Cape Town - Iziko Museums is set to receive a $500 000 (R7.1 million) grant from the US ambassador to help preserve slave history.
US Ambassador Patrick Gaspard announced the grant at the Slave Lodge Museum on Tuesday.
The fund money will be focused on further conservation and fieldwork on the wreckage of the São José slave ship off Cape Town.
“We are proud partners with the people of South Africa and Iziko Museums to see that the story of the enslaved persons carried in the São José is adequately preserved and honoured,” Gaspard said, “while ensuring new opportunities are created for the people of South Africa in the process.”
The São José ran aground off the shore of Clifton 4th beach in December 1794.
“We’re here in the name of the remarkable pilgrims on this ship and in the name of the 15 percent of Africans who did not survive the Middle Passage,” Gaspard said.
The deputy chairman of the Iziko Museums council, Themba Wakashe, said the story of the São José was trans-continental and it was fitting South Africa partnered with the US to preserve its history.
“The story of the São José is more than an African story - it is one that transcends time, space, place and identity.”
South Africans are too quick to forget our history of slavery, Wakashe said.
“The history of this country does not start with apartheid,” he added. “There is a history way beyond apartheid that needs to be observed and appreciated.”
Wakashe said the grant money was about allowing South Africa to recognise its common humanity.
“This funding will allow researchers to salvage parts of our collective history,” he said.”Some of these stories hurt us, but there is also a process of healing.”
Wakashe begged student protesters not to destroy historical artifacts, even though he said he supported their call for free education. “Yes, we understand, yes we support, but do not destroy. I want to appeal to university students not to burn our heritage. The libraries at UCT, UKZN - that is our heritage. Sources of knowledge must always be preserved.”
This funding is the largest amount granted in South Africa from the US Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation.
Two million rand of the fund will be used to buy equipment for Iziko’s lab, including a freeze dryer, a handheld XRF spectrometer, microscopes and other necessities for analysing and conserving items from the São José shipwreck.
The money will also go towards employing Nancy Childs, who is the only waterlogged objects conservator in Africa.
Childs will be training a South African assistant to share her valuable skills.
The fund will also help cover wages for a diver, skipper and assistant who will be monitoring the shipwreck site, as well as to train previously disadvantaged Capetonians in scuba diving.
Cape Argus