The San José was a galleon ship owned by King Philip V of Spain (1683–1746) in the 18th century. It sailed from Portobelo in present-day Panama to Cartagena in Colombia in 1708.
The San José was a galleon ship owned by King Philip V of Spain (1683–1746) in the 18th century. It sailed from Portobelo in present-day Panama to Cartagena in Colombia in 1708.
The ship was sunk—still laden with treasure including 11 million gold and silver coins, emeralds and other precious cargo—during the Battle of Barú (also known as Wager’s Action), part of the War of the Spanish Succession. This war was between Spain and France on one side, and Britain, the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic and other European allies on the other.
The search for the San José and its treasure, sunk 600 meters deep, has now become possible thanks to advances in remotely operated underwater vehicle technology. The ship is now in the process of being pulled up from the sea floor. But who is entitled to San José’s riches?
In 1979, the US salvage company Sea Search Armada made an exclusive agreement with Colombia to divide the proceeds of the San José 50:50. They had bought out the Glocca Morra Company which discovered what was thought to be the wreck of the San José in 1982.
In 2007, the US Supreme Court ruled that Colombia holds the rights to items deemed to be „national cultural patrimony“. Anything else will be halved between the US salvage company Sea Search Armada and Colombia. Ownership of each item would probably have to be decided by independent experts.
However, in 2015, Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, challenged the location Sea Search Armada’s suspected held the San José wreck. He confirmed that the San José’s true location had been found by the Colombian navy—with the help of British maritime archaeology consultants and the US Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution—in Colombian waters.
