The wreck of the Trouvadore, an 1841 slave ship which deposited the ancestors of many of the current day inhabitants of Turks and Caicos onto the islands, may have been found by divers.

Tim Ecott, a British diver and author of best-selling dive book Neutral Buoyancy, was part of the team which located the remains of a wooden vessel smashed on the coral reef close to 'Breezy Point' East Caicos - the site where the Trouvadore went down.

Fragments and artefacts from the wreck are currently being examined by archaeologists to see whether a positive identification can be made. So far the vessel appears to match the age and size of the Trouvadore. No other similar vessels have been recorded as being wrecked in that area.

Trouvadore, a Spanish slave-runner, ran aground on the coral reef off the uninhabited isle of East Caicos in 1841. The islands were a British territory, and slave trading was illegal; so the Spanish crew were deported to Cuba, and the 193 African men women and children became British citizens and were left on Turks and Caicos.

The population of the islands was some 2000 people at that time, so the freed slaves represented a substantial increase. If the wreck is confirmed as that of the Trouvadore, it will provide important clues to the ancestry of many of the inhabitants of the Turks and Caicos islands.

Tim Ecott is writing a full account of the project for a future edition of DIVER magazine.


Relevant links
Diving Turks and Caicos

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