The Wreck That Changed The World
El Cazador 2 Reales, FF Assayer. Showing oM Mint Mark (Mexico City), Crowned Shield of Spain flanked by the Pillars of Hercules.
And how it doubled the size of the United States.
Maybe you’ve heard of the Louisiana Purchase. Maybe you haven’t. The tale most of us are taught in public education is a half-truth; Louisiana was French, until it wasn’t. Somewhere in the sands of time, it was lost that Louisiana was temporarily owned by Spain.
But did you know the Louisiana Territory changed hands not once, not twice, but three times? As was typical with expansion roles across history, trade deals, wars, and even marriages had the ability to transform maps and boundaries of the world.
Not only did the wreck of Spanish brigantine El Cazador lend the United States some of it’s most important land, it furthered Westward Expansion towards the Pacific.
Furthermore, the coins verify the United States was still reliant on Spanish currency (silver and gold) through it’s independence into the 1850’s. The origins of our US dollar sign can be seen discerned in the symbols chosen for this issue of coinage.
Let’s revisit the history of one of the world’s most historical wreck-sites that hardly no one has ever heard of.
In 1784, the ill-fated ship, El Cazador, “The Hunter,” was headed toward New Orleans from the Spanish-owned port of Vera Cruz, Mexico. The ship was laden with 450,000 pesos (silver coins), which were intended to solidify Spain’s holding of approximately one million square miles of America’s heartland, called the Louisiana Territory. The vessel and her crew disappeared without a trace, never arriving to help stabilize the economy.
Finally in 1800, with no money to pay his troops, King Charles IV of Spain transferred the Louisiana Territory over to Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte for some minor European considerations. in 1803, only three years later, Napoleon and Thomas Jefferson struck a deal called the Louisiana Purchase. The fledgling United States purchased these one million square miles for fifteen million dollars, a mere 3 cents an acre. The new United States doubled in size, taking on the shape that defines it today, opening up for westward expansion, and establishing America as the land of opportunity.
El Cazador and its treasure sat on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico for 209 years before a fishing boat from Pascagoula, Mississippi accidentally discovered it. The name of the vessel? “The Mistake.”
It’s hard to say what would have happened if El Cazador had made it to New Orleans, but it could be argued that the loss of this ship did contribute to the unifying of the United States of America.
