Captain Antonio Perreira was indeed the Captain of this ship, the São José de Afrika. And the São José really did founder on the reef of Clifton 2nd Beach—where I was the second person ever to dive on her. There was truly not much left, only beams wedged in the boulder field and conglomerate containing cannon-balls, parts of what we now know were shackles, copper sheathing for the hull and handmade nails.
Jacques—not his real name—is a real character, and what a character he was and remains. The flavour of his attitude is captured in my story.
We certainly did spend a lot of time at the Cape Archives and we really were after a Dutch bullion carrier that we had identified; bullion that remains out there to be found.
The military base at SAS Unitie also did exist, and Jacques, Koenie and I really were ‘inmates’ there at that time. We were truly proud to be called ‘terrrrrrorists’ by the unpleasant little Master.
My grandfather really did run Clifton, and I truly do have the news headlines with him and his .303 shooting from the rocks. The shark attacks really did occur—1942 and 1976—and I really was spearfishing fifty metres from the site of the attack on that day, exiting the water just minutes before it happened.
I regret that we took artefacts off that ship—now lost—not knowing what it was, but I confirm that we did have a salvage permit issued to Jacques and the authorities had said it was a coal carrier.
But now I will address the ‘other’ facts and the terrible blight on all humanity—slavery—and particularly this doomed ship with 400 souls chained in her holds.
An internet search using terms like “slave ship wreck, Clifton, Smithsonian” and/or “São José de Afrika” will yield confirmation and emphasize everything I have written.
Video Links About the Wreck
> Overview coverage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhJUEOQzYDg
> SA News coverage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kH4Ze4-w28
> Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAQDqZnEzA8
April 27, 1794: The São José, a ship owned by Antonio Perreira and captained by his brother, Manuel Joao Perreira, left Lisbon for Mozambique with more than 1,400 iron ballast bars in its cargo. Seeking new markets, it was one of the first attempts by European slave traders to bring East Africa into the broader trans-Atlantic West African trade.
December 3, 1794: São José, packed with more than 400 captive Mozambicans likely from the interior of the country, set out for its destination Maranhao, Brazil.
December 27, 1794: Caught in variable winds and swells off the coast of Cape Town, the São José ran into submerged rocks in Clifton (wrongly marked as the next bay over, Camps Bay, on nautical maps) about 100 metres from shore. A rescue was attempted, and the captain, crew and approximately half of those enslaved were saved. The remaining Mozambican captives perished.
December 29, 1794: The captain submitted his official testimony before court, describing the wrecking incident and accounting for the loss of property, including humans. Surviving Mozambicans were resold into slavery in the Western Cape.
After 1794: The Portuguese family who owned and operated the São José continued their international slave trade and made several complete voyages bringing captive Mozambicans to Northeast Brazil, where they were sold into slavery on plantations in and near Maranhao.
1980s: Treasure hunters discovered the wreck of the São José and mistakenly identified it as the wreck of an earlier Dutch vessel.
2010-11: The Ship Wrecks Project (SWP) discovered the captain’s account of the wrecking of the São José in the Cape archives. Combined with the treasure hunters’ report from the 1980s, new interest developed in the site. Copper fastenings and copper sheathing indicated a wreck of a later period, and iron ballast—often found on slave ships and other ships as a means of stabilizing the vessel—was found on the wreck.
2012-13: SWP uncovered an archival document in Portugal stating that the São José had loaded iron ballast before she departed for Mozambique, further confirming the site as the São José wreck. The SWP later uncovered a second document in Mozambique confirming the sale of a Mozambican on to the São José. Full documentation of the wreck site begins in 2013.
2014-15: Some of the first artefacts are brought above water. Using CT scan technology because of the fragility of the artefacts, SWP identifies the remains of shackles on the wreck site, a difficult undertaking, as extreme iron corrosion has occurred.
June 2, 2015: Soil from Mozambique will be deposited at the São José wreck site during a memorial ceremony honouring those who lost their lives or were sold into slavery.
2015 and beyond: Full archaeological documentation of the shipwreck site will continue. Initial archaeological surveys and continued archival and community-based research will be used to track the origins of the slaves and the sites in Mozambique, as well as the possible fate of the survivors in Cape Town.
Source: Smithsonian.com
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3106422/Archaeologists-discover-18th-century-wreck-slave-ship-sank-South-African-coast-disaster-killed-200.html
Video Links About Slavery
Story of Slaves Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak1SlHjFBbU
Slaves Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n26NRPtD-xw
Slaves Part 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbyDcrGdtq8
Slaves Part 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpy7DqGTFt8
About the Author
Michael Smorenburg
Born in 1964, I grew up in a fabulously stable family with the best siblings one could ask for and an embracing community. I also landed with my derrière firmly in the proverbial butter in another way; home was a piece of paradise; the beach community of Clifton, Cape Town, South Africa.
