Slave Ships and Maritime Archaeology: An Overview

Jane Webster

Published online: 3 January 2008# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007

Abstract This contribution collates information about wrecked slaving vesselsdiscovered or sought by maritime archaeologists since 1972. To date, only a handfulof firmly identified, active slave ships have been subject to excavation, butadditional work has been carried out on wrecks of former slaver ships and possibleslavers. The impending 200th anniversaries of the abolition of the British and USslave trades (2007 and 2008, respectively) appear to have stimulated a new wave ofinterest in slaver wrecks, and these new initiatives are also discussed.

Keywords Slave ships . Excavation .Wrecks

Introduction

Few floating seventeenth- nineteenth-century wooden ships of any sort survivetoday, and none of these are former slave ships. Wreck data necessarily, therefore,play a key role in the archaeological study of slave shipping. Yet to date, only ahandful of slaver wrecks have been located, and only two of these, Henrietta Marie(Moore and Malcom, this volume) and Fredensborg (Svalesen 2000) have beensubject to sustained programs of fieldwork. The paucity of fieldwork may appearsurprising, since in theory, the wrecks of slave ships should not be especially hard tofind. A total of 825 documented losses at sea are recorded among the 27,000 entriesin the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database (Eltis et al. 1999), with 183 of these lossesoccurring either whilst slaving or after embarkation (that is, with African captivesalmost certainly aboard). Further, undocumented, examples must be envisaged. Yetas noted already, very few slaver wrecks have been located to date. Before goingfurther, it is important to ask why.

Int J Histor Archaeol (2008) 12:6–19DOI 10.1007/s10761-007-0040-8

J. Webster (*)School of Historical Studies, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UKe-mail: j.l.webster@newcastle.ac.uk

The Ephemeral Slave Ship

A vessel engaged on a slaving venture was not, for much of its voyage, a “slaveship” at all. In illustrating this point I will simplify matters by focusing on the Britishtrade, but many of these points apply to vessels of other European countries.

On the outward journey to Africa, the hold of an intending slaver would be ladenwith trade goods that would later be exchanged for African captives. At this stage,therefore, the vessel was not easily distinguishable from other categories of merchantship carrying trade goods to Africa, but not intent upon the purchase of slaves. A fewtell-tale signs, such as open gratings (rather than the more usual closed hatches), andair holes at the point where slave decks would later be inserted, did distinguish someslavers (ventilation holes of this type can be seen just above the waterline in WilliamJackson’s painting “A Liverpool Slave Ship,” dating to ca. 1780: Quilley 2000, pp.79–92; Tibbles 1994, p. 141). These ships would also be carrying significantquantities of water casks, shackles and handcuffs, along with lumber, whoseeventual use is explained below. Unfortunately, as is clear from the excavationsundertaken so far, few of these distinguishing features survive to be observed on theseabed.

A slave ship would transform into a merchantman once again in the final stages ofits voyage, as it returned home laden with colonial products such as sugar and rum.Whilst it would take around a year to complete a full voyage (Britain–Africa–Caribbean/US–Britain), the average length of a Middle Passage crossing for Britishships was 63 days (calculated from Eltis et al. 1999), and whilst trading negotiationsdetained many vessels on the coastline of West Africa for some months, the averageslaver transported human captives on the open sea for no more than a sixth of itstotal voyage time.

In order to make the transportation of a human cargo possible, moreover, anumber of modifications had to be made to any ship as it lay off the coast of Africaacquiring captives. The first of these was the construction of the “house,” a timbershelter erected on the main deck as a temporary living space for African captives.This structure, which ran the length of the vessel and was usually roofed withmatting (as described by slave ship surgeon Alexander Falconbridge in 1788: Fyfe2000, p. 198) or a canvas awning (as used on John Newton’s ship the Duke of Argylein 1750: Martin and Spurrell 1962, p. 9), would be needed only until the ship wasready to sail from Africa. Next came the building of “slave decks,” partial decks andplatforms inserted into the space below the main deck and above the second (‘tween)deck. African captives would spend much of their Middle Passage to the Americaslying on these crowded, unsanitary and almost airless platforms, with an average ofaround 5–6 ft2 (.46–.56 m2) of living space per person at the height of the Britishtrade (Garland and Klein 1985, pp. 240–247).

