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The Emanuel Point Shipwreck helped to persuade the University of West Florida to begin a program of maritime archaeology. Those students ultimately continued the survey of Pensacola Bay, finding another Luna shipwreck near the first one and then, recently, a third sister ship in the fleet. Above the shipwrecks on the Emanuel Point Bluff, remnants of the settlement site have also been found, creating an unparalleled opportunity to study the maritime and terrestrial components of that forgotten chapter and bring its remains to light.

This chapter explores the career of James Silk Buckingham, who formed the Select Committee of shipwrecks and produced a report recommending significant interventions to prevent shipwreck and loss of life at sea. Williams argues that Buckingham’s actions influenced the state to improve safety conditions, and demonstrates that the majority of his proposals came into effect by mid-century. A list of examples is provided, including the formation of a mercantile marine board; codification of maritime law; better classification of ships; vetting of officers; welfare provisions for seamen; and establishing courts of enquiry for shipwrecks. An appendix provides a bibliography of Buckingham’s written works.

The chapter introduces the reader to the newly discovered shipwreck in Pensacola Bay, Florida, and sets the scene for the unfolding story of an early, but unsuccessful, Spanish attempt at the colonization of the North American mainland. Subsequent chapters are introduced so that the reader can anticipate the research, field and laboratory work, and public impact of this significant archaeological discovery.

Beginning with a discussion of the overall impact of the cost and logistics of stone transport, this chapter examines in turn the evidence for the transport of stone overland, by river, and by sea. Our best evidence for the organization of stone transport over long distances is provided by shipwrecks. These sites, eighty-two of which are examined in this chapter, reveal the different levels of this activity, ranging from large-scale cargoes of raw materials down to the shipping of individual statues or sarcophagi. These shipwrecks provide a unique insight into the connectivity between quarries and centres of stone consumption.

This chapter relates how a partnership between public, private, and academic entities was formed to begin a maritime survey of Pensacola Bay. Public awareness and sponsorship for the survey grew as dozens of wrecked or abandoned watercraft were recorded, culminating in the discovery of a well-preserved sixteenth-century Spanish shipwreck. This discovery prompted two campaigns of archaeological investigations to explore the site.

The arrival of the Spanish naval expedition in the Philippines in 1521 CE transformed the archipelago from a series of small and fragmented ports and polities engaged in Southeast Asian intra-regional trade into a locus of a maritime trade network on a global scale. Manila became an entrepôt in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries due to the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade, which ran for 250 years and linked the eastern and western worlds through the exchange of tangible trading commodities and technology as well as ideas, beliefs, and traditions. This chapter provides a brief historical background of the maritime trade in the Philippines, with special focus on the Manila galleon trade. It also provides a summary of the excavation results of Philippine underwater sites that have been dated to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The shipwrecks include the Manila galleons San Diego, Nuestra Señora de la Vida, Encarnación, and San José as well as other shipwrecks: Española, Marinduque, Royal Captain Shoal, and San Isidro. These vessels carried both peoples of different nationalities and a wide range of trading and utilitarian goods, and they provided valuable information on the diversity and complexity of maritime trade in the Philippines at this time.

This chapter addresses the timber trade of Liverpool, in attempt to rebalance the scholarly preoccupation with Liverpool’s cotton trade, and presented a more rounded picture of the port’s maritime activity during the first half of the nineteenth century. Williams determines that Liverpool was a the primary timber port of Britain, and that the timber trade grew to two and a half times its size between 1820 and 1850. He examines the characteristics of timber vessels and concludes that though vessels were simple to design, they were often kept in poor condition and were highly prone to shipwreck. He also considers it significant that unlike cotton traders, the majority of significant timber importers owned their own vessels, which increased their likelihood of wealth. An appendix presents a list of Liverpool’s twenty leading importer of timber, alongside their port of origin and other trades they participated in, in the years 1820, 1830, 1839, and 1850, respectively.

This chapter examines the state regulation of the timber and grain trades in the Britain in the nineteenth century, and the efforts made to combat the high loss of life relating to these cargoes.The heavy losses began to draw public scrutiny in the 1830s, which eventually led to government regulation. Williams argues that it was not just the acts of government, but the significant advances in technology and growing expertise amongst seafarers and officers that sharply reduced loss of life toward the end of the century. An appendix tables the loss of life on both timber and grain vessels owned by Britain between 1875 and 1884, and again between 1884-1910, and a third table listing British vessels lost between 1884-1910.

This essay concerns the use of advance notes to recruit seamen for long distance voyages during the age of sail, how it both shaped market behaviour and came under scrutiny by maritime reformers of the latter half of the century. Williams examines the exploitation of seamen that accompanied tbhe practice, the inability of owners to recruit seamen without the advance note, and details the efforts of reformers to abolish the notes - which succeeded in 1881 but was largely ignored by seamen and shipowners alike, and so advance notes were re-legalised in 1889. Williams then charts the true disappearance of the advance note, as they became obsolete once the age of sail shifted into the age of steam and the market shifted to accommodate new technology, fundamentally altering the role of the seafarer.

This essay examines South African shipwrecks and shipwreck survivor accounts in relation to land settlements and indigenous food production systems in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By analysing a collection of Portuguese shipwreck accounts it discovers that African land, often portrayed by colonising forces as Terra Nullius - empty land - in their efforts to rationalise usurping it, was actually populated by settled pastoral communities. Further analysis of the shipwreck accounts reveal the presence of racial typography and the attitudes toward indigenous southern Africans, which would become another rationalisation for usurping land in later colonisation efforts. It concludes that these accounts offer evidence disproving Terra Nullius assertions, whilst also providing an example of how the colonial mindset interpreted the ownership of land.