The São José—Paquete de Africa, the Portuguese slave vessel that sank off the coast of the Cape in 1794, is the first known shipwreck to be identified, studied and excavated that foundered with enslaved Africans on board.
A project that initially had its first research conducted in South Africa in 2008 (Southern African Slave Wrecks and Diasporan Heritage Routes Project) is today a global collaborative archaeological and research effort, known as the Slave Wrecks Project (SWP). The global research project is a collaboration between Iziko Museums of South Africa, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the South African Heritage Resources Agency, the George Washington University and a core group of international and local partners.
