For Immediate Release Contact: Nancy O'Shea/Orly Telisman (312) 665-7100 (For Media Use Only) Exhibition Walk Through Real Pirates The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship The Field Museum February 25, 2009 - October 25, 2009 The visitor’s recreated journey on the Whydah immediately begins with an introductory video narrated by actor Louis Gossett, Jr. Here, visitors are presented with an historical background of piracy in the 18th century and the stories of Whydah Pirate Captain Sam Bellamy and underwater explorer Barry Clifford. Clifford discovered the sunken pirate ship in 1984 off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Story of the Whydah In the early 1700’s most of the English slave trade was controlled by the Royal African Company; the company’s need for transport vessels was high. Commissioned in London as an independent ship in 1715, the 300-ton Whydah was considered state-of-the-art and was built to be sailed at speeds of 13 knots. To this day, no one knows exactly who owned her, but it is thought that the Whydah was run by a consortium of businessmen — each putting up money to build her and each taking a profit once she sailed and transported slaves from Africa to the Caribbean. The Whydah possessed an arsenal of weaponry for defense against warships and pirates. In 1716, she set out on her maiden voyage. The Caribbean and the New World Economy In 1716 the Caribbean was a dynamic trading center. A trade route map outlining the Atlantic world of the early 1700’s is featured in this section. Imagine the amount of ship traffic, fleets carrying firearms and liquor from Europe, gold and ivory from Africa, sugar and tobacco from the Caribbean and South America as well as gold and silver from Spanish mines in Peru and Mexico. All these items and more moved across this vast commercial expanse every day. The biggest fortune to be made during this time was in the slave trade. Several maps, illustrations, and artifacts are on display here explaining in detail how the slave trade worked. Most of the soon-to-be slaves were prisoners-of-war or victims of local conflict. With so much money dependent on the slave trade, enslaving enemies became a motivation for going to war. African merchants marched captives along trade routes to the coast, selling them to Europeans — sometimes one or two at a time, sometimes by the dozen. Artifacts in this gallery include shackles, an iron bar used as “trade iron” – exchange for captive humans, ivory, and gold, as well as cowrie shells, a form of African currency. Continue >>