CAHUITA NATIONAL PARK, COSTA RICA—Two shipwrecks located in the shallow waters off Costa Rica’s Cahuita National Park were long believed by locals to be those of former pirate ships. According to a statement released by the National Museum of Denmark, however, a new investigation revealed them to be the remains of two former Danish slave ships that dramatically sank more than 300 years ago. Marine archaeologists from the National Museum of Denmark and the Viking Ship Museum took samples of wood from one of the wrecks and from yellow bricks that were part of its cargo. Analysis indisputably determined that the vessels were Danish in origin and were built in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. Historical sources record that two Danish ships, Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus, were lost in fog and blown off course near the coast of current-day Costa Rica. The ships sank on March 2, 1710, after a mutiny by both the crew and the enslaved people on board. As a result, almost 600 Africans landed on the shore, from whom some of the local population are descended today. “It’s been a long process and I’ve come close to giving up along the way, but this is undoubtedly the craziest archaeological excavation I’ve yet been part of,” said archaeologist Andreas Kallmeyer Bloch. “Not only because it matters greatly to the local population, but also because it’s one of the most dramatic shipwrecks in the history of Denmark.” To read more about Denmark's role in the transatlantic slave trade, go to "Letter from Ghana: Life Outside the Castle."
