HIDDEN GALLEON UPDATE:
Legendary Spanish galleon described in children’s classic,
Misty of Chincoteague, taken hostage by the federal government.
On the island of Assateague on Virginia’s Eastern shore lies the remains of the Spanish warship
La Galga which ran ashore in 1750. It is this shipwreck which gave birth to the legend that the
world famous wild ponies originated from a Spanish galleon years ago. The book,
Misty of
Chincoteague, was published in 1947 by Marguerite Henry making these ponies and the legend
of their origin known to millions. What may consist of 25-30% of the galleon’s intact hull was
discovered in 1983 buried beneath Assateague Island nowhere near the ocean. She had been
swept into a forgotten inlet and covered up. John Amrhein, Jr. has recounted the fascinating
history of this shipwreck in his award winning book,
The Hidden Galleon published in 2007.
Since its publication, the shipwreck has found itself in the middle of an international battle over
17 tons of Spanish treasure between Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Florida and the
Kingdom of Spain.
Wreck Diving Magazine has just published an article which not only takes a
look inside the Odyssey Marine Exploration treasure case with Spain but exposes the federal
government’s lack of respect for historic preservation when there is treasure at stake. This is
what happened.
• When Odyssey Marine Exploration laid claim to 17 tons of Spanish treasure in the federal
court in Tampa, Florida in 2007, Spain told the world that they had won in court before and
would win again. They were referring to the
Sea Hunt case decided in 2000. In this case
Spain was awarded rights to the Spanish shipwrecks
La Galga and the
Juno.
• In October 2007,
The Hidden Galleon was published by John Amrhein, Jr. It documents that
not only was
La Galga and the
Juno not found in the
Sea Hunt case but that
La Galga had
been found in 1983 buried beneath Assateague Island. The
Juno sank 250 miles from where
the court was led to believe she had been discovered. The two wrecks “discovered” in the
Sea Hunt case were not Spanish but merely unidentified merchant vessels that belonged to
the Commonwealth of Virginia.
• In February 2008, Amrhein had the cultural resource management firm of Gray & Pape of
Richmond, VA, apply for a non-intrusive magnetometer survey with the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service to map and verify the site on Assateague within the Chincoteague National
Wildlife Refuge. They have refused to grant the permit, they have refused to deny the permit,
they have refused to talk about the permit for the past two years.
• In September 2008, the Spanish Embassy in Washington instructed the USFWS to keep
Amrhein and his archaeologist off of Assateague Island at the suspected wreck site, a
location that is two miles from the site that was awarded them in the
Sea Hunt case.
• In November 2008, Amrhein notified the federal court hearing the Odyssey Marine case that
the shipwrecks
La Galga and the
Juno had not been found in the
Sea Hunt case. He cited
court testimony that Spain was well aware of this during the trial.
• In January 2009, Spain’s attorney used carefully crafted language to avoid the averments
made by Amrhein about
La Galga being buried under Assateague Island and led the court to
believe that
La Galga’s remains were “scattered about the ocean floor.” This was even after
Spain’s attorney had read the truth about
La Galga in
The Hidden Galleon.
• In April 2009, a model of
La Galga was loaned to the Chincoteague National Wildlife
Refuge by Amrhein and Bill Bane who constructed the model. It is hoped that this will
awaken the public to the historic treasure buried in the Refuge.
• In May 2009, Amrhein found out about Spain’s September 2008 request to deny Amrhein
access to Assateague Island for the purposes of mapping the wreck site of
La Galga. Spain
has to this date refused to respond to Amrhein’s direct communication to them in which he
emphasized that he has no claim to the wreck, that the wreck buried beneath United States
soil belongs to the United States and it deserves to be excavated and placed in a museum.
• Amrhein has discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request that Spain and the
National Park Service have conspired to put artifacts from the unidentified shipwrecks found
in the
Sea Hunt case on display at the new Visitors Center at Berlin, MD in the summer of
2010. See
http://www.nps.gov/archeology/SITES/npSites/assateague.htm The Park Service
has admitted that they do not know if the artifacts came from Spanish shipwrecks. The only
proof that they offer is the decision of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. This is a classic case
of circular logic and a denial of agency responsibility in the matter. They have ignored all
readily available historical documentation about these wrecks in their evaluation of the
shipwreck artifacts. Spain also has failed to offer any independent documentation that they
came from Spanish ships either.
• Amrhein contends that neither Spain nor the United States has any interest in preserving the
historical and archaeological integrity of the shipwreck of
La Galga, a the vessel that legend
says brought the present day wild ponies of Assateague here centuries ago. The record is
clear that both countries want Spain to defeat the claims of Odyssey Marine to the treasure
found in 2007 at all costs, even if it means deliberately keeping relevant evidence from the
federal court about the
Sea Hunt case or to obey the historic preservation laws already in
effect in this country. Present law demands that the site of
La Galga be verified and
evaluated for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.
• On December 22, 2009, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
ruled that Odyssey Marine Exploration must surrender the treasure to Spain and cited the
Sea
Hunt case in its deliberations in favor of Spain. That case has been appealed to the 11th
Circuit Court of appeals by all claimants.
Wreck Diving Magazine has published two articles of interest:
http://www.thehiddengalleon.com/LaGalgaashostage.pdf
http://www.thehiddengalleon.com/Shipwrecks&Government.pdf
? What a mess. Is anything clear about this?
