PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos Islands; Thursday, November 27th, 2008 – "A November 25 press release by NOAA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, reported that two shipwrecks in the Turks and Caicos Islands have been positively identified as historic wrecks and will add to the knowledge of Turks and Caicos history, as well as Caribbean slave history.
Thanks to the work of marine archeologists from the research organization Ships of Discovery, the shipwreck at Black Rock on East Caicos has been positively identified as the wreck of the historic ship Trouvadore, a Spanish vessel that wrecked in our waters in 1841. It is the very first wreck of a slave ship from the Caribbean that has been thoroughly researched and excavated by historians and archeologists rather than treasure hunters. In this way, the full amount of information that can be gleaned from a site like this can be preserved for our people.
This discovery is an important one for our Islands. It helps to fill in the origin of some of our people and gives us important insight into our history. The Trouvadore slave ship picked up a cargo of at least 193 Africans somewhere on the West coast of Africa and was in the process of transporting those people to Cuba to be sold into the perilous bonds of slavery in the sugar cane fields there.
But our Islands, and all of the British territories in the West Indies, had abolished slavery almost 10 years before that, so when these hapless souls were cast ashore on East Caicos, they were delivered not only their lives, but also into freedom.
Historic records tell us that only one of the Trouvadore's passengers died; a Spanish crewman killed her. 20 more were transported to Nassau, but most of the remaining survivors were transported to Grand Turk and became what a recorder of that period called…"the pith of Grand Turk's working population". We can only assume that the ancestors of many Grand Turk folks include the fortunate and heroic survivors of the ill-fated Trouvadore.
But we must also not forget that, for many generations, the folks of Bambarra, Middle Caicos, have also claimed ancestry from a wrecked slave ship on East Caicos. It is certainly not inconceivable that in the panic and tumult of that initial rescue, that a number of the ship- bound Africans were able to escape that desolate East Caicos beach and find their way to the fertile island of Middle Caicos and settle down. The name Bambarra itself is the name of a large tribal group from the areas that today are in the countries of Mali and the Ivory Coast, prime capture areas for the slave-catchers of the early and middle 1800's.
We also welcome the identification of the early US warship Chippewa, ironically, a ship that was used during this period to hunt down and capture the very type of ship that is represented by the Trouvadore, illegal slave traders. As Dr. Keith says in a recent interview, we will get a look at both sides of the slave issue in the West Indies from the examination and research that goes along with these two important finds.
On behalf of the Turks and Caicos Government, we would like to congratulate the archeologists of Ships and Discovery. Along with the Turks and Caicos National Museum, we have backed this project from its inception through our Department s of Environment and Coastal Resources, Tourism and Culture, with funding, manpower and encouragement. Future work on these ships and a third ship in our waters, that has not yet been positively identified, will be encouraged and supported. While these wrecks already lie in protected waters within our country, specific protection for these sites will be adopted."
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