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Captain Kidd's pirate ship to become underwater museum
The Quedagh Merchant was found a couple of years ago just off the coast of the Dominican Republic. It's only 70 feet from the shore of Catalina Island and rests in ten feet of water, so it's a perfect destination for scuba divers or even snorkelers.
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The submerged wreck of Captain Kidd's pirate ship will become a "Living Museum of the Sea" Underwater signs will guide divers around the wreck, and like in above-ground museums, there's a strict "don't touch the artifacts" policy.
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All the evidence that we find underwater is consistent with what we know from historical documentation, which is extensive. Through rigorous archeological investigations, we have conclusively proven that this is the Captain Kidd shipwreck.
”—nthropologist Geoffrey Conrad, director of IU Bloomington's Mathers Museum of World Cultures
A team of Indiana University archaeologists are now excavating and researching the shipwreck near Catalina Island off the southern coast of the Dominican Republic and have found that the archaeological record matches very well with the historical record, indicating that Captain Kidd’s lost ship, the Cara Merchant, has been found after more than 300 years.
Funding
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded IU $200,000 to turn the Captain Kidd shipwreck site and two nearby existing underwater preserves into no-take, no-anchor "Living Museums of the Sea," where cultural discoveries will protect precious corals and other threatened biodiversity in the surrounding reef systems, under the supervision and support of the Dominican Republic's Oficina Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural Subacuático (ONPCS). USAID has since extended its support by a year, increasing the funding award to $300,000.
26 cannons
The shipwreck of the Cara Merchant is characterized by a lack of upper hull structure and many of the ship’s components are not within the assemblage. However, much of the heavy cargo in the hold and some of the hull structure are firmly embedded in the seafloor. The shipwreck consists of 26 cannons, three large anchor crowns underneath a two-meter high pile of cannons, with a large encrusted magnetic anomaly seaward of the pile
The wreck is situated in eight feet of water, only 25 meters from the rocky shoreline of the island, which explains how those that searched for the ship never found its remains. The site is in a high-energy zone with a large amount of wave action; any lighter artifacts were either carried out to sea or were washed into the rocky shoreline, along with the upper ship structure.
Pirate or Privateer?
Historians differ on whether Kidd was actually a pirate or a privateer -- someone who captured pirates. After his conviction of piracy and murder charges in a sensational London trial, he was left to hang over the River Thames for two years as a warning to other pirates.
Historians write that Kidd captured the Quedagh Merchant, loaded with valuable satins and silks, gold, silver and other East Indian merchandise, but left the ship in the Caribbean as he sailed to New York on a less conspicuous sloop to clear his name of the criminal charges.
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