Finding Florida’s Lost Settlement
A six-member team is searching for evidence of a community of former African slaves and American Indians.
The sound waves bouncing back to the underwater sonar device revealed a massive object laying at the murky bottom of the Manatee River, near East Bradenton, Fla. While the indistinct image could have been nothing more than normal debris, the six-member team of marine archaeologists, divers and volunteers hoped they’d discovered physical evidence of a “maroon” community of former African slaves and Seminole Indians. The object, they thought, could be a wharf used by British ships bringing supplies to the community.
Two divers from the Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium, an independent marine laboratory in Sarasota, Fla., recently took to the water to find out.
It wasn’t a wharf. But the underwater survey has produced other images that have yet to be studied. The community known as Angola may still be nearby.
“Often times, when you do this work you rule out one area and look at another area,” says Dr. J. “Coz” Cozzi, a nautical archaeologist at Mote. “It could take years to find something as specific as Angola.
This is a process, and you have to start somewhere.”
