Haiti Wreck Discovery

The Quest for Sir Henry Morgan 


 


The expedition has been based near the Haitian Village of "Ka-koc" named after the British liberal thinker "Bernard Koch" who with Abraham Lincoln’s backing set up cotton plantations in Haiti designed to give former slaves the opportunity to run their own farms. The plan led to a disaster whose repercussions are still felt in the area today. The documentaries produced so far bring to life the most colorful period of Western history thanks to a discovery that could be the maritime equivalent of the Valley of the Kings. Along with the documentaries an expert team will be carrying out a full archaeological survey, which will form the basis of a worldwide awareness campaign to establish a World Heritage Site in conjunction with UNESCO at Isle A’Vache.


The Pirates called it Madness Reef, a razor sharp outcrop bounding a treacherous shallow lagoon, which were both a haven and a graveyard for the world’s most notorious buccaneers who terrorized Spanish settlements throughout the area. Henry Morgan, perhaps the most notorious buccaneer of them all lost his flagship the “Oxford” in a devastating explosion the night before he departed for one of his biggest raids on Maracaibo. The diaries of Alexander Exquemelin, the surgeon with Morgan’s fleet when the Oxford exploded and stories handed down over the generations to Morgan’s heirs, now living in Alabama indicate that "Isle A’Vache", the island guarded by this murderous reef could well be the original “Treasure Island” with pirates habitually burying their personal treasure before setting sail – many never to return.  


But the more valuable treasure is the historical legacy left behind by the 12 ships including possibly the Oxford dating from this pivotal point in history by maritime explorers Bruce Leeming of Ocean Dreams and Rick Haupt of Oceans Discovery. In 1999, Leeming and Haupt discovered, what is most likely the "Jamaica Merchant" while filming a documentary on Canada’s most famous ship - "Bluenose". Over the following years both have researched thousands of records and painstakingly mapped the wrecks in this pristine archeological site and have discovered several other historically pertinent wrecks. Desperate not to damage the sites and to protect them from treasure hunters, they have recruited an international group of archeologists and forensic specialists in 2004 to mount a land and sea exploration of Isle A’Vache and her aptly named Mad Reef.  


For years, the "Oxford " has been the goal of many a treasure hunter. Many have claimed falsely - to find her. But now a leading forensic marine mineralogist has examined small items from a wreck, which fit the position and condition of the Oxford, and his initial findings indicate that the mystery could be on the threshold of being solved. The exploration of this site will now be in the hand of marine archaeologists. Because the reef is so remote, pictures from the dive sites will be fed via satellite to archaeologists in Miami, London and Madrid to decide what items should be documented for examination and what should be left in-situ for a more detailed investigation. All these ships played a key role in the discovery of the Americas. Now, for the first time we have the chance to explore and study them where they rest unmolested by treasure hunters or salvagers. Early dives and surveys indicate this could be an archaeological Aladdin’s Cave. Morgan virtually ran a private pirate fleet in the Caribbean up until his death in Port Royal in 1688. On land, much of the empire he built still remains and will complement the underwater finds to build up a comprehensive picture of one of the World’s most glamorous buccaneers.  


UNESCO said: “it welcomes this important worldwide campaign to the extent that all project-related organizers, associates, production partners and employees have committed themselves to full compliance with the 2001 UNESCO Convention and its Annex on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage in any and all of their activities related thereto”.  


Thanks to his international reputation as a conservator & documentary maker and his close working relationship with the Haitian Government, Haupt - who created and produced Discovery’s “Oceans of Mystery” series – completed production with Paul Calverley, executive producer at ITV-Wales on a series of documentaries. They featured the discovery of the ships; Captain Morgan and the time he spent in and around Hispaniola; life in the Caribbean during those pioneering and swashbuckling days and the history of the other as yet unidentified ships that lie with the “Jamaica Merchant”.


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