In good weather conditions, captives would spend the daylight hours on deck, andfrom the perspective of the ships crew this presented a number of security risks. Onthe majority of British and other European vessels, captives brought up from theslave decks were therefore confined behind a timber partition commonly called a“barricado.” This was inserted across the full width of the vessel’s quarter- or half-deck, thereby securing the area to be used by captives when they were brought upfrom below. Like so many of the timber features of a slave ship, the barricado was

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erected as the ship lay off the African coast. Alexander Falconbridge, a Bristol manwho served as a surgeon on four slaving voyages in the 1780s, provides a detaileddescription of a barricado inserted across a half-deck:

Near the main-mast, a partition is constructed of inch deal boards, whichreaches athwart the ship. This division is called a barricado. It is about eightfeet in height, and is made to project near two feet over the side of the ship. Inthis barricado there is a door, at which a sentinel is placed during the time thenegroes are permitted to come upon deck. It serves to keep the different sexesapart, and as there are small holes in it, wherein blunderbuses are fixed, andsometimes a cannon, it is found very convenient for quelling the insurrectionsthat now and then happen (Fyfe 2000, p. 197).

All of the alterations described above were of a temporary nature; the slave housewas demolished before a ship left Africa, and the slave decks and barricado weredismantled upon arrival in the Americas. None of the wrecks yet discovered werecarrying slaves when they foundered, so none provides us with a snapshot of a slaveship transporting a human cargo, and with these modifications actually in place.These factors, in turn, impact directly upon our ability to identify potential slaveships on the seabed. Only in cases where a wreck can be firmly identified, and itsvoyage history traced (as with the Henrietta Marie: Moore and Malcom, thisvolume) can slave ships be identified with certainty. This happens very rarely. AsSadler (this volume) points out, the British naval patrol vessels policing African andCaribbean waters after 1807 found it hard enough to identify possible slavers eventhen, precisely because many of the physical signs of slaving activity could so easilybe dismantled or jettisoned (see also Bethell 1966, p. 86; Kern 2004, p. 49). Andshould archaeologists one day locate a ship that foundered with these features still inplace, it is highly unlikely that they would survive today: timber structural remainsabove the turn of the bilge, or in the section of the hull where the bottom turns upinto the ship’s sides, very rarely survive.

In this context, it should also be noted that the great majority of the vessels fittedout for the British slave trade were actually second-hand vessels from other trades(Behrendt 2001). Such ships were easily redeployed, and this was the fate of manyBritish slavers immediately after abolition in 1807. In this way, slave ships wererapidly absorbed into the mainstream of merchant shipping, and disappeared fromview.

What of foreign slavers, still engaged in the trade after 1807? Following theestablishment of preventative squadrons in Africa and the Caribbean, numerousforeign slave ships were seized as “prizes” by British anti-slavery vessels, but thesecaptured vessels were condemned (declared illegal, then auctioned), to prevent theirre-entry into the trade. Local merchants purchased some vessels, the Admiraltyconverted others into anti-slaving patrol ships, and some were quietly bought up onbehalf of slave traders, and re-entered into the slave trade.

During the 1830s, Britain made efforts to persuade other governments to permitcondemned slave ships to be broken up before resale, but Portugal and Brazil bothresisted this strongly (Bethell 1966, p. 88). In 1837, the Portuguese-owned DonFrancisco was captured off Dominica by HMS Griffon as it made its way fromWhydah to Havana. The ship was condemned, but was certainly not broken up: it

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was later re-registered in London for general trading purposes, as James Matthews(Henderson, this volume). The Royal Navy did not always succeed in condemningillegal vessels, therefore. Some of course eluded pursuit altogether, and others, likeTrouvadore (Sadler, this volume) and Guerrero (below), were run aground in thecourse of pursuit. Some of these ships may yet be re-discovered by maritimearchaeologists.

Salvors and Slave Shipping

The factors discussed above go some way to explaining why so few slaver wreckshave been identified. But there are additional reasons. First, few maritimearchaeologists have actually attempted to locate slaver wrecks, or even to writeabout slave shipping (slave ships are absent, for example from such syntheses asBass 1996 and Gould 2000). Indeed, for McGhee (1997, p. 3), the archaeologicalneglect of slave shipping is nothing short of a “moral disgrace.” One explanationhere may be that the slave trade is still perceived as a “difficult” subject, and sonautical archaeologists shy away from it. But there is an additional, more pragmatic,explanation.

Despite the rapid growth of maritime archaeology as a discipline since the 1960s,underwater search and excavation is so costly that historic wrecks are often initiallydiscovered not by archaeologists, but by professional salvage companies. Historicsalvors target “treasure ships,” and are rarely directly interested in vessels carryingthe kinds of cargo to be found on a slaver. It is no accident that two of the slaverwrecks found to date (Henrietta Marie, Moore and Malcom, this volume, andAdelaïde, discussed below) were discovered by private companies investigatingCaribbean routes plied by Spanish treasure fleets, whilst two of the located ex-slavers (Whydah Galley and the Beaufort Inlet shipwreck) were found by salvors insearch of pirate gold.

