CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA—The discovery of a slave ship that sank off the coast of Cape Town in 1794 was announced today at Iziko Museums of South Africa. Identified as the São José-Paquete de Africa, the Portuguese ship was carrying more than 400 enslaved people from Mozambique to Brazil when it struck submerged rocks some 300 feet from shore and sank between two reefs. More than half of the enslaved people were killed, and those who survived were resold into slavery. “This discovery is significant because there has never been archaeological documentation of a vessel that foundered and was lost while carrying a cargo of enslaved persons,” Lonnie G. Bunch III, founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), said in a press release. NMAAHC is one of six partners in the United States and Africa working on the Slave Wrecks Project, which identified the site through the captain’s account of the wrecking of the São José and other documents. Iron ballast to compensate for the lighter human cargo, shackles, and copper fastenings and sheathing have been recovered. To read more about great underwater discoveries, go to "History's 10 Greatest Wrecks."
Slave Ship Sank With Human Cargo On Board
News June 2, 2015
Recommended Articles
Digs & Discoveries May/June 2021
Ship of Ivory
Digs & Discoveries September/October 2024
Shackleton's Last Try
Digs & Discoveries September/October 2023
Sunken Cargo
Features July/August 2023
An Elegant Enigma
The luxurious possessions of a seventeenth-century woman continue to intrigue researchers a decade after they were retrieved from a shipwreck
-
Features May/June 2015
The Minoans of Crete
More than 100 years after it was first discovered, the town of Gournia is once again redefining the island's past
(Jarrett A. Lobell) -
Letter from Hawaii May/June 2015
Inside Kauai's Past
Ideal conditions within an ancient cave system are revealing a rich history that reaches back to a time before humans settled the island and extends to the present day
Courtesy Lida Piggott Burney -
Artifacts May/June 2015
Late Roman Amulet
(Courtesy Joachim Śliwa) -
Digs & Discoveries May/June 2015
The Charred Scrolls of Herculaneum
(Fotonews/Splash News/Corbis)