Iziko Slave Lodge
Slavery in South Africa

The São José—Paquete de Africa

Table Bay in the 1790s Thomas Luny (1759-1837)

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.   The ship sailed from Lisbon, Portugal, in 1794, and made its way to Mozambique and back with […]

The Slave Wrecks Project

A diver with a canon retrieved from the São José slave ship wreck in Cape Town, South Africa

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 […]