Slave Wrecks Project

09/30/2026

Join us this Friday for a free screening of "Tales of Oblivion," followed by a conversation with filmmaker Dulce Ferandes and the Slave Wrecks Project Staff. No registration required.

Tales of Oblivion explores Portugal’s often erased role in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved African people. Through new archaeological findings in Southern Portugal, this film highlights the distance between what we want to forget and the urgency of memory.

When: Friday, Oct. 2nd at 2 pm
Where: The Myers Room, GW Textile Museum

https://slavewrecksproject.org/events/tales-of-oblivion-film-screening/

09/13/2026

Meet the SWP divers on Gorée Island, Senegal. This June, the Slave Wrecks Project Academy, researchers, and community members convened on Gorée Island.

For all divers, the water around Gorée is a complex landscape. Students train, local community members train in citizen science and heritage diving, and Senegalese, African, and Diasporic maritime archaeologists seek to document the island's underwater heritage.

Gorée Island is one of the most significant locations connected to the history and memory of the slave trade. Despite its profile, the waters of Gorée still contain many undocumented wreck sites and are experiencing rapid ecological degradation.

To learn more about the Slave Wrecks Project Academy, Community Stewards Program, and the institutions and individuals that make up the Slave Wrecks Project network, follow the link in the bio.

Image Credits: Gabrielle Miller

06/09/2026

06/03/2026

When sharing the unique history of Africatown, Alabama, the voices of those who built, grew, and now sustain the community are often erased from the narrative.

From the suppression of Zora Neale Hurston's study of Africatown resident Kassoula "Cudjo Lewis" in the 1920s, to the modern challenges of equity, access, and environmental justice. Residents of Africatown have fought to have their voices heard and their history remembered.

Learn about historic and current efforts to elevate community voices in Africatown in the two new blog posts on our website:

"Unfinished Conversations: Africatown, Alabama" by Gabrielle Miller
https://slavewrecksproject.org/blog/unfinished-conversations-africatown-alabama/

"Voices of Africatown: Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon" by Antonio Austin
https://slavewrecksproject.org/blog/zora-neale-hurston-barracoon-africatown-cudjo-lewis/

05/13/2026

Luís Graça was one of several teachers invited to tour Complexo Brasil at the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon in Early 2026.

Created by Brazilian curators, the exhibition seeks to discuss the complicated relationship between Brazil and its former colonizer, Portugal.

Educators like Graça are actively thinking about how to tell a fuller version of Portuguese history that does not shy away from the realities of enslavement, empire, or colonization. His reflections share the perspective of a Portuguese educator wrestling with how best to incorporate these stories into the classroom.

In 2024, Graça particpated in the SWP workshop “Difficult Histories, Difficult Legacies — How to teach and talk about slavery,” at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. This workshop aims to equip educators with the tools to facilitate classroom conversations about race, slavery, and colonialism.

“Difficult Histories, Difficult Legacies” will convene for the third year in July. Learn more on our website.

https://slavewrecksproject.org/blog/reflecting-on-teaching-difficult-histories-in-portugal/

04/29/2026

In 1852, the brig Camargo illegally trafficked more than 500 people from Mozambique to Angra dos Reis, Brazil.

As the Slave Wrecks Project and its partners work to document the ship’s wreckage in Brazil, the story of the lives affected by the Camargo’s journey reveals a deep international history of greed, profit, loss, and memory.

To learn more about this story on our website.
https://slavewrecksproject.org/blog/the-camargo-a-history-of-global-connections/

Image Credits: Gabrille Miller, Yuri Sanada, and the Library of Congress

01/26/2026

“Underwater spaces hold stories that cannot speak for themselves.” 🌊
From Benin to Biscayne National Park, PhD student Angelo Ayedoun is building skills to protect underwater cultural heritage, bridging research, conservation, and community across continents.

After completing the Summer 2025 Internship at Biscayne National Park, Aydedoun reflect the experience reinforced his belief that “Benin and West Africa can develop effective models for protecting underwater heritage by drawing on methods that combine research, conservation, community involvement, and collaboration across the continents.”

The internship program is hosted by SWP, Diving With a Purpose and the National Park Service

https://slavewrecksproject.org/blog/preserving-the-maritime-histories/

01/07/2026

“Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,
in that grey vault. The sea. The sea...
has locked them up. The sea is History.”

Those are the first lines of Derek Walcott’s poem, “The Sea Is History,” as referenced by Tom Healy in his reflection on visiting the Quilombo do Santa do Bracuí in November.

Read his reflection on the powerful nature of the experience on our website by following the link.

Tom Healy writes about his time in Angra dos Reis Brazil visting the community of the Quilombo Santa Rita do Bracui.

12/27/2025

On the anniversary of the sinking of the slave ship São José Paquete D’Africa we lift up the poem, “My Name is February,” performed here by the author Diana Ferrus. It was written in commemoration of those who were enslaved aboard the São José.

The Portuguese slave ship, the São José Paquete D’Africa, crashed and sunk off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, on December 27, 1794. Approximately half of the 512 Mozambicans held captive on the ship bound for Brazil died 100 meters from shore. Those who survived were sold and enslaved in South Africa’s Western Cape.

Ferrus traces her ancestry to those who were trafficked from Mozambique and enslaved in South Africa. As part of the practice of enslavement, the names of the enslaved were often stripped away and replaced with the month they arrived at the Cape of Good Hope.
Footage Credits: The BBC, SWP and the US National Park Service.

12/18/2025

“Waters that were used for the greatest barbarity in history, which took enslaved people all over the world, now become a space of healing and memory.”

The act of collecting Seawater from the site of the Camargo is a sacred act to the practitioners of Candomblé in the Quilombo Santa Rita do Bracuí.

When collecting water from the site for its inclusion in the international traveling exhibition In Slavery’s Wake, AfrOrigens and Babalorisá Emerson Mec de Ósóòsí wrote about the power and meaning of the act of collection. Read their entire reflection by following the link.
https://slavewrecksproject.org/blog/rituals-of-collecting-seawater/