PASCO COUNTY, Fla. — Deep in the waters off the Western Coast of Florida, secrets are waiting to be unearthed in the Gulf.
"It's just endless, the story of what went on in these waters," Joe Zsiga, AKA Captain Joe of Epic Treasures Hunters, told ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska.
Paluska first profiled Zsiga for a report on the history of Gasparilla.
"We found the ballast stones, which you have the pictures of. We found the anchors. And when the weather warms, we will put our dive team in the water, and we will go down, and we'll search them," Zsiga said. "There are three cannons."
Zsiga and his partner, Captain Samuel Koury, took Paluska and photographer Reed Moeller out into the Gulf to an undisclosed location off Anclote Key. Zsiga said treasure hunting is a cutthroat business, and he doesn't want to lead anyone to its location.
According to historical records, the Isabelita was a slave ship operating in the Western Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea waters.
There is a Spanish Well near the Anclote Key boat ramp that Zsiga believes the French merchant and pirate Louis Michel Aury would take his crew to get fresh water.
"Along comes a slave ship, a trading vessel named the Isabelita, about 110 feet, we believe, from what we saw in archives. The Isabelita anchors up somewhere in this area, and Aury has his three ships. He went after the ship and said, 'Look, you give me the ship, and I will let everybody go. You know, we're not out to kill people. We want the cargo.'"
The ship was too heavy to be hijacked at low tide, so Sziga said the crew started throwing items overboard to lighten the load.
That cargo was human beings, with a total of 95 enslaved people on board. According to the website Slave Voyages, a total of 112 enslaved people embarked on the transatlantic crossing. Seventeen died on board.
The captain of the Isabelita is identified as Freire Francisco Moore.
After enslaved individuals were captured and sold to a second party, the ship arrived at an unspecified port in Georgia. This event sparked a lengthy legal battle between the then Governor of Georgia and Juan Madrazo over the ownership of the enslaved people. The case ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
More than the archaeological and historical significance of the ship, Zsiga wants to track down past and present ancestors who might be connected to it.
"What is it like to know people come out here today and they fish, jet ski, kayak, they see the birds, and 204 years ago, there are slave ships out here? It's kind of hard to reconcile," Paluska said.
"And it is real," Zsiga said. "How people could do that back then, and it was accepted. It is beyond my realm of thinking in today's age."
"What do you think this means for the history of Florida and Black History?" Paluska asked.
"My goal here is that maybe someone will reach out to me who said my great-great-grandmother or grandfather was on that ship. I'm hoping to get the word out there that maybe someone on that ship right here in our backyard can come forward, and the story can progress more," Zsiga said. "A story is a story is a story. But when you have proof of a story, it becomes a viable, real story, a story of history, a story of where we all live, and a true story that can be passed on. This will all be worth more than finding those cannons or the other treasures."
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