![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/credit-Center-for-Historic-Shipwreck-Preservation-supplied-to-GNN-e1752043251333-1024x594.jpg\")
credit \u2013 Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation \u00a9 supplied to GNN<\/p>\n credit \u2013 Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation \u00a9 supplied to GNN<\/p>\n
From the coast of Madagascar springs a story of pirates and sunken treasure, as an American research team believe they have identified a famous shipwreck.<\/p>\n
Nossa Senhora do Cabo (Our Lady of the Cape) was a 700-ton Portuguese warship captured by an infamous French pirate while returning to Lisbon in 1721.<\/p>\n
In the hold, a massive pile of treasure, destined for the crowns and courts of Portugal, was taken along with 200 slaves from Madagascar, where the shipwreck was found.<\/p>\n
Little of the treasure remains, but when cross-referenced with historical documents, the artifacts that were recovered seem to point only to Nossa Senhora,\u00a0which was one of the largest pirate prizes ever taken and seismic in its notoriety; not least because multiple literate witnesses survived.<\/p>\n
Marine archaeological surveys with sonar and dive teams were conducted by the Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation in Massachusetts. Their target was a cluster of shipwrecks around an island to the North of Madagascar called Nosy Boraha, known at the time period as Sainte-Marie.<\/p>\n
The island was a notorious pirate stronghold during the Golden Age of Piracy, and it appears that the Portuguese ship was taken here after being attacked near the Reunion Islands, a French colonized possession in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n
It would have been returning from Goa, a Portuguese imperial possession in India, where it had filled the cargo hold with Chinese porcelain, nutmeg, gold coins, silver bars, silks, religious figurines and other carvings in wood and ivory, and a $100 million fortune in today\u2019s money of precious stones. An Goan viceroy, a Portuguese nobleman, the Archbishop of Goa, and 200 slaves were also on board.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Nosy-Barhao-credit-M-worm-retrieved-from-Wikimedia-Commons-1024x688.jpg\")
Nosy Boraha \u2013 credit, M worm retrieved from Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n
Historical documents record the pirates Olivier \u201cThe Buzzard\u201d Levasseur and John Taylor were behind the attack on 72-gun Nossa Senhora,\u00a0which was damaged in a storm and had laid up near the Reunions to repair.<\/p>\n
Born in Calais during the Nine Year\u2019s War to a wealthy family, Levasseur was the quintessential pirate. Participating in two of the biggest pirate raids of the time, he buried a massive treasure, left an encrypted message as to its location, and was eventually hanged around the age of 40 while living large along the Equator.<\/p>\n
RECENT STUNNING SHIPWRECKS: <\/strong><\/p>\n Between the treasure value and the ransom money, the haul would have been an \u201ceye-watering treasure, even by pirate standards,\u201d according to two authors on a scientific paper describing the surveys<\/a> of the wreck.<\/p>\n The Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation had conducted studies in the area around Nosy Boraha for 16 years, and describe it as a place where prize ships were commonly taken to be scuttled following their capture. Many other wrecks<\/a>\u2014all likely dating to the same time period\u2014were identified in the area, and the authors highlight it as a bountiful place for future research.<\/p>\n