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Short Stuff: Did a shipwreck double the size of the United States? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the short stuff. Chush, Chuck, Jerry Date,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Let's go back in time.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Do you know who else is in the room with us?
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Uh, Jerry Murphy.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: No?
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Do you know who wrote this article?
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: No? Not you? Okay, Yeah, because I was gonna say
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know about some of this stuff.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This, uh, maybe the densest three pages I've ever
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: seen written was written by our old colleague Kristin Conger.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Conger. That's right, seriously incredibly well written.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Congs did a great job, and Kristin is thankfully still
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: around in the podcasting biz. She has her great show,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Unladylike that she used to co host with Caroline, but
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: eventually Caroline left and Conger kept doing it by herself
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: and it's it's still great. Still around, she has a
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: ladylike book, and we I think the world of Conger,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: so still support her.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Please, Way to go Conger, and way to go for
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: this article, because it really is incredibly well done, especially
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: for something she probably wrote in a day maybe a half.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: You know we used to crank these out, Yeah we did.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: So. The whole story starts in nineteen ninety three, that's
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: where Conger put it, and I think that was the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: right place, the right way to go out on the
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico. There's a guy named Jerry Murphy who
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: was a fisherman there and he was trawling in the
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico and when he brought the net up,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: there was some debris in it. He just assumed were
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: rocks at first, but I guess he took a closer
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: look and we're like, those are silver coins that are
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: fused together because they've been underwater for so long. Hot damn,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: that's right.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: So he did what anyone would do. He got in
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: touch with an attorney. He said, can I keep this stuff?
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: And then he contacted history experts and said where did
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: the things come from? And then about a year after that,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: they finally said, hey, dude, do you know what this is.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: This is from the ruins of the El Cazador or
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: the Hunter, and this is a ship that disappeared in
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: seventeen eighty four after it set out from Veracruz, Mexico,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: with nineteen tons of Spanish currency, which was silver reels
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: at the time.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were newly minted, even there was apparently a
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: mint in Mexico, and they were headed to New Orleans,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and at the time you were like, well, why does
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Spain care about New Orleans? Spain care about New Orleans
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: because that was the capital of the Louisiana colony owned
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: by Spain at the time. Sure you thought it was France. No,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: there was a period where Spain owned Louisiana and there
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: was during this time. And the reason they sent nineteen
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: tons of silver coins to New Orleans was because New
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Orleans currency had recently become devalued. There was a lot
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: of counter fitting going on. There was a lack of
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: hard currency around, so they were bringing this hard currency
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: to pay the soldiers, to pay government officials, and it
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: went down. I can't imagine being King Carlos the Second
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and being like, are you kidding me? We lost nineteen
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: tons of silver coins forever?
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And so King Carlos was like, I imagine face
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: palmed and said, oh God, is this Like, is Louisiana
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: even worth all this? You guys?
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: He said, I hate mondays he.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Did Ian Garfield, it was it's so far away. We
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: lost all this money we just wanted from the French
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: a couple of decades ago, Like, do we really want
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: to be in the Louisiana business anymore. And so well,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: we should back up a little and just explain who
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: he was. He was a cousin to King Louis the
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: fifteenth of France. I said, twenty fifth, just a little
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: behind the scenes there, Josh corrected me. It was off
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: in. In seventeen sixty two, Louis seeded the Louisiana territory to
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Carlos with a Treaty of Fontainebleau. And it wasn't because
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: they were family. It was basically he wanted to keep
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Louisiana out of the hands of the Brits.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Right better in the hands of a cousin that's ruling
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: another country than in the Britz, who he has no
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: friends with, you know. So now Louisiana and New Orleans
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: is under Spanish rule. And it was actually a pretty
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: smart move because after the Seven Years War ended, King
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Louis had to seed all of the Louisiana territory east
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: of the Mississippi to the Britz as part of the treaty,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: except New Orleans. And the reason New Orleans is such
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: a plump was because if you wanted to move goods
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: from one place to another, there were no railroads there
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: were no stage coaches. You did it on the river,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: and the Mississippi in particular was a very, very valuable
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: river because it went from the top of the continent
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: to the bottom. And if when you got your stuff
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: down in New Orleans, you could prepare for a seagoing ship,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: put your goods on that and now from the Gulf
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: of Mexico, you can take that stuff and sell it
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: anywhere in the world.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: That's right. Another reason New Orleans is a plum is
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: because it's New Orleans. It's sure one of the great
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: American cities. Man, I love New Orleans. I love that city.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: It's it's been too long. I need to get back there.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: It is. It's a cool city. It's it's almost like
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: it's got its own vibe, you know, like there's no
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: other place like it.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: No other place like it. And one of the friendliest.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Like if you're open to life and you go to
