AJV Archaeology No. 24 | LEGACY Part 5
Trading America: Nelson, Collingwood, and the Shipwrecks of the Jamaica Station

Recorded live at Gulf Coast State College in Panama City, Florida, on 15 October 2026, hosted by the Bay Anthropological Society, a chapter of the Florida Anthropological Society.

Released on Trafalgar Day. On 21 October 1805, Horatio Nelson died aboard HMS Victory and his closest friend, Cuthbert Collingwood, took command of the fleet. Twenty-five years earlier, both men were young officers on the Jamaica Station, fighting a very different war, and the ships they sailed then are still on the seafloor between Florida and Jamaica.

In this talk, Andrew J. Van Slyke, M.A. (Co-Founder and Underwater Archaeologist, Maritime Legacy Project: Jamaica; Lecturer, The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga) makes the case that Britain traded America for the Caribbean. After France entered the war in 1778, the Royal Navy's priority shifted south to protect the sugar islands, and the colonies of West Florida and Jamaica became the hinge on which the end of the American Revolution turned. The story is told through the captains who lived it and the shipwrecks they left behind.

WHAT'S IN THIS EPISODE
The 1778 shift of British priorities from the Atlantic colonies to the Caribbean. George Gauld's surveys of the Gulf Coast and the British shipwrecks of Pensacola, including HMS Mentor and HMS Florida. Willing's Raid and the Spanish response under Bernardo de Galvez. The Jamaica Station under Admiral Sir Peter Parker and the young officers who passed through it: Nelson, Collingwood, and Robert Deans of HMS Mentor. The San Juan Expedition of 1780, with a 21-year-old Post Captain Nelson aboard HMS Hinchinbrooke and Collingwood following him into command. The hurricanes of 1780 and 1781 and the attrition that cost Britain West Florida. The Siege of Pensacola (1781). The hunt for HMS Hinchinbrooke in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, and what finding Nelson's first frigate means for the Maritime Legacy Project. Two admirals, one bay: how Nelson's and Collingwood's early careers converge on the same stretch of Jamaican coast.

This talk is drawn from research for AJ's forthcoming book, Trading America: Nelson, Collingwood, and the Shipwrecks of the Jamaica Station, which follows four Royal Navy officers, Nelson, Collingwood, Robert Deans, and Admiral Sir Peter Parker, through the shipwrecks that mark the fall of Britain's southern colonies.

ABOUT THE MARITIME LEGACY PROJECT: JAMAICA
The Maritime Legacy Project: Jamaica (MLPJ) is a volunteer group of Jamaican and American archaeologists working with the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT) to uncover the submerged history of St. Ann's Bay. The project was founded to locate Christopher Columbus's lost ships, but its research keeps revealing new shipwreck identities and the ties between Jamaica and Florida that connect them. The project runs entirely on volunteer time and donated support.

ABOUT THE HOST
Andrew "AJ" Van Slyke is a maritime archaeologist and technical diver. He holds a BA and MA from the University of West Florida, spent five years with the National Park Service's Submerged Resources Center, and now teaches at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he directs Historical Archaeological investigations at the Geoarchaeology and Submerged Landscapes Laboratory. He hosts the AJV Archaeology podcast and its LEGACY documentary series.

This is Part 5 of the LEGACY series. If you missed Part 4, The Archaeological Legacy of Jamaica and Florida, start there for the shipwreck trail from Pensacola to St. Ann's Bay.

Like, follow, and subscribe to @ajvarchaeology and Maritime Legacy Project: Jamaica.

AJV Archaeology No. 23 | LEGACY Part 4
The Archaeological Legacy of Jamaica and Florida: A Cultural Connection Through Shipwrecks

The American Revolution is usually told as the story of thirteen Atlantic colonies, ending at Yorktown in 1781. But Britain had other colonies in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, and the fight to hold them helped decide how the war actually ended in 1783. Their story survives on the seafloor.

