Short Stuff: Did a shipwreck double the size of the United States?

Did a shipwreck double the size of the United States? Sort of. Listen in to find out what the heck that means. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:13Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the shortstop. Josh, Chuck, Jerry, Dave, let's go back in time.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  Do you know who else is in the room with us?

• 1:23Josh Clark?

  Jerry Murphy?

• 1:25Speaker 02

  No, do you know who wrote this article?

• 1:27Josh Clark?

  No.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Not you.

• 1:29Josh Clark?

  Okay, yeah. Because I was gonna say, I didn't even know about some of this stuff.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, this, maybe the densest three pages I've ever seen written,

• 1:41Speaker 02

  was written by our old colleague, Kristen Conger.

• 1:44Josh Clark?

  Conger.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:45Josh Clark?

  This is seriously incredibly well-written.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  It is. Kongs did a great job. And Kristen is thankfully still around in the podcasting biz. She has her great show Unladylike that she used to co-host with Caroline. But eventually Caroline left and Conger kept doing it by herself. And it's still great, still around. She has an unladylike book. And we think the world of Conger. So still support her, please.

• 2:13Josh Clark?

  Way to go, Conger. And way to go for this article, because it really is incredibly well-done, especially for something she probably wrote in a day, maybe a day and a half.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  We used to crank these out.

• 2:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we did. So the whole story starts in 1993. That's where Conger put it. And I think that was the right place, the right way to go. Out on the Gulf of Mexico, there's a guy named Jerry Murphy, who was a fisherman there. And he was trawling in the Gulf of Mexico. And when he brought the net up, there was some debris in it. He just assumed were rocks at first. But I guess he took a closer look and were like, those are silver coins that are fused together because they've been underwater for so long. Hot damn.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  That's right. So he did what anyone would do. He got in touch with an attorney. He said, can I keep this stuff? And then he contacted history experts and said, where did these things come from? And then about a year after that, they finally said, hey dude, do you know what this is? This is from the ruins of the El Casador, or the Hunter. And this is a ship that disappeared in 1784 after it set out from Veracruz, Mexico, with 19 tons of Spanish currency, which was silver reels at the time.

• 3:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they were newly minted even. There was apparently a mint in Mexico and they were headed to New Orleans. And at the time, you're like, well, why does Spain care about New Orleans? Spain cared about New Orleans because that was the capital of the Louisiana colony owned by Spain at the time. Sure, you thought it was France? No, there was a period where Spain owned Louisiana. And it was during this time. And the reason they sent 19 tons of silver coins to New Orleans was because New Orleans currency had recently become devalued. There was a lot of counterfeiting going on. There was a lack of hard currency around. So they were bringing this hard currency to pay the soldiers, to pay government officials.

• 4:17Josh Clark?

  And it went down. I can't imagine being King Carlos II and being like, are you kidding me? We lost 19 tons of silver coins forever.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so King Carlos was like, I imagine, facepalmed and said, oh, God, is this like, is Louisiana even worth all this, you guys?

• 4:41Josh Clark?

  He said, I hate Mondays.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  He did. Ian Garfield. It was, it's so far away. We lost all this money. We just won it from the French a couple of decades ago. Like, do we really want to be in the Louisiana business anymore? And so, well, we should back up a little and just explain who he was. He was a cousin to King Louis XV of France. I said 25th, just a little behind the scenes there. Josh corrected me.

• 5:08Josh Clark?

  It was awesome.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  And in 1762, Louis ceded the Louisiana Territory to Carlos with a Treaty of Fontainebleau. And it wasn't because they were family. It was basically, he wanted to keep Louisiana out of the hands of the Brits.

• 5:26Josh Clark?

  Right. Better in the hands of a cousin that's ruling another country than in the Brits who he has no friends with, you know? So now Louisiana and New Orleans is under Spanish rule. And it was actually a pretty smart move because after the Seven Years' War ended, King Louis had to cede all of the Louisiana Territory east of the Mississippi to the Brits as part of the treaty, except New Orleans. And the reason New Orleans is such a plum was because if you wanted to move goods from one place to another, there were no railroads, there were no stagecoaches. You did it on the river. And the Mississippi in particular was a very valuable river

• 6:10Josh Clark?

  because it went from the top of the continent to the bottom. And when you got your stuff down to New Orleans, you could prepare for a seagoing ship, put your goods on that. And now from the Gulf of Mexico, you can take that stuff and sell it anywhere in the world.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  That's right. Another reason New Orleans is a plum is because it's New Orleans.

• 6:29Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  One of the great American cities. Man, I love New Orleans. I love that city. It's been too long. I need to get back there.

• 6:35Josh Clark?

