The San José galleon

The sinking is well documented on both sides. The Spanish record is in the Archivo General de Indias (letters from Cartagena officials in Santa Fe 293; the governor's and the fiscal's reports in Indiferente 2609 and 2610; Vega Florida's account in Indiferente 2713); the British record is Wager's journal and court-martial papers at the National Maritime Museum and the National Archives, and the London Gazette⁠[2]. These agree on the date, the place off Barú, the loss of the flagship with almost all hands, and the escape of the San Joaquín to Cartagena. They differ on the cause: Wager's side reports a magazine explosion; the Spanish correspondence describes a ship that had been overloaded and poorly repaired, and the 2025 review concludes that a hull failure is the more plausible reading⁠[2]. The state of the wreck, which the surveys show as a debris field rather than a shattered hull, bears on this.

The cargo is less well known than the press suggests. The San José carried the fleet's share of the Portobelo fair: silver from Potosí by way of Lima and Panama, gold, and Asian goods including Chinese porcelain, which the ROV images show⁠[2]⁠[4]. Wager wrote that her riches "must be very great" without a figure; the Crown waited more than two years for the fleet's revenue⁠[2]. The figure of 11 million pesos in coin, and the dollar valuations built on it, are modern estimates⁠[1]. The registers in Seville that would give the declared cargo have not been published in connection with the wreck.

The identification rests on the 2025 coin study. Cobs imaged at high resolution and modelled by photogrammetry carry the Lima mint's marks, the arms of Castile and León, and the date 1707. A galleon that sank in the Colombian Caribbean after 1707 with Lima coin of that year and Portobelo-fair porcelain is, on the record, the San José, though the authors are careful to call the finding an advance in a continuing investigation rather than a conclusion⁠[4]⁠[5]. The bronze cannon and the macuquina coins now in laboratories will allow direct dating and metallurgy⁠[6].

Sea Search Armada's predecessor reported a find in 1982 at coordinates near the Rosario Islands that it lodged with the Colombian government; Colombia's 1984 decree reduced the finder's share from half to five percent, SSA sued in 1989, and in 2007 the Supreme Court held that anything at the registered coordinates would be split equally⁠[3]. SSA's suits in United States courts were dismissed⁠[1]. The Colombian state's 2015 find was at a different place; Colombia says SSA's coordinates were wrong and that SSA never located the ship, and has invited SSA to search its own 1982 site, which SSA calls a trap⁠[3]⁠[8].

Colombia kept the position secret, passed Law 1675 of 2013 on submerged heritage, declared the wreck a cultural asset, and in May 2024 made the site a protected archaeological area with a management plan⁠[1]⁠[9]. Robotic survey campaigns in 2024 recorded an anchor, jugs, glass bottles, cannon and scattered coins⁠[9]. The second phase of the project "Hacia el corazón del galeón San José" lifted the first objects in November 2025 under a protocol validated by the Ministry of Cultures, the Navy, DIMAR and ICANH; the cannon sits in a seawater pool at the CIOH laboratory in Cartagena, the coins at the Museo Nacional in Bogotá, and a scientific bulletin on the protocol and chain of custody was promised⁠[6]. No further recoveries had been reported by September 2026⁠[8].

The arbitration, PCA Case No. 2023-37 under the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, was heard on jurisdiction in Bogotá in December 2023 before Stephen Drymer, Stephen Jagusch and Claus von Wobeser; Colombia argued that the claims were time-barred and that SSA holds no protected investment⁠[10]. The tribunal has since granted SSA an evidence-preservation protocol ahead of state interventions, refused Spain's request to appear as amicus at the jurisdictional phase while leaving it open for the merits, and in September 2026 the case was in the evidence stage with no hearing date⁠[8]⁠[11].

The questions here are not whether the ship exists but what the record will show. On the cause of the loss, the explosion account is the British one and has been the standard story for three centuries; the hull-failure account rests on the Spanish letters about the ship's condition and predicts a wreck with a largely intact lower hull and cargo in place rather than scattered by blast⁠[2]. The site surveys, once published, can test this.

On the cargo, the high valuations assume the ship carried the whole fleet's treasure in coin; the record shows a fleet of three warships and fourteen merchantmen, part of whose silver reached Cartagena in the San Joaquín, and a cargo that included bulk goods and porcelain⁠[1]⁠[2]. The registers would settle the declared amounts; contraband, which was large in this trade, would not appear in them.

On ownership, Colombia's position is domestic law and the fact of discovery in its waters; Spain's is the customary immunity of state warships and the 2001 UNESCO Convention, which Colombia has not ratified; SSA's is the 2007 ruling and a claim that its 1982 find and the 2015 find are the same site; the Bolivian nations' is the origin of the silver⁠[3]⁠[7]. These are legal and political questions; the one factual issue among them, whether SSA's coordinates match the wreck, is what the tribunal will have to decide on the evidence⁠[8].

Three publications would settle most of this. The site plan and survey data from the 2015 to 2025 campaigns, with the positions of hull remains, cannon and cargo, would test the explosion against the hull-failure account and show how much of the cargo is present⁠[2]. The registers of the 1708 fleet from the Archivo General de Indias, transcribed and published, would replace guesswork about the cargo with the declared figures⁠[2]. The arbitral award, with the coordinates evidence, would settle the SSA claim; the Spanish and Bolivian claims will be settled by negotiation or not at all⁠[8]⁠[7]. ICANH's promised bulletin on the 2025 protocol and chain of custody is the first of these and the easiest⁠[6].