In this episode, Andrew J. Van Slyke, M.A. (Co-Founder and Underwater Archaeologist, Maritime Legacy Project: Jamaica; Lecturer, The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga) stitches together a handful of recently identified shipwrecks using legacy data to follow a single thread from British West Florida to Jamaica. The story begins with wrecks lost off Pensacola in 1778, before the Siege of Pensacola (1781), passes through British wrecks in Dry Tortugas and Biscayne National Parks at either end of the Florida Keys, and ends at Seville Heritage Park in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, with the identification of HMS Hinchinbrooke (1782).

Hinchinbrooke was the first command of a 21-year-old Captain Horatio Nelson, who led her through the disastrous San Juan Expedition of 1780, his first significant victory and one that nearly killed him. The failed attempt to split the Spanish Main in two, compounded by disease, torrential rain, and hurricanes, fed into the loss of Florida and left Jamaica defenseless, awaiting the Franco-Spanish invasion led by Bernardo de Galvez, when Hinchinbrooke sank in St. Ann's Bay in 1782.

WHAT'S IN THIS EPISODE
The British colonies of West Florida and Jamaica and why they mattered to the outcome of the war. Shipwrecks from British West Florida in 1778 and what legacy survey data can still tell us about them. The Siege of Pensacola (1781) and the loss of West Florida to Spain. British wrecks in Dry Tortugas and Biscayne National Parks and how they tie the Keys into the same story. The San Juan Expedition of 1780 and Nelson's first fleet command. The identification of HMS Hinchinbrooke in St. Ann's Bay and what it means for the Maritime Legacy Project's search for Columbus's ships. How a handful of wreck identities, pieced together from archives and old survey data, change the way we read the end of the Revolutionary War.

ABOUT THE MARITIME LEGACY PROJECT: JAMAICA
The Maritime Legacy Project: Jamaica (MLPJ) is a volunteer group of Jamaican and American archaeologists working with the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT) to uncover the submerged history of St. Ann's Bay. The project was founded to locate Christopher Columbus's lost ships, the caravels of his final voyage, but the research keeps revealing new shipwreck identities and the cultural ties between Jamaica and Florida that connect them. The project runs entirely on volunteer time and donated support.

ABOUT THE HOST
Andrew "AJ" Van Slyke is a maritime archaeologist and technical diver. He holds a BA and MA from the University of West Florida, spent five years with the National Park Service's Submerged Resources Center, and now teaches at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he directs the Geoarchaeology and Submerged Landscapes Laboratory. He hosts the AJV Archaeology podcast and its LEGACY documentary series.

This talk is Part 4 of the LEGACY series. Start from Part 1 for the full story of the search in St. Ann's Bay, and stay tuned for Part 5, Trading America: Nelson, Collingwood, and the Shipwrecks of the Jamaica Station.

Like, follow, and subscribe to @ajvarchaeology and Maritime Legacy Project: Jamaica so you don't miss the next episode.

Support our volunteer project today: give.utc.edu/maritime

This is the third episode of the “LEGACY” series and is brought to you by Maritime Legacy Project: Jamaica. The Maritime Legacy Project: Jamaica is a geoarchaeological initiative to Search for Columbus’s last shipwrecks in Jamaica which are the maritime component of the Taíno-Spanish Encounter of 1503. Host and Archaeologist Andrew J. Van Slyke reads a paper co-authored with Dr. Marianne Franklin that they presented to the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (in April 2022) and to the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference (in January 2023).
In the coming months, the LEGACY series will interview the co-founders of the Maritime Legacy Project, Dr. Mare Everett Franklin, and Dorrick Gray, as well as others who have searched for the Caravels or joined our team, such as Dr. Morgan Smith, Shawn Joy, Gabrielle Miller, Chris Horrell, and Dr. Charles Bendig.

Find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or wherever you enjoy podcasts. To listen on the web, visit www.ajvarchaeology.org