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Archaeologists in the Bahamas have identified the underwater crash of 14 glide ships involved in the trans - Atlantic slave trade between Africa and the Americas , a fresh report finds .
The wreck include the Peter Mowell , an American schooner that lapse off Lynyard Cay near Great Abaco Island in 1860 with about 400 enslaved Africans on add-in ; as well as little watercraft that behave slaves to woodlet for lucre , coffee , cotton and tobacco in North America and around the Caribbean .
A 19th-century illustration of Brooks (or Brook, Brookes, or Bruz), a British slave ship. Historians estimate that more than 12.5 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic to the New World on slave ships between 1525 and 1866.
Most of the wreck sites have been identified only from 18th- and nineteenth - one C book and remain unexplored , but the locating of some of them have already been found .
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The squad has physically locate three of the wrecks , but " for now , they are all under wraps,“Carl Allen , CEO and founder of the submersed archeological radical Allen Exploration , distinguish Live Science in an email . " These wrecks are not only historically of import for look into what living was like on slaver ships , [ which is ] ill realize archaeologically , but they are physical witnesses to the noesis home behind this horrific trade . "
One of the slavers' ships, the General Oglethorpe, was en route in 1802 between Charleston, Virginia and Havana, Cuba when it was wrecked during a storm near Little Abaco Island.
Fatal trade
The slave ships were identified during Allen Exploration ’s Bahamas lose Ships Project , which is compile an inventorying of every wreck around the islands . So far , the team has identified 596 wrecks in the water system around the northern Abaco island , and the oldest is from 1657 .
The group is working on the undertaking with the Bahamas Maritime Museum in Freeport on Grand Bahama , which print the account on the slave ships in itsOcean Dispatchesseries to coincide withBlack History Month .
Michael Pateman , conductor of the Bahamas Maritime Museum and co - author of the report , told Live Science that the history of the Bahamas was profoundly influence by several slaving case . They include the arrival of the first slaving vessel from Africa in 1721 , which defined the population of the islands;more than 90%of the people who live there today are of African lineage .
Another slave ship, the Nancy, was wrecked amid surf and rocks in the northern Bahamas in 1767. It was carrying a former slave named Olaudah Equiano, who survived the wreck and wrote about his experiences.
The Bahamas were also the aspect of the1841 rebellion on the slave ship Creole , which was transmit slaves from Norfolk , Virginia , to New Orleans . But some of the 135 enslaved masses on board the ship conquer it and force it to sail to the Bahamas alternatively , where they claim their exemption — a major milestone in the history of the trans - Atlantic slave trade , Pateman said .
The wreck ' placement show that the Bahamas serve as a major carrefour between Africa , the American Southeast , Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico .
The region is know for its high-risk weather , but " it was the safest route , " James Jenney , director of research for the Bahamas Lost Ships Project and co - author of the report , told Live Science in an email .
The Bahamas Lost Ships Project has identified the locations where 14 slaver vessels are known to have been wrecked amid the islands of the northern Bahamas.
Island route
For many of the wrecks in the northerly Bahamas , the ship sank when they were heading south from American ports toward the Northeast Providence Channel between Grand Bahama and Andros Island . " If you wanted to get to Havana and Cuba ’s sprawling plantation , you had to lay on the line these waters , " Jenney say .
The sugar plantation in Cuba were an especially dire destination for enslaved Africans .
" term varied , but the fact that Havana was known as the ' feast place of death ' says it all , " submerged archeologist Sean Kingsley , managing director ofWreckwatch Internationaland co - source of the report , state Live Science .
The Bahamas Maritime Museum in Freeport is involved in the effort to identify the slaver ships. This display there describes the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
He noted that enslaved African prole live in poor huts said to be " unfit for the habitation of wild beasts " ; they wore iron striver collars and work seven days a workweek , with just four hours a day of rest in cane - cutting season . About 10 % of enslave Africans died on the Plantation in Cuba each year during the slave trade , and some were flogged to demise , he state .
The next dance step include dive to some of the shipwreck to see what ’s left , in some cases after more than 200 years since the ship sank .
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Report co - authorJames Sinclair , music director of archeology for Allen Exploration , state many were in shallow , tender waters and " high push zone " — that is , with a flock of wafture and storms — that have negatively impacted the sites .
The sugar plantations on Cuba were among the worst destinations; about 1 out of 10 among all the slaves on the island died every year.(Image credit: Los Ingenios: Coleccion de vistas de los principales ingenios de azucar de la Isla de Cuba - Havana, 1857)
" Our goal is to record what ’s left and visualize out how to better preserve rarefied corpse , " he told Live Science .
