and sank, the British were left with the disappointing bounty from the smallest of the three ships as a result of the battle. The captains of two of the British warships involved were later court martialed for the manner in which they let one of the prizes sink and the other get away.
Sources: History.com, How the San Jose Became the ‘Holy Grail’ of Shipwrecks, By Kieran Mulvaney, April 19, 2024.
Wikipedia, Spanish Galleon San Jose.
Painting by Samuel Scott.