The Uncovering of the World of the São José Paquete d’África, a Portuguese Slave Ship

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Uncovering of the World of the São José Paquete d’África, a Portuguese Slave Ship," at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This panel will discuss how the ongoing recovery of the story of the S. José, a slave ship that foundered off Cape Town in 1794, renders a critique of longstanding historiographies that have neglected, and worked to prevent a full reckoning with the past.

With researchers drawn from the international team whose collaboration is recovering the long-forgotten story of the slave ship, the panel will show how the research into this singular story is revealing the social, political, and economic reach of the slave trade and its ubiquitous role in creating a world that was in so many ways constituted by enslavement.

Drawing on their own experiences and work in different corners of the “the world of São José”, the panelists will discuss how this process is playing out in different corners of the world linked by this story including South Africa, Mozambique, Brazil, and the USA.

Other Keywords
Slave trade • Shipwreck • decolonization • African Diaspora • Public Memory • sites of public memory • multidisciplinarity

Geographic Keywords
global

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-4 of 4)

  • Documents (4)
Documents
  • The History of the Slave Trade in the City of Lisbon: Spaces of Visibility and Invisibility (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Raquel Machaqueiro.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Uncovering of the World of the São José Paquete d’África, a Portuguese Slave Ship", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Lisbon is full of sites celebrating the Portuguese former empire: from the Empire Square and the Discoveries Pattern in Belém, to the city’s toponymy celebrating the empire’s heroes, the public space is a constant reminder of a glorious past. Contrasting with the high visibility of this...

  • The Mozambican enslaved in the destination of the Paquete São José: Maranhão, Brazil (1770-1835) (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Reinaldo Santos Barroso.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Uncovering of the World of the São José Paquete d’África, a Portuguese Slave Ship", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This presentation is the Brazilian counterpart of trying to understand a specific route of the slave trade between Mozambique and the Brazilian Amazon, a route taken by the São José Paquete d’África. From this experience we can understand part of the diasporic process from Africa and...

  • Using Multidisciplinary Methods to Trace the "Enslavement Percurso" from Interior to the Coast in Mozambique: Insights from Two Sites-an Aringa in Tete and a Detainment Location on the Coast in Inhambane. (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Yolanda Teixeira Duarte. Ricardo Teixeira Duarte. Stephen Lubkemann.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Uncovering of the World of the São José Paquete d’África, a Portuguese Slave Ship", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper describes work by Mozambican archeologists from the Slave Wrecks Project on two terrestrial sites that represent different stages in the arduous journey of enslaved persons from Mozambique’s interior to the coast before boarding ships to the Americas or across the Indian Ocean....

  • The wreck of the São José Paquete d’África, unlocking Hidden Histories: Archaeology as Protagonist (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaco Boshoff.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Uncovering of the World of the São José Paquete d’África, a Portuguese Slave Ship", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Wrecking of the São José Paquete d’África on the Cape coast in December 1794 was not seen as different from any other shipwreck at the time. History only recorded the basic details of the incident relegating it to no more than a footnote. In the 1980’s treasure hunters misidentified the...