Finding evidence of slaves in a shipwreck could be a truly horrifying sight. This is exactly what happened in the sea of Angra dos Rei, Brazil, where archaeologists unveiled ship wreckage that sank 500 slaves aboard.
Ship Wreckage Discovered
According to News Week, the ship was thought to be carrying 500 slaves on board and came from the 19th century. Archaeologists believed it came from a North American ship that an American slave trader sailed.
The American sailor, Captain Nathaniel Gordon, was famous for being the only person tried, convicted, and executed for slave trade engagements. His death was because he violated the Piracy Law of 1820.
The discovery of the wreckage shouldn't be as surprising due to Brazil having a significant history involving slavery. This was as the country, according to News Weeks, was "built upon the enslavement" of millions of indigenous people as well as Africans. Princeton University estimates that there were 12 million Africans brought as slaves to the Americas.
The estimates of Princeton University were that almost half of these slaves came from Brazil in the 1500s until around the mid-1800s. Researchers said that Gordon brought 500 enslaved Africans to Bracuí, in Angra dos Reis, Brazil, from Mozambique on July 7, 1851.
Captain Nathaniel Gordon
News Week reports that Captain Gordon frequently brought slaves to Brazil illegally, and before his ship sank, Brazil passed the Eusébio de Queirós Law, which banned slave ships from sailing. This law completely abolished the slave trade in the country.
Oxford Research Encyclopedias described the Eusébio de Queirós Law as the country's second law to ban the African slave trade. This came after an 1831 attempt which was unsuccessful in stopping the strong slave trade in Brazil.
This resulted in Gordon being pursued by the police, which led to the rumor that Gordon purposefully sank the ship to hide his tracks. However, this theory was still never confirmed, but the Captain was able to remain a fugitive for the next decade.
Captain Gordon was then caught, and in 1862, he was hanged in the US for his slave crimes. Luis Felipe Freire Dantas Santos, the president of the AfrOrigens Institute, said they are still processing the data and need to analyze it more intently.
The AfrOrigens Institute president said that every vessel has its unique signature so they need to be able to identify it properly.
Brazil and Slavery
Marilda de Souza Francisco, a leader of the Quilombo-Brazilian settlement, gave a statement to TV Prefeito, the local news outlet which reported this story. Per Francisco, all they knew was that the ship came from Africa and sank with the captain escaping, dressing like a woman.
Francisco narrated how the story came from his father, describing what the Captain did as shameful. He also noted that despite them initially thinking this was untrue, they now know that it was.
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