Compilation of videos of excavations of two shipwrecks.
The wreck Le Marquis de Galliffet was a french plantation owner who fled Haiti during the slave revolt late 18 century. Although i have lots of info about him and the ships itinerary in the slave trade i have no info about what happened to the ship. Besides that it sits under a cliff on the north coast of Hispaniola. We spent three years off and on excavating this ship with some fantastic artifacts recovered. There was no leg shackles or anything that proved the ship had been in the save trade. And quite the contrary. Beautiful ornate silver buckles. Gold and silver coins. Wine bottles. Maybe the ship was loaded with his personal belonging and fled the revolt and crashed against these rocks soon after?
Second shipwreck in the video is what is now referred to as the “Preciosa Site” or “Rawsons Wreck” (named by the company who had the contract to excavate shipwrecks in this area) as i was the one who bought a coin from a local fisherman and investigated where he had found it leading us to Playa Preciosa and probably the oldest known treasure transport shipwreck in the western hemisphere. There is a known account of a ship carrying treasure in the year 1551 that wrecked on the north coast of Hispaniola. San Miguel that lost its rudder in a storm and drifted ashore and was mostly salvaged. But because identifying a shipwreck is very difficult without a ships bell or something similar it was never officially named. The Dominican government refers to it as the San Miguel. And it sure fits the era as the coins are from that era. The artifacts we recovered including a thousand coins Aztec and Mayan relics are now displayed in a museum in Santo Domingo.
