Bolivian Indigenous groups assert claim to treasure of ‘holy grail of shipwrecks’

From today's Guardian. What's your opinion?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/29/bolivia-shipwreck-colombia-treasure

 

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Estimated $17 billion in recoverable goods - who wouldn't want a piece?

 

Should there be restitution, though, to the decedents of enslaved indigenous and Africa workers? How would that work and by whom?

The Guardian article's main point is that slave labor produced to a large degree the gold and silver coins from South America, Potosi in particular.

Slave labor in mining has a very long record, going back to the ancient Romans and Greeks. Athens, while providing a foundation for democratic governing, has slaves working at Laurion silver mines to extract the source of Athenian wealth and power.

 

Eventually there will be a legal Statutes of Limitations established.

However wrong slave labor was in antiquity and continues to be in the present along with justified recompense is a matter The Hague is formalizing now. It will be forced to establish some point in time as a decision point.

The United States applied the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny” to acquire (or, steal) Indigenous Indian territory to spread westward in the 1800’s. Not to mention the Indian wars in Canada and the British Colonies which were efforts to stop the European invasion started in the 1600’s.

The US, belatedly, established levels of recompense to hundreds of American Indian tribes. It will be interesting to see where the line is drawn on a international scale…imo…Spark

 

I'll leave that to people that know better than I. But I imagine the ship will be recovered, and the indigenous groups will get a payoff. That's typically how things go - there's enough to go around in this case it seems. Spain, US, and Bolivia, and the indigenous groups now too, all are claiming a stake in this, it says. I bet there's even going to be a nice chunk for the lawyers.

Me personally? I want to see the coins man.

 

For those of you interested in a more detailed history of Potosi "mountain of silver" here's an older article:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/...entury, 160,000 native,or Seville at the time.