John Amrhein Jr. with a model of La Galga
In 2000 Spain was awarded ownership of two shipwrecks off the coast of Virginia believed to be the remains of La Galga and Juno. The importance of this case was the precedent that gave Spain ownership rights of all sovereign Spanish shipwrecks in U.S. waters. Until then historic shipwrecks on our shores were deemed to belong to the individual states in which they lie by passage of the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987. Spain has since expanded this precedent as proof of their sovereign ownership rights in international waters with the three current court cases against Odyssey Marine.
In a new book The Hidden Galleon: The true story of a lost Spanish ship and the legendary wild horses of Assateague Island
http://www.nps.gov/history/archeology/sites/npSites/assateague.htm
Above: From the National Park Service website concerning the La Galga and Juno.
Below: John Amrhein Jr. commenting on the controversy:
"From the beginning, in the ongoing battle between Spain and Odyssey Marine Exploration in the federal court in Tampa, Florida, Spain has demanded that Odyssey disclose the name of the shipwreck they have code named “Black Swan.” Spain needs the name. Without it, their case is tenuous. Without a Spanish shipwreck they will be asked to leave.
The nature of this admiralty claim is actually a suit against the shipwreck. It is called an action in rem where anyone who believes that they have a right to the property is invited to step forward and state their basis for such a claim. In the Black Swan case there are 500,000 coins at stake believed to be Spanish. Spain wants them.
In the court record, you will find Spain is complaining that Odyssey should not be allowed to proceed without first identifying the property and where they believed it came from. They say without an identity there can be no admiralty claim. To support that argument they have cited the Sea Hunt case as the leading precedent on point."
The Sea Hunt Case
"What one reads in newspapers (and Internet forums) contrasts quite sharply with the court record of the Sea Hunt case. Sea Hunt filed in rem admiralty actions on March 11, 1998 for two shipwrecks. They brought in three artifacts to perfect their claim, but said at the time that they may or may not have come from La Galga wrecked in 1750 or Juno sunk in 1802. They only believed that they were. These beliefs were based on wishful thinking rather than any historical research. This wishful thinking was fueled by the desire to find Spanish treasure.
On July 21, 2000, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the award of two unidentified shipwrecks that rightfully belonged to the Commonwealth of Virginia to the Kingdom of Spain. Keep in mind that to make such a ruling in rem there must be Spanish ships and artifacts recovered from them to give the court the authority to make such a ruling. The appellate court ruling was made without any reservation as to the identity and discovery of these two shipwrecks. The lower court was replete with such reservations."
From the record:
“The record is clear that the parties and the Court relied on supposition, conjecture, and speculation when referring to unidentified vessels as the Juno and La Galga”―Sea Hunt
“We are not in a position to confirm for in rem purposes that the ships are in fact those of the Juno or La Galga” ―Sea Hunt
“We want to have control of our underwater land when we get through with this, except for the area in which LA GALGA and the JUNO lie. But the weakness of that exception is, nobody knows where that is.” ―Commonwealth of Virginia
“We are not interested in the physical artifacts. We are interested in the story and the history they represent…The problem with the two vessels, we don’t know where they are. We have some locations which may or may not be the vessels…Spain would be entitled to the Juno and La Galga if they were ever found.” ―Commonwealth of Virginia
“My first answer to you is if Sea Hunt with its resources has not been able to identify them, I don’t think sending down one U.S. Diver is going to either.” ―United States
Justice Department after being questioned by Judge Clarke why don’t they do their own verification.
"And in the end Spain demanded, “We believe that the court can rule, affirm Spain's ownership of the Juno regardless of which place it happens to be..."
Spain won. To illustrate the legality of the proceedings; if this was criminal court, the court convicted the wrong man with irrelevant evidence."