By contrast, although many slavers foundered off the West African coastline, verylittle underwater survey has been conducted in that region. Indeed, no archaeologicalshipwreck survey of any sort was undertaken in sub-Saharan West Africa until 2003,when Gregory D. Cook and Christopher DeCorse of Syracuse University initiated asurvey project focused on the approaches to Elmina (Ghana), the earliest and largestEuropean trading entrepot on the West African coast (http://www.sha.org/News/nlcr-af.htm). In that one year, 70 potential wreck sites were located, and three targetshave since been investigated in more detail. One of these proved to be a Dutch (orpossibly British) wreck of early nineteenth-century date, and produced Europeanmanufactured goods including sheet brass “battery ware” basins, rolls of leadsheathing, brass manillas, ceramics, and beads. Slavers were by no means the onlyvessels to carry such goods to Africa, so whilst it is possible that this was a slaveship operating in the declining years of the slave trade, this cannot be stated withcertainty (Cook, pers. comm.).

The potentials of West African waters are enormous. But for commercial reasons,salvors are drawn not to Africa, but to the Americas. The discovery of HenriettaMarie off Florida is a case in point here, and highlights the issues that can arisewhen a private company locates—and obtains legal title to—a slaver wreck. David

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Moore and Corey Malcom have contributed an account of the excavation of theHenrietta Marie to the present volume, so I need only summarize some key detailshere. Henrietta Marie lies on New Ground Reef, 35 mi (56 km) west of Key West,and was located in 1972 by a subsidiary of Treasure Salvors Inc., a company ownedby commercial salvor Mel Fisher. At this time, Fisher was actively seeking theSpanish treasure galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha, a wreck that has become acause célèbre in the battleground between treasure hunting and Cultural ResourceManagement (CRM) archaeology (Elia 2000). The wreck of Henrietta Marieremained largely unexplored until 1983, when salvor Henry Taylor began work onthe site, under an agreement with Mel Fisher. Archaeologist David Moore wasemployed to work on the wreck in the same year, and additional work took placeunder his leadership in 1984 and 1985. In 1988 the not-for-profit Mel FisherMaritime Heritage Society (MFMHS) assumed responsibility for the wreck, and in1991 a team led by MFMHS archaeologist Corey Malcom returned briefly to thesite. Malcom undertook additional work in 2001.

In the 30 years since its discovery in 1972, work on the Henrietta Marie has thusbeen sporadic. In addition, the findings have been principally disseminated notthrough scholarly papers, but via the MFMHS website (http://www.melfisher.org/henriettamarie.htm). Information about Henrietta Marie has, as a result, taken sometime to find its way into mainstream academic writing on the history andarchaeology of slave shipping. That situation is now changing, not least with Mooreand Malcom’s very welcome contribution to the present volume (see also Malcom2003 and Burnside 2002), but elsewhere the relationship between commercialsalvors and professional archaeological bodies remains a difficult one.

In 1992 the differences in approach between salvage and public CRMarchaeology were eloquently expressed in Ricardo Elia’s discussion of the “ethicsof collaboration” between archaeologists and commercial salvors exploring Whydah,a pirate ship (and, as discussed below, possible ex-slaver) wrecked off Cape Cod in1717. The wreck was discovered by salvor Barry Clifford in 1982 (Clifford andPerry 1999; Elia 1992; Hamilton 2006). In Elia’s words (1992, p. 108) “Commercialsalvage projects … violate one of the major principles that have gained acceptancein the past 20 years of CRM archaeology—namely, the conservation ethic, whichtreats archaeological sites as non-renewable resources that should be preservedwherever possible and only excavated if they are threatened. In most commercialshipwreck projects—the Whydah project included—there is no real threat to the siteexcept from the salvage activities themselves.”

For Elia, writing more than a decade ago, the aims of commercial salvage andCRM were irreconcilable, but the issue as to how research archaeologists should usethe information generated by historic salvors was then—and remains now—far lessclear cut. Today, some scholars (for example those working on the archaeology ofpiracy, a field in which salvors are very active) are more willing to find compromises(Ewen 2006, pp. 6–7). With reference to slave ships, however, these problems areexacerbated by a fundamental lack of direct academic engagement in the study ofslaver wrecks.

