Ballast

May 31, 2015 10:21 AM

For the first time, "the wreckage of a slaving ship that went down with slaves aboard has been recovered." The recovery of artifacts from the 1794 shipwreck is a milestone for the African Slave Wrecks Project, a collaboration by six partner groups (including the National Museum of African-American Art and Culture and the National Parks Service) to find, document, and preserve archaeological remnants of the slave trade. Some of the objects will be included in exhibits in the NMAAHC.
posted by Miko (7 comments total)

I was reading the Times article just a few minutes ago. It's a really tangential observation, but in the sixth photo in the slideshow, one of the Mozambican women has striking white face paint, which according to google seems to be traditional in that area.

It's a neat discovery and I am glad that, based on the article, it is being done cooperatively and openly. Slave voyages were appalling enough ordinarily, but imagining what the shipwreck would have been like is horrifying. I suppose it is good news that about half of the slaves were taken off before it sank, though as the article notes they were sold again just a few days later and presumably back on their way to the new world.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:50 AM on May 31, 2015

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posted by Pope Guilty at 10:55 AM on May 31, 2015

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From the Smithsonian article:

With the Slave Wrecks Project, he says the group is working to create a model for a new kind of tourism, “so people can see a value in heritage tourism, for instance, that allows us to provide an alternative to the models that treasure hunters have given to places, especially in Africa.”

Can someone help me parse that? I'm not sure what he means by "the models that treasure hunters have given to places" in Africa.
posted by jaguar at 11:09 AM on May 31, 2015

I suspect it means things like big game hunting, plundering shipwrecks without state permission or professional archaeological oversight, or buying traditional art from poor communities and removing it from its cultural context without protocols.
posted by Miko at 11:11 AM on May 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

Ah, gotcha. Thanks!
posted by jaguar at 11:19 AM on May 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

"given" basically means "taken" here.
posted by maryr at 2:14 PM on May 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

The ballast point is so chilling. Also, I went off to read about slaves in Brazil and slaves in the South and learned about that.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 7:52 PM on May 31, 2015 [1 favorite]