By Carla Salazar and Frank Bajak
Lima - We were robbed! That's how many Peruvians feel, now that U.S.
courts have given Spain the 17 tons of silver and gold coins that a
private company salvaged from the wreck of a colonial-era Spanish
sailing ship.
The
treasure's origin is not in dispute. The metals were mined and the
coins minted in the Andes. The Spanish navy frigate that was carrying
them to Spain exploded during an attack by British warships in 1804.
Peru
argued it should get the precious metal recovered from the Nuestra
Senora de Las Mercedes. But its legal case was sunk in large part by a
historical fact: This country was, at the time, a Spanish dependency. It
didn't gain independence until 1821, the last bastion of Spanish rule
in South America.
"It is uncontested that the Mercedes is the property of Spain," a three-judge U.S. appeals court ruled in September.
Many
Peruvians, however, feel they are entitled to the booty because of
colonial Spain's violent, exploitative legacy. Countless natives of the
Andes were forced to abandon home and family and toil in life-choking
conditions extracting ore underground.
"Spain's
progenitors were genocidal to our progenitors, the indigenous of Peru,
thousands if not millions of whom died in underground mines going after
that metal," said Rodolfo Rojas Villanueva, an activist with the
eco-cultural movement Patria Verde.
Other
Peruvians would be happy to get a share of the 594,000 coins, whose
value has been estimated at $500 million, not so much as reparations but
because they are Peru's heritage.
Spanish officials flatly reject any Peruvian claim.
Spain's
culture minister, Jose Ignacio Wert, received the treasure with
considerable fanfare Feb. 27 after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a bid
by Peru to halt the shipment. Wert said U.S. courts were clear: "The
legacy of the Mercedes belongs to Spain."
The
coins, mostly silver reals but also gold doubloons, came from ore mined
in present-day Peru and Bolivia and likely also Colombia and Chile.
It's not clear exactly what portion was minted in Lima, Spain's
continental capital after its conquistadors subjugated the Incas.
Odyssey
Marine Exploration of Tampa, Florida, recovered the treasure in 2007
about 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of the Strait of Gibraltar and
placed it in the custody of U.S. courts, which declared the find exempt
from their jurisdiction and ordered it turned over to Spain.
Peru and Odyssey have appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn those rulings.
Peru's government says the coins are the country's patrimony.
"There
existed an entity, a country that had not yet become independent but
was a territory that later converted itself into an independent country,
that is called Peru," said Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde, foreign
minister in the 2006-2011 government of President Alan Garcia. "The
money belonged to that territory."
Peru's
ambassador in Washington, Harold Forsyth, put it less abstractly: "The
ship departed from the port of Callao (adjacent to Lima) with a cargo of
coins minted in Peru, extracted from Peruvian mines with arms and sweat
of Peruvians."
Peru
has fought previously for archaeological artifacts lost to the
developed world. Under Garcia, it successfully campaigned to persuade
Yale University to agree to return hundreds of items taken from the
famed Inca citadel of Machu Picchu a century ago by the U.S. explorer
Hiram Bingham.
In the case of Las Mercedes, it is not just Odyssey and Peru laying claim to the doubloons and reals.
Others
include descendants of the ship's captain, Diego de Alvear Ponce de
Leon, and of merchants who Odyssey says collectively owned
three-quarters of the coins. Those merchants paid Spain a 1 percent
conveyance tax.
"In
essence, this is an expropriation," said Rafael Fernandez de Lavalle, a
Colombian who claims about 800 silver coins and a small chest from Las
Mercedes. "It is really upsetting that they can rob you in such a brazen
manner."
He
is descended from one of the merchants, a Peruvian-born count, Jose
Antonio de Lavalle y Cortes, who exported cacao to Spain, and belongs to
a group of 17 mostly Peruvian families who have also appealed to the
U.S. Supreme Court.
Spanish
historians generally defend their country's right to the coins. But
some think the nations of origin should be able to display some of it.
"It
would be very good to send a part, if only as a loan, as a message of
fraternity," said Marina Alfonso, a historian at UNED University in
Seville.
Wert,
Spain's culture minister, said his nation has not ruled out allowing
some of the coins to go on display in Latin America, but stresses it
would only be on loan.
Alfonso
said most of the recovered silver almost certainly came from Potosi,
part of present-day Bolivia and once the world's richest silver lode.
Bolivia's
culture minister, Pablo Groux, said numismatic experts have determined
the coins were minted in four places: Lima; Popayan, Colombia; Santiago,
Chile; and Potosi.
He said his country has formally requested a share of the treasure but decided not to litigate, considering its case weak.
"We think the strategy should be diplomatic," he said.
