BBC documentary shows fragile sunken vessel in which enslaved Africans died is being destroyed by trawlers
A 17th-century English shipwreck, the world’s earliest vessel linked to the transatlantic slave trade, is facing complete destruction by 21st-century fishing trawlers.
The 1680s Royal African Company trader – seen as a burial ground of slaves who perished on its final voyage – lies on the seabed about 40 miles south of Land’s End. It is being “pounded into oblivion” by “bulldozers of the deep”, claimed a leading British marine archaeologist.