Latest / The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History / The 1704 Wreck of the Henrietta Marie: Slave Ship Archaeology
Transcript
- Lucas: So Luna, we've covered a lot of ground on the Atlantic slave trade — rebellions, legal cases, the Middle Passage itself. But there's one angle we haven't touched yet: the physical remains of the trade, sitting on the ocean floor. Luna: You mean shipwrecks? Lucas: Exactly. And the most significant one ever found — the first slave shipwreck to be fully excavated and studied — is the Henrietta Marie. It sank in 1704 off the Florida Keys, about 35 miles west of Key West, after delivering its human cargo to Jamaica. For two centuries it sat there, until treasure hunters stumbled on it in 1972. Luna: Wait — treasure hunters? Were they looking for gold? Lucas: They were looking for Spanish galleons, actually. The wreck was discovered by Mel Fisher's team — the same people who later found the Atocha, the famous Spanish treasure ship. But what they found here was something much darker. No gold coins, no silver bars. Instead, they found hundreds of iron shackles, stacked like firewood. Luna: That's haunting. Lucas: It took them years to realize what they'd found. Initially they thought it was a colonial merchant vessel. But then they recovered manillas — those brass bracelets used as currency in West Africa to buy enslaved people — along with elephant tusks and pewter spoons. By the 1980s, historians had traced the ship's identity through English records. She was the Henrietta Marie, built in London around 1699, owned by the Royal African Company. Luna: And she made multiple slave voyages? Lucas: At least three that we know of. The first, in 1699, took goods from London to the Gold Coast — modern-day Ghana — traded them for enslaved Africans, then sailed to Barbados. The second did the same to Jamaica. The third, in 1703, followed the same route but ended in disaster. On the return leg from Jamaica to London, carrying sugar, indigo, and logwood, she hit a hurricane — one of those fierce Caribbean storms — and went down near the Florida Reef. Luna: And the shackles — they were still on the wreck? Lucas: Yes. The National Association of Black Scuba Divers helped excavate the site in the 1990s, and what they found is almost unbearably vivid. The shackles were in pairs, for wrists and ankles, some still bolted shut. They also found a large iron cuff called a 'bilbo' — a bar with multiple shackles attached, used to chain people in rows on the slave deck. The artifacts are now housed at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West, and there's a memorial at the site itself. Luna: A memorial underwater? Lucas: That's right. In 1993, divers placed a bronze plaque on the wreck site, listing the names of the enslaved — well, not their real names, but the names they were given on the ship's manifest. The plaque also carries a quote from the abolitionist Wendell Phillips: 'We have the right to call the dead to account. A few dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them.' Luna: That's powerful. And you know, it's funny — the same people who uncovered that dark history are the ones who help keep shows like this going. Lucas, I've seen that listeners really do chip in for the ad-free episodes. Lucas: Yeah, it's humbling. The Henrietta Marie tells us that the material traces of the slave trade are still there, just below the surface. And we can only explore them because there are people who care enough to support the research — and the storytelling. Luna: So what else did the artifacts reveal about life — or death — on that ship? Lucas: Well, the pewter spoons, for example. They were found in a chest that may have belonged to the ship's surgeon. On the handle of one spoon, someone had scratched the name 'Dunder' — that's Swedish for 'thunder', probably a nickname. These personal items remind us that the crew were individuals with stories too, even as they participated in the horror. There were also fragments of a Dutch gin bottle, likely for the captain's table. And a set of navigational dividers — tools for plotting the dreaded Middle Passage route. Luna: The Middle Passage that you covered in episode 54. How does the Henrietta Marie compare to the Brookes diagram? Lucas: The Brookes was a larger ship, but the Henrietta Marie's deck layout was similar. Based on the cargo manifest and the shackles found, she likely carried between 300 and 400 enslaved people per voyage, packed in tiers on platforms. The headroom on the slave deck was about four feet — you couldn't stand. The mortality rate on her voyages averaged about 18 percent, which was