Spain Loans Shipwreck Artifacts To Park

Artifacts from two Spanish shipwrecks – including several rare coins – are now in a vault at Assateague Island National Seashore with the full blessing of the government of Spain.

Carl Zimmerman, chief of Assateague Island’s resource management division, said the collection won’t be kept locked away for too long. “They’ll be part of a feature exhibit when we get a new visitor center built, hopefully by 2009.”

The artifact collection includes two ship anchors. One has been through the conservation process (at Texas A&M University) and was returned to Assateague Island. It will be on display at the Barrier Island Visitor Center until the new center opens.

The loan agreement, signed by Julian Martinez Garcia, Spain’s Director General of Fine Arts and Cultural Heritage, is a celebratory gift from Spain. It came at the end of a lengthy legal battle over shipwrecks, salvage rights and national sovereignty.

“This all started back in 1995 when we got word that the Commonwealth of Virginia had issued an exploration permit, and shortly after that a salvage permit, for these shipwrecks that are located within the park,” Zimmerman said.

How could anyone conduct a salvage operation within a unit of the National Park Service? “It was a real eye-opener for the park,” Zimmerman said. “We assumed the Antiquities Act would apply. It did not. We assumed ARPA (Archaeological Resources Protection Act) would apply. It did not.

“We did not understand the limits of our authority and jurisdiction,” Zimmerman said. “They were much more limited that we thought because the wreck sites were embedded in state-owned submerged lands.”

The park could do little more than manage the salvage operation on Spanish Royal Naval vessels La Galga (wrecked in 1750) and Juno (lost in 1802) as a special park use. “Thankfully, the government of Spain got engaged,” Zimmerman said.

But why would Spain care about La Galga and Juno? There are a few old coins but little else of real financial value. “For Spain it’s very important to defend its historic heritage regardless of where the artifacts that makes up that heritage lie,” Garcia said during a tour of Assateague Island National Seashore on October 18th.

Spain has a large number of underwater cultural sites around the world. This is the first site where the question of sovereignty has been settled in a court of law. In this case it was in American waters, settled by an American federal court.

The key question in the case, Zimmerman said, was if the shipwrecks and artifacts had been abandoned by Spain. If abandoned, they became ‘wards’ of the state, or in this case the Commonwealth of Virginia. “The court looked back, even into old treaties between England and Spain,” Zimmerman said, “and the bottom line was that these were sovereign vessels and had not been abandoned. The judge ruled that benign neglect does not equal abandonment.”

Garcia said this finding is important for other countries. It recognizes, for example, that if an English ship sinks in waters controlled by another country, let’s say Spain, the English ship still belongs to England.

Garcia said another benefit of the case is “it allows us to establish a framework of cooperation with the United States and the park. Here the items will be seen and enjoyed by a number of people. We signed that agreement yesterday (October 17th) to display the items at the park and also to put one of the two anchors at our National Center of Maritime Archaeology in Cartagena.”

Rachelle Daigneault, acting chief of interpretation at Assateague Island National Seashore, said she is excited about the relationship with the Spanish Department of Cultural Heritage and the upcoming exhibit. “There’s nothing quite like a shipwreck as a hook to get people interested in the resource that is out here,” she said.

“The lawsuit centered on Spanish sovereignty, culture and heritage but it’s our heritage too,” Daigneault said of the barrier islands of Maryland and Virginia. “We have a lot of heritage to share with visitors: exploration, the ship wrecks, pirate lore – there’s a legend of Blackbeard having buried treasure somewhere around here.

“There were people who lived out here and existed on, and waited for the wrecks,” Daigneault said. “And we had the life saving service which was the forerunner of the U.S. Coast Guard. The artifacts fire the imagination. They’re tangible links to intangible feelings, emotions, ideas and concepts.”
Zimmerman said Spain’s interest also helps Assateague Island reach out to the growing Hispanic community because they get to highlight their role in the development of the New World.