David Horan - The Treasure Sultan

Treasures of the "El Cazador"

EDITOR'S NOTE: David Horan's clients know him as the Treasure Sultan. Horan of Key West, Florida, is one of the leading attorneys in the nation on admiralty law as it pertains to ownership of sunken treasure, sunken ships and underwater artifacts. His clients have salvaged some of the greatest underwater treasures and historical finds in the world, including the "Atocha," the "Santa Margarita," the "Andreadoria," the "Titanic," the "San Miguel De Archangel" and the "El Cazador." Horan also has had the opportunity to scuba dive on many of these wrecks. This week, Horan will share with us his adventures, photos and tales of great treasure finds made by ordinary people like you and me.

The "El Cazador" was a Spanish brigantine of war that sailed
out of Veracruz, Mexico, on January 11, 1784 on its way to New Orleans, Louisiana. At that time, Spain owned 1 million square miles of America that would later be known as the Louisiana Purchase. During that time, Spain tried to stabilize the currency in its American colony. Spain loaded 450,000 pesos of Spanish-minted gold coins produced by the Mexico mint on-board the boat. Fifty miles south of New Orleans, the "El Cazador" caught on-fire and sank. But, no one ever knew what happened to the boat.

One of my commercial fishing clients owned a fishing boat called "The Mistake." As he pulled his fishing net through 300 feet of water, the net hung in some debris on the bottom of the ocean. When he brought the net up from the bottom and began to dump the trash out of the net on the deck of the boat, he noticed the trash was in fact gold coins. When the client got to port, he called me and said, "I caught something." I thought he meant to say, "I have been caught." So I asked him, "Do you mean you've been caught by the National Marine Fishery Service doing something you aren't supposed to do?" He said, "No, you don't understand. This time I caught something. I want you to come to New Orleans, Louisiana, and see what I caught."

He had found minted 1783 gold coins with pictures of the King of Spain Charles III on them. Immediately, I hired a researcher in Seville, Spain. From the coins and the information we already had, the researcher determined that we apparently had discovered the "El Cazador." During that time, the king of Spain owed Napoleon a great sum of money. After the king's huge shipment of gold was lost, the king of Spain gave Napoleon Bonaparte the land in Louisiana as payment. The king asked Napoleon to never give or sell the land to the American colonies. Napoleon was not a man of his word and immediately sold the land to the American colonies. The gold coins on the "El Cazador" changed the course of history. Had this vessel not sunk, Spain might still have owned what we now call the Louisiana Purchase.
I went out to the wreck site and watched the divers bring the coins up from the bottom. A group called Oceaneering salvaged this galleon. They brought up most of the treasure using a diver in a wasp suit, which is a single-atmosphere small submarine that one person operates.

If you find a treasure and you want to contact me, you can email me at bhw608@hotmail.com, call me at (352) 294-4585 or write to me at 608 Whitehead Street, Key West, Fl 33040.

TOMORROW: THE JUPITER WRECK