  It is. It's a cool city. It's almost like it's got its own vibe, you know? Like, there's no other place like it.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  No other place like it. And one of the friendliest, like, if you're open to life and you go to New Orleans, there's a 50% chance you're going to end up in a stranger's home, like eating dinner with them or something.

• 6:52Josh Clark?

  50%?

• 6:53Speaker 02

  50%.

• 6:54Josh Clark?

  Those are high odds.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  All right, speaking of high, maybe we should take a break. And we'll be right back after this.

• 7:14Josh Clark?

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• 9:39Speaker 02

  All right, so New Orleans is there. It's a very hot shipping port. That's one of the pros, for sure. One of the downsides is tons of mosquitoes, meaning a lot of yellow fever, a lot of smallpox. But it was great real estate, obviously, with that port right there. So around that time, because of this, France starts looking back at New Orleans. And Napoleon is in power by this point, 1799. And he was like, man, I really want to get into the West. And New Orleans is pretty great, man. They got the mouth of the Mississippi right there. If I can control New Orleans, then that would be really great for my interests on that side of the world.

• 10:22Josh Clark?

  Right. So he goes back to Spain and he's like, hey, I would love the Louisiana Territory back. What do you say? I give your son-in-law the throne of Tuscany, right? And you give me back the Louisiana Territory. And so Napoleon and the King of Spain came up with the Treaty of San Ildefonso, which in English is the Treaty of Saint Fonzie. And France suddenly had the Louisiana Territory again.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  That's right. But around the same time, there was some, in French-owned Hispaniola, which was Haiti and the Dominican Republic is what we would call it today. They were farming sugar and coffee and tropical produce. So that was all great for the French and for Napoleon. Getting New Orleans would mean you could trade that stuff much easier, much more easily. And so he was like, this is all going to come together. However, the enslaved people there had other ideas. And they led what is the only really successful slave revolt in history.

• 11:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the Haitian Rebellion, led by Toussaint Louverture, which I was like, yes, that's going to be an episode.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 11:38Josh Clark?

  So I went and put it on the list.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Oh, good.

• 11:40Josh Clark?

  But this was in Haiti, which at the time was Saint Domingue. Domingue? I don't remember how to say it. Domingue?

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:47Josh Clark?

  And Saint Domingue was far and away the crown jewel of France's economic holdings over in the West, right? In the West Indies. And so even if you had New Orleans, without the country that was producing all the stuff that you were going to take to New Orleans and then ship around the world, you're just basically, your whole Western economic empire that Napoleon was going to build is just out the window. So he said, you know what? I don't think we really need Louisiana anymore. The Brits are knocking at the door again. I'm going to have to fight them. I'm sick of those guys. I need some quick money. Let me see who wants to buy the Louisiana Territory.

• 12:30Josh Clark?

  And in walked Thomas Jefferson, reading a Bible that he edited himself.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  That's right. And Napoleon was like, it turns out I also hate Mondays. And Thomas Jefferson said, you know what? I love Mondays. And I love Louisiana. And I love New Orleans. So TJ comes in, is like, I don't want to fight with you guys. So why don't we just see if we can work this out in a friendly way? So he sent James Monroe down there to the French government to buy just New Orleans at this point for like $3 million bucks. He's like, that's as high as I'll go.

• 13:04Josh Clark?

  Not a penny more. I'm not going to pay a lot for this territory.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 13:10Josh Clark?

  So Monroe goes and talks to Napoleon and is like, what do you think? And Napoleon goes, how about this? Here's my counteroffer. You have to buy all of the Louisiana Territory. And James Monroe dropped his teacup. Luckily, there was somebody there to catch it before it shattered on the floor. He said, for $15 million. And James Monroe did the math real quick in his head. And he's like, that's less than $0.04 an acre. And he said, sold.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  He said, sold. Yeah. So he signed over to Jefferson. And of course, we did a whole episode on the Louisiana Purchase.

• 13:49Josh Clark?

  That was a good one.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, the nitty-gritty details. But that basically doubled the size of the country. And then when I looked at this article, and I might title it this too, like, how did a shipwreck double the size of the United States? At the end of my first read-through, I was like, but wait, how did that happen again? I guess the idea is, had that shipwreck never happened, Spain would have been able to deliver their silver.

• 14:14Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  And maybe would have stayed in the Louisiana business.

• 14:18Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 14:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  So I got it?

• 14:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you did. And I feel like we did Congress article some justice.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  I hope so. Like I said, it was a really great article. And Kristin, it's awesome.

• 14:31Josh Clark?

  Yep. It was kind of one of our drunk history-style shortstuffs.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  That's right. Except we're not drinking, because it's 2:15.

• 14:40Josh Clark?

  Yep. On a Thursday, even.

• 14:43Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 14:44Josh Clark?

  At any rate, I think short stuff's out, guys.