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In early January, 1841, a brigantine named Trovador left Havana and sailed for the Portuguese colony of Sao Tome, an  island off the coast of West Africa. The African slave trade had long been banned by international treaty, but Sao Tome was still an active slave-trading depot as it had been for three hundred years. Within a week of arrival arrangements were made to buy two hundred slaves recently brought from mainland Africa. Before  they could be loaded on the ship, most of the original Spanish crew became ill and died, so a new crew was hired from among the local  Portuguese sailors. 

 Loaded with African slaves and provisions for a month’s journey, Trovador sailed west toward Cuba on March 1st. The days wore into weeks, and the Africans, knowing they would probably never return to their homes and families, feared what would become of them once they left the ship.

On March 29^th, under cover of darkness, the ship's crew attempted to negotiate the unfamiliar, reef-strewn shores of the Caicos Islands on their final leg to Cuba. They could not afford to proceed in broad daylight; if caught, British authorities would confiscate both ship and cargo, and they would  be arrested and imprisoned.

How it happened is still unclear, but the Trovador wrecked that night on a barely submerged coral reef near Breezy Point, East Caicos, only a few hundred yards from shore. After surveying the damage, the captain ordered the shackled Africans removed from the floundering brigantine and taken ashore. He was concerned only with their monetary value rather than their safety. With a booming demand for labor on the sugar plantations in Cuba, these slaves were worth more than ever before.

They set up camp on shore, the captain and crew in makeshift tents, the Africans naked and huddling on the beach. An armed guard was posted to deter the slaves from running away into the bush, and a young girl was fatally shot as she tried to escape in the dark hours before dawn.

When locals arrived the next day from a nearby plantation, the Captain offered the hefty sum of $3,000, part payment for a ship to continue the journey to Cuba, and part bribe to insure not being reported to the authorities. The planter agreed, but secretly sent word to authorities about the presence of the Spaniards and their captives. When officials arrived, the Captain and crew were placed under arrest; they and the Africans were immediately taken to Grand Turk, the provincial capital.

With the ship's name transposed to the English Trouvadore, a flurry of correspondence was exchanged with officials in Nassau, the colonial  capital. Deciding that there was no real option but to accommodate the Africans on Grand Turk, a plan was formed for their voluntary apprenticeship in the local salt trade. Care was taken for families to be kept together, and religious and English instructions were proscribed as being essential for the new arrival’s successful assimilation. 

In compliance with the current international treaties, the ship's Captain and crew were turned over to the Spanish Consul in Nassau, who sent them under guard to Cuba to be prosecuted for the crime of illegal slave trafficking.

Epilogue

Two years after the wreck, the hull of the Trouvadore had succumbed to the constant battering of the waves. The mast and rigging had long since disappeared, broken up by storms, or salvaged by wreckers for some other use.

The freed Africans were given plots of government land to farm and build a community not far from where they had first come ashore. Life was not easy for them, but they adapted well to their new home.

The Captain and crew of the ill-fated ship, initially charged in Cuba for their illegal slave trading activities, were released by a new Spanish Governor who was more sympathetic to planters and slave traders.

A British treasury official's final report valued the government's share of items salvaged from the Trouvadore at 73 £ 6 p; the proceeds were forwarded to His Majesty’s coffers in London.

Some of the items taken from the ship were later offered to the Smithsonian Museum by one of the salvagers, which 150 years later would lead to the rediscovery of the Trouvadore, and it's long-lost legacy.