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 Historical Archaeological investigations at 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.

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