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.

Summary

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 first site is a 200sq meter “aringa” (Tundo), along the upper Zambezi –a type of settlement that was occupied by Achicunda slave soldiers and where enslaved persons were gathered before being sent downriver to the coast. Documentary research reveals contemporeinity with, and strong likelihood of specific connection to, the owners and voyage of the shipwrecked slave ship S.Jose Paquete D’Africa. The second site in Inhambane, is a location where slaves were detained just prior to embarkation. Its archeological investigation provided first field training for the latest generation of Mozambican archeologists. Together these sites depict the experience of the enslaved from interior to the coast.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Uncovering of the World of the São José Paquete d’África, a Portuguese Slave Ship   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

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Contact(s): Nicole Haddow