"Two 16th-century storylines set the stage for the sinking of la Trinité and France’s doomed efforts to colonize Florida. The first is one of empire: France, England, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands all hungered for new lands, new trade routes, and new resources in the so-called New World. The second is one of religion: Europe, long united in faith under the Catholic Church, fractured and descended into religious wars as the Protestant Reformation spread from kingdom to kingdom."
Is this the opening passage of a riveting non-fiction book about the fate of a cursed French ship? No! It's the background section of an Eleventh Circuit opinion that came out yesterday. The case involved a fight over the sunken remains of la Trinité, a French ship which sank off the coast of Cape Canaveral in 1565. In 2016, a company called Global Marine Exploration, Inc. (which in my head I'm imagining as the equivalent to Bill Paxton's crew from the movie Titanic) discovered the remains of the ship. But France called dibs, resulting in this litigation.
In the end, the Eleventh Circuit held that the Sunken Military Craft Act (yes, this exists) barred Global Marine’s lawsuit because la Trinité was on military noncommercial service when it sank. But in getting to this holding, Chief Judge Pryor recounts an intriguing aspect of Florida history that involved warring battle ships, a devastating hurricane, and beheadings. Opinion here.
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