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: New Orleans, there's a fifty percent chance you're going to
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: end up in a stranger's home, like eating dinner with
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: them or something.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Those are high odds.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: All right, speaking of high maybe we should take a
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: break and we'll be right back after this, all right,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: So New Orleans is there. It's a very hot shipping port.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: That's one of the pros for sure. One of the
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: downsides is is tons of mosquitoes, meaning a lot of
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: yellow fever, a lot of smallpox. But it was great
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: real estate, obviously, you know, with that port right there.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: So around that time, because of this, France starts looking
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: back at New Orleans and Napoleon is in power by
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: this point seventeen ninety nine, and he was like, man,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I really want to get into the West, and New
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Orleans is pretty great. Man. They got the mouth of
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: the Mississippi right there, and if I can control New
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Orleans then that would be really great for my interests
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: on that side of the world.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Right, So he goes back to Spain and he's like, hey,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: I would love the Louisiana territory back. What do you say,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: I give your son in law the throne of Tuscany, right,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: and you give me back the Louisiana territory. And so
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Napoleon and the King of Spain came up with the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Treaty of San Ildefonso, which in English is the Treaty
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: of Saint PHONSI, and France suddenly had the Louisiana territory again.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: That's right. But around the same time there was some
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: in French owned Hispaniola, which was Haitian, the Dominican Republic
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: is what we would call that today. They were like,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: they were farming sugar and coffee and tropical produce. So
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: that was all great, you know, for the French and
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: for Napoleon getting New Orleans with me, and you could
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: trade that stuff much easier or much more easily, and
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: so he was like, this is all going to come together. However,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: the enslaved people there had other ideas and they led
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: what is the only really successful slave revolt in history.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Haitian Rebellion led by Dussaint Lovertire, which I
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: was like, yes, that's going to be an episode, so
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: everyone put it on the list.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: O good.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: But this was in Haiti, which at the time was
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Saint doming Do Minge, I don't remember how to say Dominge. Yeah,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: And Saint Domingue was far and away the crown jewel
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: of France's economic holdings over in the West, right in
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the West Indies. And so even if you had New
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Orleans without the country that was producing all the stuff
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: that you were going to take to New Orleans and
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: then ship around the world. You're just basically your whole
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Western economic empire that Napoleon was going to build is
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: just out the window. So he said, you know what,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I don't think we really need Louisiana anymore. The Brits
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: are knocking at the door again. I'm gonna have to
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: fight them. I'm sick of those guys. I need some
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: quick money. Let me see who wants to buy the
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Louisiana territory. And in walk Thomas Jefferson reading a Bible,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: he edited himself.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: That's right, and Napoleon was like, I turns out I
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: also hate Mondays, And Thomas Jefferson said, you know what,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I love Mondays and I love Louisiana and I love
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: New Orleans. So TJ comes in, It's like, I don't
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: want to fight with you guys, so why don't we
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: just see if we can work this out in a
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: friendly way. So he sent James Monroe down there to
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: the French government to buy just New Orleans at this
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: point for like three million bucks. He's like, that's as
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: high as I'll go.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Not a penny more. I'm not going to pay a
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: lot for this territory.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: So so Monroe goes and talks to Napoleon and is like,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: what do you think? And Napoleon goes, how about this.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Here's my counter offer. You have to buy all of
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the Louisiana territory. And James Monroe dropped his tea cup.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Luckily there's somebody there at catch you before it shattered
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: on the floor. He said, for fifteen million dollars, and
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: James wonn Road did the mathro quick in his head
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: and he's like, that's less than four cents an acre,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and he said sold.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: He said sold. Yeah, so he signed over to Jefferson
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: and you know, of course we did a whole episode
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: on the Louisiana purchase. It was a good one, yeah,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: the needy, gritty details, but that basically doubled the size
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: of the country. And then, you know, when I looked
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: at this article, and I might title it this too,
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: like how did a shipwreck double the size of the
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: United States? At the end of my first read through,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: I was like, but wait, how did that happen? Again?
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: I guess the idea is had that shipwreck never happened,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Spain would have been able to deliver their silver and
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: maybe would have stayed in the Louisiana business exactly. Okay, Yeah,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: so I got it.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah you did. And I feel like we did Conger's
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: article some justice.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: I hope. So, like I said, it was a really
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: great article and Kristen's awesome.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Yep. It was kind of one of our drunk history
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: style short stuffs.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: That's right, except we're not drinking because it's two fifteen.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah on a Thursday.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: Even that's right.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: At any rate, I think short stuff's out, guys.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 11:34
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• 11:38
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