The fact remains that until recently, academic archaeologists have paid scantattention to slave shipping. Indeed, Fredensborg, located in 1974, remains the onlyslaver wreck to have been deliberately and successfully sought for non-commercial

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reasons. Yet Leif Svalesen, the diver who initiated that search, was not himself aprofessional archaeologist. Given this lamentable track record, it has recently beenargued with some justification that the heritage profession should perhaps be wary of“tossing pot-shots” at the salvage companies who have located slaver wrecks(McGhee 1997, p. 3).

Returning to Henrietta Marie, it should be emphasised that in 1993 Mel Fisherdonated his claim to the wreck site and the artifacts retrieved from it to the MelFisher Maritime Heritage Society. This not-for-profit organization funds ongoingresearch and conservation on Henrietta Marie material, with research reports beingmade available on the Society’s A Slave Ship Speaks website (http://www.melfisher.org/henriettamarie.htm). Via the Internet and a touring Henrietta Marie exhibition,the MFMHS can be credited with bringing the archaeology of slave shipping to awide public audience. With one or two notable exceptions (see Henderson andSadler, this volume) academic and CRM archaeologists have not promoted thesubject in this way.

The Excavated Wrecks

The best known of the excavated wrecks is undoubtedly Henrietta Marie (Eltis et al.1999, Voyage ID No. 21285). This is discussed in Moore and Malcom’s contributionto this volume and will not be described further here. Only two other firmlyidentified slaver wrecks can be set along aside the Henrietta Marie. The first isFredensborg, a vessel belonging to the Danish West-India Guinea Company, whichran aground at Tromøy in southern Norway in 1768 (Svalesen 2000). Fredensborghad almost made it home to Copenhagen following a slaving voyage from the GoldCoast to St Croix in the Danish West Indies, where 265 Africans had been sold (Eltiset al. 1999, Voyage ID No. 35181). Diver Leif Svalesen discovered the wreck in1974. The circumstances of this discovery differ from that of Henrietta Marie in thatSvalesen was looking specifically for Fredensborg. Armed with archival data(including the records of the Court of Inquiry held after the shipwreck), he also had agood idea where to find it. The wreck was successfully located within a month of thefirst dive (Svalesen 2000, pp. 13–20). Archaeological work began in 1975, directedby the Norwegian Maritime Museum. Further exploration took place in 1977, in co-operation with the Aust-Agder Museum (Svalesen 2000, pp. 173–4). The Aust-Adger Museum directed additional work from 1995–7.

Fredensborg sank in shallow water, and every life on board was saved.Remarkably, three logbooks were rescued along with the crew, and Fredensborghas the unique distinction of being the only located slaver wreck for which sea logsor journals survive. These and other documents now in the Danish Guinea Companyarchives provide an unparalleled level of detail about the construction, cargo, crewand voyage of an eighteenth century slave ship.

Most of the hull was crushed when the ship sank, but some timbers survive, alongwith parts of the ship’s rigging, armaments and tools (see Svalesen 2000, pp. 173–186 for an account of the excavated finds). Fredensborg was carrying a variedhomeward cargo. Amongst the goods being brought back from Africa were elephantand hippopotamus ivory from the Gold Coast. West Indian products included large

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quantities of mahogany and dyewood. Personal possessions recovered from theseabed included a wooden box containing writing equipment, sealing wax and seals,book bindings, and items of clothing including shoes, buckles, and buttons. Thesewould have belonged either to members of the crew, or to the passengers who werealso carried on the homeward voyage.

Traces relating to the ship’s human cargo were few, but clear imprints of shackleswere found on the seabed. An African mortar (grindstone), used to prepare theslaves’ meals, was also recovered, as were large numbers of clay tobacco pipes,which were often distributed to captives making the Middle Passage.

The finds from the Fredensborg excavations are curated by the NorwegianMaritime Museum (Oslo) and the Aust-Agder Kulturhistoriske Senter (Arendal).Staff at the latter recently completed a digitized catalogue of Fredensborg material,which will shortly be accessible to researchers online (Tanja Røskar Reed, pers.comm.).

Only one other firmly identified, active slaver has been excavated to date. This isthe French Adelaïde, examined during the summer of 2003 by maritime explorerFranck Goddio, who is better known for his work on the Egyptian port ofAlexandria. The wreck was discovered during a survey mission off the southwestcoast of Cuba, and as yet no publications have appeared on the work carried outthere. The sole source of information currently available on Adelaïde is a pressrelease issued by the Frank Goddio Society in 2003 (http://www.underwaterdiscovery.org/Sitemap/Homepage/News/News.aspx?&XmlDocument=0002.xml).

