page_title: São José Paquete Africa
section_title: Discovery
hierarchical_section_title: São José Paquete Africa / Discovery
caption_attribution_description: English: Divers near Camps Bay, Capetown, South Africa, investigating the site of the 18th century slave ship wreck of the São José Paquete Africa
context_page_description: The São José Paquete Africa was a slave ship from the Kingdom of Portugal that sank in 1794 off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa. Close to shore, but in deep water, 212 of the 400 to 500 African slaves who were aboard died when the ship sank. In 2015, the Smithsonian's African American History Museum, South Africa's Iziko Museums, the Slave Wrecks Project, and other partners, confirmed discovery of the wreck near where it sank. The ship and its slaves were headed from Portuguese Mozambique to Colonial Brazil, during the height of the international African slave trade. Few other former slave ships have been found, but the São José is the first and only shipwreck discovered, as of June 3, 2015, of a working slave ship, which sank in transit with its human cargo aboard.
context_section_description: Local divers found the wreck off of Clifton beach in the 1980s but misidentified it as a Dutch merchant ship. Several items from the ship, including bolts, cannon balls and cannons were removed by treasure hunters. Discoveries in archives in South Africa and Portugal, as well as tests of artifacts confirmed in 2015 that the ship was the São José slave ship.  On June 3, 2015, along with the formal announcement of the find, a memorial service was held for the lost.  Three divers from South Africa, the United States, and Mozambique scattered soil from the slaves' homeland in the surf not far from the wreck. Artifacts from the dive site displayed at the South Africa's Iziko Museum's Slave Lodge in June 2015, will undergo conservation efforts there, and additional research and recovery will continue. Some artifacts were loaned for display at the United States' African American History Museum, when it opened in 2016.  Connected with the 2015 anniversary of the abolition of slavery in South Africa and the work on the Sao Jose, the Iziko launched a new website exhibition, Slavery in South Africa.
caption: Divers near the wrecksite
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