The Juno
"The Juno’s last reported location before she sank with all hands was nearly 200 miles from the shores of Assateague Island. In the 1980s, some local fisherman retrieved an anchor just off the beach of Assateague with a pewter plate stuck to it with what appeared to be the letter “J.” Sea Hunt heard of some Spanish coins being found on the beach opposite the anchor discovery. Since they predated 1802 they sought to connect them with a ship lost 200 miles away. They did not know about the numerous wrecks from this time period lost in this area, one of them sunk in 1817 was also called the Juno. They did not know that Spanish coins were legal tender in the United States until 1857 and could be found on any wreck prior to this date. So it was only wishful thinking that bridged the 200 mile distance to where Juno most likely lies. Sea Hunt offered no historical account that put the Juno just off the southern end of Assateague Island, Virginia. At the Historic Preservation Office in Richmond, Virginia, there is an inventory of underwater cultural resources. On the site form DHR ID# 44AC0402 for the Juno it says that for the wreck believed to be the Juno, there is no evidence that it is the Juno."
La Galga
"La Galga ran ashore on Assateague Island on September 5, 1750 after enduring hurricane and gale force winds for twelve days. When she beached, she remained upright and her lower tier was covered with two feet of water. She was close enough to shore that they were able to swim a line to the beach and tie onto another wreck. They then ferried themselves in on make-shift rafts and Indian canoes. They were told that they were in Virginia on the border between Maryland and Virginia. An argument ensued over this boundary and the location of the ship resulted in a survey that established that La Galga was within two ship lengths of the border on the Maryland side.
Captain Don Daniel Huony wrote a letter to the Governor of Maryland about this survey and location of his ship. This letter is found in the Archives of Maryland and has been public information since its printing in 1913. La Galga’s location has been published in numerous local histories and tourist literature. The boundary line pointing to the wreck has changed over the centuries. But the extremes of its location are only two miles. Since the wreck was sitting in shallow water close to shore it lies in a narrow corridor two miles long. With a good magnetometer she could be located in a day. Sea Hunt was not the first to search for La Galga, only the last.
In 1980, this author, armed with Spanish documents and evidence of the boundary line changes, sought to find the wreck. To make a long story short, it eluded him. There was evidence of a wreck just south of the present boundary but this author satisfied himself it was not La Galga. A treasure hunter named Alan Riebe went to this site and thought it could be La Galga. He applied for a permit from Virginia and was turned down. Virginia sent a team to the site and determined in was not La Galga..
In 1983, this author found a plat in the Accomack County Courthouse that not only documented changes in the boundary line but in the beach itself. Assateague had grown out in this location. That same year, he met a man from Chincoteague whose ancestry went back centuries. His grandfather had told him that the legendary Spanish ship that was responsible for the wild horses of Assateague had wrecked in this area. This legend was made world famous when Marguerite Henry published Misty of Chincoteague in 1947. In 1961, it was made into a movie.
Not told in the book, but remembered by some of the oldest inhabitants of Chincoteague, was that the Spanish ship had been lost in a forgotten inlet. The wreck caused it to close and sand in within two weeks time. Ignored, but not forgotten, is the statement by Captain Huony found in the Maryland Archives that “the owner of the land owns the ship.” With this new information and a portable magnetometer this author located the site that year buried beneath the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. A research report was prepared and submitted to numerous authorities including the federal government. They did nothing and even declined this author’s offer to demonstrate his discovery.
In 1998, Sea hunt claimed that the same wreck site rejected by this author and the Commonwealth of Virginia was La Galga but offered no evidence as to why or any analysis of the boundary line controversy. They did so even though they had read this author’s documentation on the boundary line changes which contradicted their location. They ignored the legend.
This author began research for his book The Hidden Galleon in 2001. Many more Spanish documents were discovered, including the captain’s and officer’s reports. These documents say that the Spaniards were at Assateague for three days before departing for the mainland. Within that time, they described the wreck as being “covered with sand.”
The federal court hearing the Sea Hunt case saw none of this evidence. If it had, it would have certainly ruled that no admiralty court can have jurisdiction over a ship that has not seen navigable waters for 250 years.
Today, at the Historic Preservation Office in Richmond, you will find no site form for La Galga and after eight years of having acquired “title” to these two wrecks, Spain has yet to pay them a visit.
Thus the Sea Hunt case, the precedent, “the leading decision on point,” that will guide the federal court in rendering a potential decision against Odyssey Marine Exploration." For more, visit http://www.thehiddengalleon.com