Today, Clifton is world-renowned as a playground of the super-rich, but back then it was all a boy could want; a wild and bounteous Southern Ocean on the doorstep flanked by towering mountains on all sides, and precious few rules in between.
It was there that I fell in love with adventure and nature, which in turn prompted my endless questions about what made everything tick. Religion, back then, provided the stock standard answer, but as time went by, science increasingly won my inquisitive vote.
In my mid 20s, the travel bug bit, and when my head cleared, it was the millennium and I found myself living in San Diego, California, founding an online marketing company. Yet, Africa’s gravity is strong, and I was drawn back home, where I have happily remained.
Humans are, of course, the universe finding out about itself. We are of nature; we are matter… the stuff of stars, all too briefly made conscious and self-aware. Each of us is privileged to add our small voice to the symphony of life.
This book and my other novels are my small contribution into that great chorus.
Wherever you may be in time and place, it’s been a very great privilege to entertain and now chat with you.
Please do stay in touch:
I use: #SlaveShipNOVEL
facebook.com/MichaelSmorenburg
www.MichaelSmorenburg.com/PrayingNun
[email protected]
Other Titles by Michael Smorenburg
A Trojan Affair explores actual unfolding events.
The silent heavens stretched above a pious town locked in the grip of drought have become valuable beyond measure—the fracking bounty below its feet... irresistible.
When Dara, 17, half Indian and raised in Oxford, England, arrives in the heartland of a Calvinist bible belt—a place his astrophysicist mother has come to build the biggest infrastructure in the history of science, the $2.5-Billion SKA radio telescope—he becomes the lightening rod for the town’s anger and suspicion of outsiders.
Based on actual unfolding events, A Trojan Affair is a contemporary geopolitical thriller where science, religion, politics, greed and racism collide, tearing a commun
ity apart and setting generations against one another.
LifeGames Corporation is a psychological thriller with elements of horror & high-technology.
Catherine's Ad-agency has won the most lucrative prize in the world—a LifeGames Corporation contract.
Everyone knows what LifeGames does: Immersive Virtual Reality training
And everyone knows that LifeGames certification is the ticket to the top of world politics, military and business.
But the intricacies of LifeGames are a jealously guarded secret; a secret Catherine is at the threshold of learning… The first tantalizing fact; Artificial Intelligence runs the entire operation and hypnotizes candidates to believe that their simulation is reality.
To learn more she must cross a forbidden line. Indeed, to retain the contract, Ken, the narcissistic boss-man, has made it clear that crossing the line is a deal breaker.
Ragnarok is a thriller with a plot like none you’ve ever imagined.
Tegan Mulholland is a Hollywood Exec flying Paris to Los Angeles. A mid-air event off the coast of Newfoundland will change her life…
South of Australia, on the other side of the globe, a secret NASA Warp Drive test backfires—a column of spacetime warps in an unexpected way and two passenger planes ahead of Tegan’s wink off the radar.
As the world deals with the seismic events and recriminations that follow, an instinct for connecting dots convinces Tegan that the sudden spate of brutal massacres along the Newfoundland coast is far more sinister than the Hells Angel turf war the authorities are claiming.
The key to the truth lies in the hands of Pete, the charming arms-dealer she sat next to on the fateful flight… the man Tegan has secretly fallen in love with.
Praying Nun sequel—coming soon…
An as yet Unnamed Sequel to The Praying Nun will launch 4th Quarter 2017
Survivors of the slave shipwreck struggle to survive as slaves into the early 1800’s continues.
A third sequel to this “Slave Ship Saga” trilogy will launch in the 2nd Quarter 2018.
LifeGames/Ragnarok sequel—Coming Soon…
The Manhattan Event—Worlds Collide LifeGames Technology spreads its wings.
With Ken gone from the helm and the company’s key technology mothballed, what becomes of LifeGames?
Of course—exciting things!
More than that, those who read my other novel, “Ragnarok—Worlds Collide”, will be equally inquisitive as to the fate of “the missing planes”.
Well… both of these matters are resolved in my new book to be published in early 2018.
Strangely, it is a novel that brings together the two plots (LifeGames & Ragnarok) into a single tale of deception, intrigue and mind control at the highest levels.
You’re gonna love it!
Email me to get an early copy:
[email protected]
The Praying Nun (Slave Shipwreck Saga Book 1) Page 9