actually typical for the time. Luna: So the ship itself is a kind of evidence — like a crime scene. Lucas: Exactly. And the Henrietta Marie is especially important because it's the only slave shipwreck that has been fully excavated and documented by archaeologists. There are other known wrecks — like the Portuguese ship off the coast of Brazil, or the São José off Cape Town — but the Henrietta Marie gave us the most complete picture. The excavation was done carefully, layer by layer, and the artifacts were conserved and studied. Luna: I read that some descendants of the enslaved have visited the site. Can you talk about that? Lucas: Yes, in 1992, a group of African American divers — members of the National Association of Black Scuba Divers — visited the wreck and held a memorial ceremony. They placed a small plaque, and one of them said, 'We are coming home.' It was the first time that descendants had directly engaged with a slave shipwreck. That led to ongoing conversations about repatriation of artifacts and the ethics of displaying human remains. The museum now works with community advisory boards. Luna: And the memorial plaque you mentioned — what exactly does it say? Lucas: It says: 'In memory of the 41 million Africans who were taken from their homes and the countless who died during the Middle Passage. We have the right to call the dead to account.' The quote is from Wendell Phillips, the abolitionist. And then it lists the names of 29 people who were on the ship's manifest for the final voyage — names like 'Quaco' and 'Cubbah' — presumably African names that were Anglicized. Luna: It's so important that those names are recorded. So often they're just numbers. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's a reminder that the slave trade wasn't an abstract system — it was made up of individual lives. The Henrietta Marie's story also highlights how global the trade was. The ship was built in England, carried iron bars from Sweden, brass manillas from Germany, and beads from Italy. The enslaved came from diverse regions along the Gold Coast. And the final voyage was insured by Lloyd's of London. Luna: Wait — Lloyd's insured slave ships? Lucas: Yes, and that's another layer. Lloyd's coffee house in London was where shipowners bought insurance for slave voyages. The Henrietta Marie was insured for £1,200 — about £200,000 today. When she sank, the owners filed a claim. The insurance payout covered their losses. So the financial infrastructure of the slave trade was as crucial as the ships themselves. Luna: It's like every part of the system was interconnected — manufacturing, insurance, shipping, and the violence. Lucas: Exactly. And the Henrietta Marie brings all those threads together in one tangible site. There's even a connection to the Zong massacre we covered in episode 50 — both ships were part of the same system of maritime capitalism. The Zong captain threw enslaved people overboard to claim insurance; the Henrietta Marie's owners got paid when the ship sank. The logic was the same: human lives were commodities. Luna: That's chilling. But it also underscores why archaeology matters — it makes the abstract concrete. Lucas: It does. And the Henrietta Marie isn't just an artifact of the past. It's become a symbol in contemporary struggles. In 2018, the Gadsden flag — you know, the 'Don't Tread on Me' flag — was reclaimed by some African American activists, who pointed out that its original designer, Christopher Gadsden, was a slave trader. They argued that the flag's true legacy is the slave trade. The Henrietta Marie's shackles have been used in art installations about mass incarceration. Luna: So the ship continues to speak to us, centuries later. Lucas: Yes, and that's why I wanted to feature it. The Henrietta Marie is a window into the ordinary logistics of an extraordinary evil. It wasn't a famous rebellion or a legal landmark — it was a workhorse of the trade, making routine voyages until a storm ended it. And yet, because of the chance of its discovery, and the careful work of archaeologists and divers, we have this unprecedented look into the machinery of suffering. Luna: It reminds me of something you said in the Demerara episode — that history is often about the people who don't leave written records. Lucas: Exactly. The enslaved on the Henrietta Marie left no diaries, no letters. But they left behind the shackles that bound them, the manillas that priced them, and the hull that carried them. And through those objects, we can begin to tell their story. It's not a comfortable story, but it's one we have to keep telling. Luna: Absolutely. And I'm glad we're telling it here.