The 400-ton Adelaïde was the property of Louis XIV of France, and had beenchartered by the Compagnie de l’Assentio (a French company supplying slaves toSpain). The ship had sailed from Lorient in Brittany to Whydah in the Bight ofBenin, purchasing 300 slaves who then made the Middle Passage to Léogane inHaiti. The vessel met a hurricane after departing from Haiti, and was thrown onto areef (Eltis et al. 1999, Voyage ID No. 33343: the dataset records a crew of 130, butaccording to the Goddio Society press release, 106 men died when the ship wentdown, and a further 45 survived). Adelaïde was extensively damaged during andafter the hurricane that sank her, and most of the surviving remains comprise heavy,structural elements of the vessel itself. But human remains were also located, alongwith parts of the rigging, navigational instruments, ceramics, shackles, and twoanchors.

Henrietta Marie, Fredensborg and Adelaïde are the only working slave ships tohave been excavated thus far, but three further vessels should be mentioned here. In2000 and 2001 archaeologists from the Bohusläns County Museum, Sweden, carriedout a limited programme of reconnaissance on the wreck of Havmanden, a DanishWest India Company ship wrecked off Björkö island (Göthenborg, Sweden) in 1683,and discovered by sport divers in 1999 (von Arbin and Bergstrand 2003).Havmanden was travelling from Copenhagen to the Danish colony of St. Thomas(West Indies), carrying building materials, colonists and prisoners sentenced toplantation labor. It was intended that, having arrived in St. Thomas, Havmandenwould undertake a slaving voyage to Africa (S. von Arbin, pers. comm.). A mutinyin the early stages of the voyage put paid to these plans. The colonists and prisonerswere put ashore in the Azores and the ship turned home for Copenhagen. Aftersuffering storm damage, Havmanden foundered of the west coast of Sweden on

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March 30, 1683. Only a handful of artifacts have been recovered from the wrecksite, including the remains of the ship’s bell and two ceramic drug jars (von Arbinand Bergstrand 2003, pp. 17–19).

Two further vessels, engaged in the East rather than West African slave trade, canalso be mentioned briefly here. L’Utile, a store ship of the French East India Company,was wrecked off Tromelin Island in the Indian Ocean in 1761. L’Utile was lost enroute from Madagascar to Mauritius, and was carrying slaves at the time. In theautumn of 2006 a program of fieldwork was carried out on both the wreck, and (moreinformatively) on the settlement constructed by the marooned slaves. This work wasundertaken by Group de Recherche en Archéologie Navale (GRAN) in collaborationwith UNESCO, and is described at http://www.archeonavale.org/Tromelin/. GRAN isa non-for profit organization set up by the French government in 1982 to superviseunderwater excavations and undertake research into maritime history. In 1994,GRAN’s slave shipping project “The sunken memory of the slave trade” wasincorporated into the broader UNESCO program “The Slave Route.” GRAN’s workon slave shipping can be accessed online at http://www.archeonavale.org/slaveroute/,and UNESCO’s Slave Route program at http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID-25659&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html.

Nothing remains of the wreck of the Portuguese slaving brig Paquet Real, whichput in for provisions at Fort Knokke (Cape Town) in May 1818, whilst transporting171 slaves from Mozambique to St. Salvador (Cox and Sealy 1997, pp. 218–219).The ship was blown off its moorings and wrecked. Twenty-five slaves weredrowned, and later buried in a mass grave near the fort. Cox and Sealy (1997)recently undertook isotopic analysis of their remains, first excavated in the 1950s,and concluded that the dead came from the Makua, Yao and/or Marivi peoples ofMozambique. Many of the skeletons at Fort Knokke exhibited dental modification,their teeth having been chipped or filed into decorative shapes (Cox and Sealy 1997,pp. 208–209, 218). These individuals remind us that elements of African culturecould literally be borne on the bodies of captives crossing the Atlantic.

The Ex-Slavers

This section examines excavated ships that, whilst not actively engaged in the slavetrade at the time of their loss, had formerly been employed as slavers. Three vesselsfall into this category, James Matthews, Whydah, and the Beaufort Inlet shipwreck.Henderson (this volume) discusses James Matthews in detail, but it is important tonote here that a steady stream of academic papers on the fieldwork program, hull,fittings, and cordage of this vessel (Barker and Henderson 1979; Henderson 1975a,b, 1976, 1978, 1980; Henderson and Stanbury 1983) have ensured that moreinformation has been published about James Matthews than about any of the otherwrecks discussed here. These publications provide a wealth of information about theconstruction and components of a shallow draft slaver from the post-1807 “illegal”era. An online database of 861 artifacts from the vessel is available at http://dbase.mm.wa.gov.au/artefacts/artefacts.php.

