Wreck of 1841 slave ship discovered

Texas researchers have discovered the wreck of the slave ship Trouvadore, which slammed into a reef off the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean Sea in 1841, freeing the 193 Africans who were being brought to the U.S. South for a life of servitude.

It is the only known wreck of a ship involved in the illegal slave trade, said marine archaeologist Don Keith, president of the underwater archaeology institute Ships of Discovery in Corpus Christi.

One of the female Africans on board was shot by the crew, but the rest escaped and were rescued by local authorities. Their descendants might now make up a significant proportion of the 30,000 residents of the British island territory.

Many of the ship’s survivors were forced to work in the islands’ salt ponds for a year to pay for their rescue, then were freed.