Cayman's 1794 Wreck of the Ten Sail: Peace, War, and Peril in the Caribbean

1. Auflage, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8173-5965-2
Verlag: Univ of Chicago Behalf of Univ of Alabama

Buch, Englisch, 296 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 499 g

Reihe: Maritime Currents: History and Archaeology

The greatest shipwreck disaster in the history of the Cayman Islands.

The story has been passed through generations for over two centuries. Details vary depending on who is doing the telling, but all refer to this momentous maritime event as the Wreck of the Ten Sail. Sometimes misunderstood as the loss of a single ship, it was in fact the wreck of ten vessels at once, comprising one of the most dramatic maritime disasters in all of Caribbean naval history. Surviving historical documents and the remains of the wrecked ships in the sea confirm that the narrative is more than folklore. It is a legend based on a historical event in which HMS Convert, formerly L'Inconstante, a recent prize from the French, and 9 of her 58-ship merchant convoy sailing from Jamaica to Britain, wrecked on the jagged eastern reefs of Grand Cayman in 1794.

The incident has historical significance far beyond the boundaries of the Cayman Islands. It is tied to British and French history during the French Revolution, when these and other European nations were competing for military and commercial dominance around the globe. The Wreck of the Ten Sail attests to the worldwide distribution of European war and trade at the close of the eighteenth century.

In Cayman's 1794 Wreck of the Ten Sail: Peace, War, and Peril in the Caribbean, Margaret E. Leshikar-Denton focuses on the ships, the people, and the wreck itself to define their place in Caymanian, Caribbean, and European history. This well-researched volume weaves together rich oral folklore accounts, invaluable supporting documents found in archives in the United Kingdom, Jamaica, and France, and tangible evidence of the disaster from archaeological sites on the reefs of the East End.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Leshikar-Denton, Margaret E.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Geschichte der Schifffahrt
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Militärgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1. Ship Ashore! Lost, but Not Forgotten
- Chapter 2. Hazard, Landmark, Food: A Hidden Mountain
- Chapter 3. L'Inconstante: A Place in the Navy
- Chapter 4. France's Saint-Domingue Campaign: The Best and the Worst of Times
- Chapter 5. The Prize: A Ship by Another Name
- Chapter 6. Great Britain's Convert Convoy: Duty versus Profit
- Chapter 7. The Wreck of the Ten Sail: Breakers Ahead, Close to Us!
- Chapter 8. What Remains: Links to the Past
- Conclusion
- Appendix A. Inventory of L'Inconstante
- Appendix B. Condemnation of L'Inconstante
- Appendix C. Biographical Sketch of John Lawford
- Appendix D. Data from the Muster Table of HMS Convert
- Appendix E. Ships in the Convert Convoy, 1794
- Appendix F. Salvage Account of HMS Convert
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Margaret E. Leshikar-Denton is director of the Cayman Islands National Museum. She coedited Underwater and Maritime Archaeology in Latin America and the Caribbean and contributed to the Oxford Handbook of Underwater Archaeology, Caribbean Heritage, the Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, and the Encyclopedia of Caribbean Archaeology.