The second possible ex-slaver is Whydah, one of the first pirate ships ever to beexcavated (Clifford and Perry 1999; Hamilton 2006). The wreck was located in 1982

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by professional salvor Barry Clifford, who continues to work the site today (hisExpedition Whydah website can be found at http://www.whydah.com/). A number ofprofessional maritime archaeologists have participated in this commercial salvageproject over the years, to the consternation of some of their CRM colleagues (Elia1992; Ewen 2006, pp. 6–7).

Whydah was a London-built slaver, but was captured in the Bahamas by the pirateSamuel Bellamy in February 1717, shortly after selling a slave cargo in Jamaica(Eltis et al. 1999, Voyage ID No. 78954; Snelgrave 1734, p. 258; Kinkor, n.d.collates the contemporary testimonies on Bellamy and Whydah). Bellamy was notmaster of Whydah for long: as he was returning to Cape Cod in April 1717, the shipwas wrecked in a storm off Marconi Beach. Bellamy and most of his crew weredrowned.

Thousands of artifacts have been recovered from the 300-ton (272,155 kg)Whydah, but published information on these remains limited (Hamilton 2006, is awelcome recent addition here; Clifford and Perry 1999 passim illustrates numerousartifacts from the wreck). Among the most celebrated finds from the Whydah are agroup of 79 fragmentary gold ornaments originating from the Gold Coast (Ghana).They comprise the oldest known group of reliably dated Akan gold artifacts in theworld (Clifford and Perry 1999, pp. 206–270; Ehrlich 1989, p 52). Small goldornaments (sold by weight, in the same way as gold grains and nuggets) were oftenacquired in the course of slaving voyages to the Gold Coast, and like many vesselsWhydah had traded for both gold and slaves whilst in Africa. Many of the piecesfrom the Whydah are chopped, flattened, folded, or show other signs of wear, and itis possible that they were acquired as scrap metal as Whydah lay off Africa tradingfor slaves. Pirates menaced merchant shipping on the African coast, as well as theCaribbean, however, and a member of Bellamy’s crew may easily have acquiredthese items at another time.

Unlike many of the vessels discussed here, Whydah was built specifically for theslave trade. Contemporary accounts referred to the ship as a galley (a term denotingboth the presence of oar ports and the shape of the hull, which was designed for speedas well as for carrying capacity). Despite the fact that the remains of Whydah are verywidely scattered on the seabed, excavation has revealed some important fragments ofthe architecture and components of the ship (Hamilton 2006, pp. 149–150).

In 1996 the salvage company Intersal Inc. discovered the remains of a wreck offBeaufort Inlet, North Carolina. The wreck was quickly identified as Queen Anne’sRevenge, the flagship of the notorious pirate Edward Teach (Blackbeard), one of twovessels he deliberately grounded on the shoals off Beaufort Inlet in June 1718(Wilde-Ramsing 2006, pp. 160–164). A comprehensive program of excavation andresearch, coordinated by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources,began in 1997. Work continues of the wreck today (Lusardi 2006; Wilde-Ramsing2006; QAR project website at http://www.qaronline.org).

Recently, however, the vessel’s identification as the Queen Anne’s Revenge hasbegun to be questioned (see Miller et al. 2005; Moore 2005; Rodgers et al. 2005).This debate matters here because the Queen Anne’s Revenge began its career as aFrench slave ship, Concorde of Nantes (France). Concorde made three documentedslaving voyages in 1713, 1715, and 1717 (Moore 2001; Eltis et al. 1999, Voyage IDNos. 30028, 30059, 30090), and when captured by Blackbeard about 100 mi

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(160.9 km) south of Martinique in November 1717, had not yet completed the last ofthese. Concorde had purchased 516 slaves at Whydah, and those who had survivedthe Middle Passage were still on board (Moore 1997, pp. 31–35).

Although slaves had thus been on board Queen Anne’s Revenge just a few monthsprior to its loss at sea, little that speaks directly of a slave trading past has been foundamong the 15,000 artefacts recovered from the Beaufort Inlet wreck (Lusardi 2006,pp. 217–218). Concorde, like many other slavers (including Whydah, above)purchased gold in Africa (Rodgers et al. 2005, pp. 33–34; Wilde-Ramsing 2006,p. 191) and although the recovery of gold grains from the Beaufort Inlet wreck hasbeen cited as supporting the identification of the ship as a former slaver, there areother ways to account for the presence of gold on a vessel of this period (Rodgers etal. 2005, p. 34 suggested that these gold grains are of European or Mediterraneanorigin, but that claim has been wholly refuted by Miller et al. 2005, pp. 339–340).Whilst the pewterware recovered from the wreck may conceivably represent leftovertrading items destined for the African market, it is far more likely that these itemswere used by the ship’s crew. Virtually all the recovered pewter bears the marks ofLondon manufacturers (Lusardi 2006, pp. 210–213) and it is most unlikely that aFrench-based slaver would have purchased these items for the African trade (D.Moore, pers. comm.). Future finds may one day prove beyond doubt that theBeaufort Inlet wreck really is the ship that many hope it to be, but at present itsidentification as the former Concorde of Nantes remains in question.

