Spanish Galleon San José

''San José'' was a 64-gun, three-masted galleon of the Spanish ''Armada de la Guardia de la Carrera de las Indias''. It was launched in 1698 and sank in battle off Barú Island, just south of Cartagena, Colombia, in 1708, while laden with gold, silver and emeralds worth about US$17 billion as of 2023.

The sunken ship was located at a depth of 600 meters by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in November 2015. In July 2017, it was announced that a salvage operation managed by the Colombian government would proceed.

Career

''San José'' was designed by Francisco Antonio Garrote and built by Pedro de Aróstegui at the shipyard in Mapil, Usurbil, Gipuzkoa, Spain. Construction started in 1697 and ended in 1698. They built twin ships simultaneously and named them ''San José'' and ''San Joaquín''.

''San José'' and ''San Joaquín'' were part of the Spanish treasure fleet during the War of the Spanish Succession, under General José Fernández de Santillán, the Count of Casa Alegre. On its final voyage, ''San José'' sailed as the flagship of a treasure fleet composed of three Spanish warships and 14 merchant vessels sailing from Portobelo, Panama, to Cartagena, Colombia. On 8 June 1708, the fleet encountered a British squadron near Barú, leading to a battle known as Wager's Action. During the battle, the powder magazines of ''San José'' detonated, destroying and sinking the ship with most of her crew and the gold, silver, emeralds and jewelry collected in the South American provinces to finance the Spanish king's war effort. Of the 600 men aboard, only 11 survived.

Search and discovery

The wreck of the ''San José'' is estimated to be worth billions of dollars. This is based on the speculation that, similar to its surviving sister ship, ''San Joaquín,'' it had 11 million pesos in coins on board at the time of its sinking, worth up to $17 billion as of 2023. The silver and gold are from the mines of Potosí, Bolivia. The enormous value of this cargo has led to ''San José'' being called the "Holy Grail of Shipwrecks".

A group of investors from the United States called Glocca Mora Co., operating under the name 'Sea Search Armada' (SSA) - spearheaded by noted historian Dr. Eugene Lyon, best known for having located and positively identified ''La Nuestra Senora de la Atocha'' and others - claimed to have found the shipwreck off the coast of Colombia in 1981. But Colombia says the ship was not at the claimed coordinates, refused to sign a 65%/35% share offer, and refused SSA permission to conduct full salvage operations at the wreck site. The Colombian parliament then passed a law giving the state the right to all of the treasure, leaving SSA with a 5% finder's fee, which was to be taxed at 45%. SSA sued Colombia in Colombian courts in 1989. In July 2007, the Supreme Court of Colombia concluded that any treasure recovered would be split equally between the Colombian government and the explorers. Sea Search Armada subsequently sued in United States courts, but the case was dismissed twice, in 2011 and 2015 on technical grounds, and the galleon was declared the property of the Colombian state.

On 27 November 2015, the galleon ''San José'' was found in a different place by the Colombian Navy, announced by then President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos on 5 December. The discovery was made using a REMUS 6000 autonomous underwater vehicle. From the dive photographs, Colombian marine archaeologists have identified ''San José'' by her bronze guns cast with dolphins. Colombia has claimed the galleon as part of its submerged patrimony; thus, it is constitutionally obliged to protect and preserve the ship and all of its sunken contents. The government of Colombia has classified the location of the galleon as a state secret.

In 2022, Sea Search Armada filed suit at the Permanent Court of Arbitration reasserting its rights to the treasure, claiming that the supposed later Colombian discovery in a new, secret location, was actually in the same location discovered by SSA, and was merely a ruse to invalidate previous claim


Besides Colombia and Sea Search Armada, other groups also have laid claim to the treasure, including Spain, and indigenous groups from Potosí Bolivia since the treasure was mined by their people at Cerro Rico.

Conservation

The Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History, a government agency ascribed to the Ministry of Culture, is in charge of overseeing all archeological sites in Colombia. The director of the ICANH, Ernesto Montenegro, has stated that soil and sea depth studies are being carried out in order to examine the methods of extraction of the ship's contents. Then Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, stated that a museum will be constructed in Cartagena to host some of the contents of the galleon.

On 16 December 2015, the Office of the Inspector General of Colombia requested that the State keep thorough archives of the exploration, to be given to the Ministry of Culture, the official custodian of underwater cultural heritage. The Inspector General also requested that a representative sample of the coins, ingots, and gemstones, not classified as cultural patrimony due to repetition, be given to the Banco de la República for preservation.

The Minister of Culture, Mariana Garcés Córdoba, stated that 2016 will be "a year of exploration, not extraction". According to the Minister, Colombia intends to create archaeological laboratories with a variety of specialists to properly study the shipwreck and its contents.

In February 2024, Colombian authorities announced plans to recover some items from the wreck. In May the first stage of a research project by the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History began using underwater robots to gather an inventory of the wreck site.

In June 2025, a study published in the journal '' Antiquity'' confirmed that 300-year-old coins discovered in a shipwreck belong to the San José.

In popular culture

The discovery of the galleon ''San José'' inspired Colombian writer Marco T. Robayo to create a historical graphic novel, ''A la caza del Galeón San José: el naufragio'', published by Planeta Colombia in 2022.

Citations

References

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Further reading

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External links

Historical background to the sinking of the ''San José''. Royal Geographical Society of South Australia.



What Lies Beneath
Vanity Fair

Treasure Worth 20b Found Near Colombia, Coins Could Be The Holy Grail, Nicholas McEntyre, New York Post, June 11, 2025.

the-sunken-treasure-of-the-san-jose-shipwreck-is-contested-but-its-real-riches-go-beyond-coins-and-jewels

{{DEFAULTSORT:San Jose
1690s ships
Ships built in Spain
Galleons of the Spanish Navy
Maritime incidents in 1708
Shipwrecks in the Caribbean Sea
Treasure from shipwrecks
History of Colombia
1708 disasters
1700s in South America
18th-century disasters in South America