Heritage Cases

The São José was a Portuguese slave ship which sank near the Cape of Good Hope, off what is today known as Clifton beach, on the 27th of December 1794. At the time of wrecking she was carrying 500 Mozambican slaves destined for Brazil, during a time when the slave trade between the two countries was just emerging. Her voyage, although unsuccessful in its mission to bring slaves to Brazil, was an important precedent for the sourcing of slaves from East Africa, something which ultimately contributed to the establishment of the Atlantic Slave Trade. At about 2 AM on the 27th of December 1794, the São José, having left Mozambique some three weeks earlier with a cargo of captive slaves from the interior of the country, came to grief in a storm off Clifton beach and ran into submerged rocks. Although a rescue was attempted, only the captain and crew were truly saved. 212 of the slaves, fewer than half the number on board, were rescued from the waves, but were promptly sold into slavery in Cape Town. The rest died on board the ship, many of them still shackled below deck. The wreck lay undiscovered for about 200 years, and was found by local divers in the 1980s. The São José was initially misidentified as a Dutch merchant vessel, and it wasn’t until 2015 that she was positively identified. The discovery of iron ballast blocks, which are used to balance the variable weight of human cargo, led to the conclusion that the wreck was that of a slave vessel, the São José. The Sao Jose is the only slave shipwreck to have been excavated and scientifically studied off the coast of South Africa. As such, one of the primary categories of significance is scientific value. The story of the wrecking makes this site particularly special because of the links it establishes between the slaves’ home country of Mozambique, the Portuguese origins of the ship, the ship’s intended destination of Brazil, and its final resting place off the South African south west coast.