THIS unusual squabble between the United States and France has nothing to do with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit dogma: nor has it any relevance with the French socialist President François Hollande’s distrust of his Washington counterpart Donald Trump.
To grasp what really happened, we have to move four-and-half centuries back.
On Sept 12, 1565 a French naval ship La Trinité moved south of Florida under the command of Admiral Jean Ribault with the charge of reinforcing the newly founded base at Fort Caroline, today Jacksonville.
But the New World at the far end of the Atlantic Ocean was not exclusively a French domain and was attracting other European powers of the time. The Trinity was intervened by a Spanish battleship led by Admiral Pedro Mendez. The French finally lost combat despite their 600 soldiers and 32 cannons.
The problem now was that Ribault and his men were all Huguenots while the Spanish were Catholics; they had standing instructions from their king to get rid of Protestants. So the prisoners were executed under the orders of Mendez and the ship was sunk.
To come back to our times, the controversy emerged from deep waters three years ago when a private American undersea research company, Global Marine Exploration, discovered the remains of a naval structure not far from Florida. Though the ship was in bad shape after such a long time under salted waters, a three-point sculpted mark on its side leads one to believe it is certainly La Trinité.
When the French ambassador to the United States made it clear his country was now claiming exclusive ownership of the find under the agreement Sunken Military Craft Act, signed by France and the United States in 2004, the Global Marine Exploration company altered its version by asserting that the remains that it had discovered at Cape Canaveral actually belong to a British merchant vessel, and not a French warship.
The private company, whose aim apparently is to bring up the cannons and other relics from the sunken ship and make millions by selling them in auctions, moved a step further by filing a lawsuit in the Orlando High Court. The French embassy on its part decided to defend its claim and selected a reputed lawyer to win the case.
A French culture ministry official says: “It is inconceivable to allow a commercial firm to exploit our national historical heritage. I won’t really be surprised if they have already brought up a few objects and are hiding them somewhere.”
Given the intensity of the controversy, the United States authorities have posted a number of coastguards at the site in order to keep other possible adventurers at distance.
When French and Spanish newspapers carried the details of the affair, readers reacted with surprise, but in Florida itself things appear very different.
Chuck Meide, an inhabitant of Jacksonville, says: “In our city the legend of ‘The Trinity’ is well known. We all learn in our early childhood the furious battle between admirals Ribault and Mendez. The citizens of France and Spain may have forgotten all about it, but we the people of Florida, many of Spanish and French descents, know it by heart.”
Dr John McGrath, a history professor at the Boston University and author of the book The French in Early Florida, says in an exclusive interview to daily Le Figaro that following a thorough research he is finally convinced that the undersea wreck belongs to La Trinité.
McGrath further remarks: “British sea adventurers such as Francis Drake and John Smith had their eye on Florida in the sixteenth century, but the French were the first who colonised it then finally lost everything to Spain.”
But, legally speaking, the 21st century battle of the Trinity has only begun now.
The writer is a journalist based in Paris.
Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2017
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