Archaeologists Think They've Found Wreckage of US Ship That Held 500 Slaves

Archaeologists may have found the wreckage of a U.S. ship that sank with 500 slaves on board in the 19th century.

Researchers found wreckage from a ship in the sea of ​​Angra dos Rei, Brazil, local news outlet TV Prefeito reported.

They believe it came from a North American ship sailed by Captain Nathaniel Gordon, a slave trader from America, who was the only person to ever be tried, convicted, and executed for engaging in the slave trade under the Piracy Law of 1820.

Brazil as a country was built upon the enslavement of millions of Africans and indigenous people. Estimates from Princeton University state that a total of 12 million Africans were brought to the Americas as slaves. And of these, almost half were taken to Brazil from the 1500s until the mid-1800s.

In 1851, Gordon was en route to bring the 500 enslaved Africans from Mozambique to Bracuí, in Angra dos Reis, Brazil, researchers said in a meeting held in Rio De Janeiro on July 7.

Gordon had been bringing the slaves to Brazil illegally. Prior to the sinking of the ship, the Eusébio de Queirós Law was passed in Brazil—this abolished the slave trade in the country completely. This also prohibited the sailing of slave ships.

Police had been chasing the captain as a result. It is believed that Gordon purposefully sank the ship to cover his tracks, however, this is not confirmed.

The slave trader survived and remained a fugitive for the next decade. He was eventually hung for his crimes in the U.S. in 1862.

"We are in the data processing phase. We have to take each one of them and analyze. And also move forward in the excavations. Each vessel has its signature and we need to make this identification", the president of the AfrOrigens Institute, Luis Felipe Freire Dantas Santos, said in the meeting, as reported by local news outlet TV Prefeito.

Archaeologists from the AfrOrigens Institute, the Fluminense Federal University (UFF) the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS), and multiple North American research institutions have been searching for this ship since last year.

A leader of the Quilombo—Brazilian settlements founded by enslaved Africans in the 1500s—Marilda de Souza Francisco, told TV Prefeito: "All I knew was that it had come from Africa bringing the Blacks and then sunk. And that the captain had run away dressed as a woman. When my father told this story, he even said, 'What a shame, a man dressed as a woman.' We thought someone had invented it. But it really was true."

Although this finding is not confirmed yet, researchers continue to look into the incident.