Carlos León, a doctor in archaeology and specialist in underwater archaeology, has stated that on the coasts of the Dominican Republic “there are more than 65 Spanish shipwrecks of which only a dozen of them are known.”
“Their location, identification and preservation is an urgent task that must be addressed as a common heritage between Spain and the Dominican Republic,” said León this Monday during the conference ‘Archaeology under the sea: galleons, hurricanes and shipwrecks’ held at the Ramón Areces Foundation.
Specialists in the search for wrecks participated in the conference together with cultural authorities from the Dominican Republic and Spain. They have all called for working together to preserve this sunken heritage that belongs to both nations.
The event has served to analyse the situation of the underwater archaeological heritage found in the Dominican Republic, which comes, for the most part, from Spanish shipwrecks that occurred between the 16th and 18th centuries. In addition, this meeting has been held just when it is 300 years since the shipwreck of the ‘Guadalupe’ and the ‘Tolosa’ in the bay of Samaná.
“The fleet of Azogues of 1724, composed of the ships Guadalupe and Tolosa, was the protagonist of one of the shipwrecks with the greatest loss of life in Spanish navigation in the 18th century,” recalled Carlos León.
The Galeones de Azogue project, started in 1994, has studied more than 5,000 objects extracted from the ‘Guadalupe’, as well as the remains of the ship that are preserved under the sea at a depth of about six metres.
“Thanks to the study of this shipwreck, we now know what the ship was like, how it sailed, how it sank, how people survived the shipwreck, who lived and who died, what they were transporting, what products were smuggled in, and how the ship became part of the seabed,” added León.
Another of the researchers who spoke at the event was Cruz Apestegui, a specialist in Spanish shipbuilding in the 17th and 18th centuries and coordinator of the meeting: “The archaeological heritage submerged on the Dominican coast is the most interesting in the world from the point of view of the quantity and variety of shipwrecks, but this is also a great responsibility for the country, which must inventory them, conserve them and preserve them for future generations.”
As Apestegui said, “the ship ‘Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe’, built in 1703 and sunk in Dominican waters in 1724, is a unique example of a flagship fitted out for the transport of mercury.”
For this researcher of underwater heritage, “without public-private management it will be impossible to preserve the more than 100,000 objects from Spanish shipwrecks sunk in Dominican waters.”
As Gamal Michelén, Vice Minister of Culture of the Dominican Republic, acknowledged at this meeting, “Dominican underwater archaeology has gone through many phases since the discovery of the ship Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, the first shipwreck found in Dominican waters in 1976.” “Today, after ratifying the UNESCO Convention on Underwater Cultural Heritage, our country is entering a new phase in tune with the countries that want to preserve and defend the submerged heritage that unites us,” he said.
Mónica Gutiérrez, director of the Museum of the Royal Shipyards of Santo Domingo, is an exceptional witness to this new phase and this new sensitivity towards this valuable heritage. “We have gone from a time when fishermen and locals sold pieces found superficially to having a magnificent display at the Royal Shipyard Museum,” she said.
According to Carlota Pérez-Reverte, a doctor specialising in Underwater Archaeology, it is necessary for people to know their heritage, “which is part of their history, and to forge a bond with it so that they too feel the impulse to protect and preserve it.”
For her part, María Agúndez, deputy director general for management and coordination of cultural assets at the Spanish Ministry of Culture, explained that this Department, “in its desire to conserve and preserve the underwater cultural heritage of Spanish shipwrecks sunk outside our borders, has inventoried these shipwrecks, has favoured inter-ministerial and international agreements, has participated in missions promoted by UNESCO and has led different travelling exhibitions, such as ‘The Last Voyage of the Frigate Mercedes’ or ‘The Fleet of New Spain and the Search for the Galleon Nuestra Señora del Juncal'”.
