Insect’s journey probably began in West Africa on vessel that sailed from La Rochelle in 1743 to Guinea
An 18th-century cockroach, named Peri, and discovered in the accounts book of a French slave-trading vessel, has become a surprise addition to the National Archives after the book was opened for the first time in more than two centuries.
The insect’s journey began on board the slave-trading vessel that sailed from La Rochelle in 1743 for the Guinea coast. The crew later boarded a different vessel in modern-day Haiti bound for France, taking the accounts book with them. But that ship was seized by British privateers during the war of the Austrian succession and sent into Plymouth.
