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

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(upbeat music) - Hey, welcome to the short sub-judge. Chuck, Jerry, Dave, let's go back in time. - Do you know who else is in the room with this? - Jerry Murphy?

- No, do you know who wrote this article? - No. - Not you. - Because I was gonna say, I didn't even know about some of this stuff.

- Yeah, this maybe the densest three pages I've ever seen written. Was written by our old colleague, Kristen Konger. - Konger, that's right. - That's right, it's seriously incredibly well written.

- She did, it's Kong's, Kong said a great job. And Kristen is thankfully still around in the podcasting biz. She has her great show on Ladylike, that she used to co-host with Caroline.

But eventually, Caroline left, and Konger kept doing it by herself. And it's still great, still around. She has a Ladylike book. And we think the world of Konger. So still support her, please.

- Way to go, Konger. And way to go for this article, 'cause it really is incredibly well done, especially for something she probably wrote in a day, maybe a day, maybe a half, you know?

- We used to crank these out. - Yeah, we did. So the whole story starts in 1993. That's where Konger put it. And I think that was the right place.

The right way to go. Out on the Gulf of Mexico, there was a guy named Jerry Murphy, who was a fisherman there. And he was a, he was trawling in the Gulf of Mexico.

And when he brought the net up, there was some debris in it.

He just assumed or 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.

- That's right, so he did what anyone would do. He got in touch with him in a journey. 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 Cazador or the Hunter. And this is a ship that disappeared in 1784 after it set out from Vera Cruz, Mexico with 19 tons of Spanish currency, which was silver reels at the time.

- 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 care 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. And it went down.

I can't imagine being King Carlos the second being like,

you kidding me, we lost 19 tons of silver coins forever. - Yeah, and so King Carlos was like, I imagine face palm and said, oh God, it's just like, it's Louisiana even worth all this, you guys. - He said, I hate Mondays, he did, he and Garfield.

It was so far away, we lost all this money, we just won it from the French a couple of decades ago,

“like, do we really wanna 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 the 15th of France.

just corrected me, and in 1762, Louis ceded

“the Louisiana territory to Carlos with a treaty of Fontam blu.”

And it wasn't because they were family,

it was basically he wanted to keep Louisia

out of the hands of the Brit. - Right, better in the hands of a cousin that's ruling another country than in the Brit to he has no friends with, you know. So now, Louisia 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 seed 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 plump was because if you wanted to move goods from one place to another, there were no railroads, there were no stage coaches, you did it on the river, and the Mississippi in particular was a very valuable river,

'cause it went from the top of the continent to the bottom.

And if when you got your stuff down in New Orleans,

“you could prepare for a seagulling 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. - That's right, another reason New Orleans is a plump is because it's New Orleans. - That's just 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. 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.

- 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 gonna end up in a stranger's home, like eating dinner with them or something.

- 50%, that's not 50%.

- 'Cause they're high odds.

- All right, speaking of high, maybe we should take a break, and we'll be right back after this. (upbeat music) - If you're a bookshelf and you're for you,

“page, or equally important to your personality,”

welcome home. This is Pro's Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice

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Listen to Pro's Society on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. - When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and health captive for nine months.

I survived, and I spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the survivor files. Just remember, this low taunting voice next to my ear, saying shut up, don't say anything.

- Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. - I knew if he woke up. Without a doubt, he was going too hurt me. - I started feeling that there was someone at the end

of my bed, and I just started screaming. - They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. Their stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with Elizabeth Smart

on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) - 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 at 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 start looking back at New Orleans, and Napoleon is in power by this point. 1799, and he was like, "Man, I really wanna get into the West." And New Orleans is pretty great, man.

I got the mouth at the Mississippi right there

then that would be really great for my interest on that side of the world. - 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 Tuscanny, right?”

And you give me back the Louisiana Territory. And so, Napoleon and the King of Spain came up with the Treaty of San El Defonzo, which in English is the Treaty of St. Fanzi, and France suddenly had the Louisiana Territory again.

- That's right, but around in 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 like, 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 gonna come together,

"however, the enslaved people there had other ideas." And they led, what is the only, like, really successful slave revolt in history? - Yeah, the Haitian rebellion, led by two salt-lover chair,

which I was like, "Yes, that's gonna be an episode, "to ever put it on the list." - Oh, good. - But this was in Haiti, which at the time was St. Domingue, Domingue.

I don't remember how to say, Domingue. - Yeah. - And St. Domingue was far in a way, 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 gonna take to New Orleans and then ship around the world,

you were just basically your whole Western economic empire

that Napoleon was gonna build, is just out of the window. So he said, "You know what? "I don't think we really need Louisiana anymore. "The Brits are knocking at the door,

"I'm gonna 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. "In In Walk Thomas Jefferson,

"reading a Bible that he edited himself." - That's right, and Napoleon was like, "I turns out I also hate Mondays. "In 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 three million bucks.

He's like, "That's as high as I'll go." - Not a penny more. I'm not gonna pay a lot for this territory. - That's right. - So Monroe goes and talks to Napoleon

and is like, "What do you think?" And Napoleon goes, "How about this? "Here's my counter offer.

“"You have to buy all of the Louisiana territory”

"in James Monroe dropped his T-cup. "Like, there's somebody that catch a report shattered on the floor. "He said, "For 15 million dollars." And James Monroe did the math real quick in his head and he's like, "That's less than four cents an acre."

And he said, "Sold." - He said, "Sold." Yeah, so he signed over to Jefferson. And, you know, of course we did a whole episode on the Louisiana purchase online.

- That was a good one. - Yeah, the needy-girdy details. But that basically doubled the size of the country. And then, you know, when I looked at this article and I might title it this too,

like how did a shipwreck doubled 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. - Right. - And maybe would have stayed in the Louisiana business. - Exactly. - Okay.

- So I got it. - Yeah, you did. And I feel like we did, we did Congress article some justice. - I hope so.

Like I said, it was a really great article and Kristin's awesome. - Yep. - It was kind of one of our drunk history style short steps. - That's right, except we're not drinking.

- 'Cause it's... - To 15. - Yep. - On a Thursday, even. - That's right.

- At any rate, I think short steps out, guys. (upbeat music)

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