Possible Slaver Wrecks

Into this group fall a number of wrecks that have produced artifacts commonly foundon slave ships but by no means exclusive to them. Such goods include manillas(brass “bracelets” carried to West Africa as trade goods) and elephant andhippopotamus ivory (frequently carried as part of a return cargo).

The unidentified “Manilla Wreck” was discovered 6 mi (9.7 km) northeast ofBermuda in 1975 (Smith and Maxwell 2002), and by 1977 salvors had recovered asignificant collection of items commonly used as slave trade “currency.” Amongstthese were approximately 10,000 glass trade beads (Karklins 1991), and a largenumber of copper manillas. A bronze cannon embossed with the logo of thechartered Dutch West India Company was also found, along with ceramics andbottle glass with a date range centered on 1720–60. A two-phase program ofarchaeological fieldwork was carried out from 1998–99, under Clifford Smith of theBermuda Maritime Museum (Smith and Maxwell 2002, pp. 58–63), but this raisedas many questions as it answered. No traces of ships timbers were located, andalthough the recovered artifacts were concentrated in a small area (20×25 m) no lessthan 20 cannon were found.

On the basis of the survey work carried out from 1998–99 it is now suggested thatthe “Manilla Wreck” is not a wreck at all, but comprises a scatter of debris castoverboard from a ship damaged on the Bermuda reef system (Smith and Maxwell2002, pp. 61–62). It has further been conjectured that these finds may have beenjettisoned by Amazon, a damaged French ship arriving in Bermuda as a “distressedentry” in 1739. The Amazon had been making its way from St. Domingue to Nantes.

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It is not certain either that the ship was engaged in the slave trade, or that theexcavated finds can be traced to it, but both are plausible conjectures. The ship wascarrying many Dutch-made items, but this need not hamper the suggestedidentification; the Dutch supplied trade goods for French slavers operating fromboth Nantes and Bordeaux (Smith and Maxwell 2002, pp. 80–83).

A second possible slaver is the Saint-Quay-Portrieux wreck, located in 1987 bydivers exploring the waters off the Saint-Quay islands in Brittany (Herry 2004). Asin the case of Fredensborg, ivory tusks comprised the first finds to be brought upfrom this wreck (some being found as early as the 1930s), indicating that the shiphad traded in Africa, and may have been a slaver. More than a hundred Africanelephant tusks have been recovered since the 1980s, along with 40 glass trade beadsand a single brass manilla. One of the most interesting finds from this wreck is aportion of a cross-staff, used for astronomical navigation, and stamped with a date ofeither 1719 or (more likely) 1711 (Herry 2004, pp. 98–99). This artifact suggests aterminus post quem for the wreck event, but it is impossible to determine whetherthe ship was engaged in slave trading, or traded directly with Africa for ivory andother goods (such as hides). Many of the closest comparables for artifacts recoveredfrom the wreck site are of Dutch manufacture, but as noted above with reference tothe “Manilla Wreck,” French slaving vessels often purchased Dutch trade goods. It isby no means certain, therefore, that this is a Dutch ship.

Several other possible (but unidentified) slaver wrecks have been documented byGRAN, the French research group mentioned above in connection with L’Utile (forthese wrecks see the GRAN website at http://www.archeonavale.org/slaveroute/retrouvees.htm). These include a wreck at Pen Azen, France, explored by DRASSM(Direction des Recherches Archéologiques Subaquatiques et Sous-Marines) in 1994and 1995. The site is known to have produced manillas and other finds, but thisundated wreck remains unpublished. In 1991, GRAN recovered an elephant tuskfrom a wreck at Loup Garou (Martinique), the find again pointing to a ship involvedin trade with Africa, if not the slave trade. Finally, divers have also briefly examinedthe wreck of Saint-Geran, a ship belonging to the French Compagnie des Indies.Saint-Geran was wrecked off the island of Maurice (Martinique) in 1744, with thirtyslaves on board.

Ongoing Wreck Location Projects

The 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade has fallen in 2007,and that of the US trade will occur in 2008. Two more former slaving nations will bereaching the same landmark in the next decade (the Netherlands in 1814 and Francein 1815). These impending anniversaries appear to have stimulated a new, and muchneeded, interest in slaver wrecks. In the last few years, three projects have beeninitiated to hunt for known wrecks in various parts of the world.

