Archaeologists discovered four 18th century shipwrecks off the coast of North Carolina, including the shipwreck of La Fortuna, a Spanish private Cuban man who exploded during the attack in 1748.
The wreck was found near the town of Brunswick, the main colonial port on the Southern Coast of North Carolina. The town was the first successful European settlement in the Cape Fia region (as 16th-century sailors remained in the terror of shipwrecks), and the port was used to export pine products such as tar and troutin, which were used by the Royal Navy. However, archaeologists investigating the area did not expect to find such numerous shipwrecks and colonial artifacts.
“Visibility [underwater] Corey Van Heas, a graduate student at East Carolina University (ECU), said in a statement. Van Heas said, “I didn’t understand what I was seeing in the moment.”
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The project’s co-leaders, ECU Maritime archaeologists Jason Raupp and Jeremy Borrelli, consider it to be one of the 47 wood shipwrecks. Historical records note that two Spanish ships anchored from the town of Brunswick on September 4, 1748. Spanish began raiding the English towns of the time, but a few days later he was surprised by the counterattack from the settlers. During the attack, LaFortuna exploded and sank.
The project team discovered two major clues that the accident was actually La Fortuna. Nearby wood and artifacts, including Spanish pottery.
Some of the wood used in the construction of the ship was from Cypress species native to Central America. This suggests that the sailors built the ship using raw materials from Spanish Caribbean colonies, suggesting that La Fortuna is the only Spanish vessel known to have sunk in the area.
Related: More than $1 million coins recovered from Florida’s 1715 Spanish treasure wreck
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While recording the shipwreck this summer, the team “found hundreds of artifacts,” Borelli said in an email to live science, including ceramic shelds, glass container bottles, clay cigarette pipes and Cooper’s a-order. [cutting tool]barrel heads and stairs, canvas, leather shoes, fragments of possible clothing, bones of slaughtered animals. Furthermore, two fragments of 18th-century Spanish-American ceramics “are another clue in favour of the preliminary identification of Laforna,” Borelli said.
The other three remains are still a mystery. They all have construction details and artifacts that suggested they were used in the 1700s, Borelli said. That is to say, it is likely that the wreckage is linked to the 50-year lifespan of the town of Brunswick. However, coastal erosion dramatically affects archaeological sites, spreading the remains of shipwrecks over a wide range, he said.
Raupp and Borrelli will continue to investigate the wreck.
“As we dig deeper and reveal more evidence, it could lead us in a different direction,” Borelli said. “It is highly unlikely that any of the other shipwrecks found in the town of Brunswick would be Spanish, but at this time nothing can be ruled out.”
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