Experts chart 176 ships that sank off the Bahamas between 1526 and 1976

For British holidaymakers, the Bahamas is a haven of pristine beaches and glorious weather.

But for centuries, the islands, which sit at the heart of the dreaded stretch of ocean known as the Bermuda Triangle, have been a deadly trap for ships.

Now experts have mapped the locations of 176 ships that sank off the islands between 1526 and 1976.

Some carried gold, while others carried cargoes ranging from sugar and tobacco to cotton and even African slaves.

A detailed map shows the locations of the wrecks, most (77) of which are American. Thirty-six of the ships have been identified as British, while another 19 were Spanish.

The majority of the ships – 145 (82 percent) – were wrecked in the 19th century, while only three date from the 16th century.

Another eight and ten were lost in the 17th and 18th centuries respectively.

The Bahamas Lost Ships Project was launched by the American company Allen Exploration in collaboration with wreck explorer James Jenney.

The research team used historical sources, including archives and old newspaper clippings, to identify the locations of the wrecks.

More than 70 percent of the losses occurred west of an area known as Little Bahama Bank, above the western tip of the island of Grand Bahama.

At least 85 percent of the wrecks were merchant ships. The 251 identified cargo types are dominated by wood, sugar and molasses.

But money, silver and gold are listed on eight ships, all of which were heavily salvaged shortly after they sank.

The research shows how 17 ships carrying very valuable cargoes of cotton sank between 1822 and 1866.

The largest shipment was 3,912 bales shipped on April 14, 1852 on the British-flagged Duke off Wood Cay Reef.

Most cargoes departed from New Orleans in Louisiana, Mobile in Alabama and Galveston in Texas.

Their intended destinations ranged from New York to Trieste and Genoa in Italy and Liverpool in England.

By 1800, the US was producing 40 million pounds of cotton per year.

By the 1850s, half of the Old South’s “white gold,” which was picked by slaves, passed through New Orleans.

Ten of the cotton trading ships lost off the northern Bahamas were American, three British, one Spanish and one Swede.

Materials that the researchers say can still be preserved underwater include bottled brandy, cochineal consignments for making dye, coconuts, Madeira wine, military supplies, and rum and whiskey.

Fifty-five shipments of sugar, molasses, cigars, coffee, tobacco and timber identified on 28 wrecks have been linked to the slave trade between West Africa and the Americas, particularly Cuba.

More than 70 percent of these ships sailed after 1820, when the Spanish slave trade in Cuba was made illegal.

Dr. Michael Pateman, the director of the Bahamas Maritime Museum, said the numbers “force us to confront the horrors of the slave trade.”

Two major slave traders working out of Havana, Cuba, and out to West Africa were stranded in a storm on the Matanilla Reef on January 23, 1817.

Two years later, the Celeste, carrying 170 enslaved people from West Africa, was wrecked on March 24, 1819 west of the island of Grand Bahama after being seized by a privateer ship.

“Through the sunken hatches of the Bahamas, you can trace the entire arc of the slave trade,” said Dr. Sean Kingsley, project officer and editor of Wreckwatch magazine.

The lost ships contained handcuffed Africans, wood to install slave decks in merchant ships, and planks to make crates for the export of the sugar and cigars produced by slaves in Spanish Cuba.

In 1862, 437,000 enslaved Africans were forced to work on 2,430 sugar plantations in Cuba. No wonder writers called Havana a banquet place of death.’

Cuban exports represented in the inventory of the Lost Ships Project of the Bahamas include sugar shipments peaking at 5,700 bags per ship.

The 1,700 boxes exported from Havana on the Danish ship the Hannah, lost off the Memory Rock on June 30, 1852 and bound for Copenhagen in Denmark, weighed a profitable 311 tons of sugar.

While the Bahamas is famous for the hurricanes that regularly batter the islands, most of the lost ships (82 percent) died after stranding on reefs and island coasts.

It meant that the ships were not difficult to save. In fact, diving to retrieve cargo has become a mainstream occupation in the Bahamas’ economy, according to the experts.

The Bahamas Lost Ships Project found that 60 ships on the list were salvaged by local breakers between 1656 and 1908. Of the 37 types of cargo rescued, cotton and sugar were the most common, followed by timber, molasses, bars, gold, silver, and coins.

The results of the Bahamas Lost Ships Project will be on display in a special interactive exhibit at The Maritime Museum of the Bahamas.

The project was launched yesterday at The Explorers Club in New York. It will be expanded in the coming months in hopes of documenting all of the historic maritime losses in the Bahamas.

Carl Allen, the founder of Allen Exploration, said: ‘As we search diligently for missing parts of the Spanish galleon de Maravillas that sank in 1656, we are very aware of the wealth of maritime history here.

‘During our dives we stumble upon wreck after wreck. For decades, the lost ships of the Bahamas have been silent phantoms.

“So many warships and merchant ships passed through and sank in these waters. We’re finally figuring out their names, stories, and the excitement of what’s still down there.”

He added: “The sheer number of ships identified in dusty records has created the first master map of the region’s immense maritime legacy.”

“It’s a fresh historical treasure to add to the gleaming treasure we’ve discovered.

We hope this will help the Bahamas manage their unique underwater heritage.

“The potential for maritime archeology in the Bahamas is extraordinary.”