Svalesen’s successful rediscovery of Fredensborg in 1974 showed that, whereresearchers have enough archival data to help them pinpoint wreck sites, knownslavers can be found if we want to find them. The international lead here has beentaken by GRAN, which in addition to coordinating the work on L’Utile, has beguncollating information about known slaver wrecks in southern Africa, former French

16 Int J Histor Archaeol (2008) 12:6–19

West Africa, and the French West Indies (http://www.archeonavale.org/slaveroute/naufrages.htm).

One of the ships listed by GRAN is Meermin, a Dutch East India Company slaverthat ran aground off Cape Town following a shipboard insurrection in 1766.Meermin’s Madagascan slave cargo was later sold in Cape Town. The search for thewreck began in the summer of 2005 and is coordinated by maritime archaeologistJaco Boshoff (Iziko Museums, Cape Town). Boshoff also plans to target twoadditional slaver wrecks, the French Cybele, wrecked in 1756, and the Portuguese StJose, which sank in 1794 with a cargo of slaves from Mozambique (J. Boshoff, pers.comm.). This search will not be an easy one, since there are at least 2,500 knownwrecks in South African waters.

In 2003 the RMP Nautical Foundation, working with the Mel Fisher MaritimeHeritage Society, initiated an ongoing search for the wreck of the Spanish slaverGuerrero, which foundered off the Florida Keys in 1827 whilst under fire from aBritish anti-slavery patrol vessel (http://www.rpmnautical.org/turtlereef.htm). Thisquest was in part stimulated by archival research carried out on the Guerrerotragedy by local writer Gail Swanson (Swanson 2005). Guerrero was in transit toCuba, with more than 500 slaves on board (Eltis et al. 1999 Voyage ID No. 654).Most were taken off the stricken vessel and subsequently sold in Cuba, but 41perished on board. As we already seen, none of the excavated West African Guineatrade ships discussed above was carrying slaves when wrecked. Should it be foundand excavated, Guerrero will be first example of its kind—invaluable for futureresearch, but no doubt stimulating ethical debate about the excavation of humancargoes.

In the Bahamas region, finally, a search is underway for Trouvadore, grounded ona reef at Breezy Point on the Caicos Bank (Turks and Caicos Islands) in 1841 (Eltiset al. 1999 Voyage ID No. 5503, wherein identified as Trovalore). That quest, and itscultural significance, is discussed by Sadler, this volume. Trouvadore was carrying acargo of African captives when it foundered, and most of these people survived. AsSadler explains, one aim of the Trouvadore project is to explore possible linkagesbetween the Africans liberated after the wreck and the contemporary population ofMiddle Caicos and South Caicos. The prospect of the eventual rediscovery ofTrouvadore is a particularly exciting one. Indeed, it is possible to argue that, whetheror not the ship is found, the quest for Trouvadore has already played a formative partin re-shaping the relationship between maritime archaeology and the slave trade. Asalready noted, slave shipping is not a subject that has traditionally appealed tomaritime archaeologists. Many, perhaps, have been reluctant to engage with whatthey see as “negative” history, in comparison with the more obvious appeals of navalbattles, pirate treasure, and sunken cities. But the Trouvadore story, involving notonly the tragedy of forced migration but also the liberation of captive Africans, andthe traditions and aspirations of contemporary descent communities, remindsunderwater archaeologists that slaver wrecks amount to far more than “negative”history. They are part of the story of the African Diaspora, and of the birth andgrowth of African-Caribbean and African-American society and culture. To studyslaver wrecks is to engage with the present, as well as the past, and the ongoing huntfor Trouvadore is a timely reminder of that fact.

Int J Histor Archaeol (2008) 12:6–19 17

Acknowledgments Greg Cook and Jaco Boshoff kindly shared information about their ongoing fieldprojects, and Ken Kinkor (Project Research, Whydah Museum) generously gave me access to theunpublished source material he has collated on the Whydah. I am greatly indebted to Tanja Røskar Reed(Conservator at the Aust-Agder Kulturhistoriske Senter, Arendal) for providing me with a copy of theFredensborg inventory in advance of its publication online, and for sharing information about theFredensborg finds. Enquiries about the Fredensborg inventory should be directed to Tanja at tanja.reed@aaks.no. I am equally indebted to Staffan von Arbin (Archaeologist, Bohuslän County Museum,Sweden) for answering my queries about the Havmanden. David Moore commented extensively on anearlier draft of this paper, and suggested numerous improvements to the text.

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