A research team, which included the folks from the Turks & Caicos National Museum, has discovered the wreck of the slave ship Trouvadore, which slammed into a reef off the coast of the Turks and Caicos Islands in 1841, freeing the 193 Africans who were being brought to the U.S. South for a life of servitude.

“The people of the Turks and Caicos have a direct line to this dramatic, historic event and it’s how so many of them ended up being there. We hope this discovery will encourage the people of the Turks and Caicos to protect and research their local history, especially the history that remains underwater,” head researcher Don Keith said.

The ship sank near a local landmark called Black Rock on the coast of East Caicos. Eventually, the research team found the remains of the ship in 9 feet of water about two miles west of Black Rock, where the vessel had apparently been pushed by wind and current.

Many of the ship’s survivors were forced to work in the country’s salt ponds for a year to pay for their rescue, but they were then freed. Like their neighbors in the Bahamas and many Caribbean islands, most of the 30,000 modern residents of the Turks and Caicos are thought to be descended from African slaves. But the research suggests many could be descended from the Trouvadore passengers, who were spared enslavement by the shipwreck.

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