1710: A Slavery Conversation between Denmark, Ghana and Costa Rica
with Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere
Monday, March 30th, 2026
3:50 PM to 5:10 PM
Seminar Room 6051, Academic Building West
(15 Seminary Place, New Brunswick, NJ)
This talk describes my research at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark during a Fulbright Fellowship (June/July 2025) along with my work with an AfroIndigenous youth diving crew in Cahuita, Costa Rica around the two shipwrecks of Danish slave ships that crashed along the Costa Rican Caribbean coast on March 2, 1710. This research directly informs the writing of my second historical fiction novel, 1710.
My novel follows the travel route of the two ships, which left Copenhagen in 1708 to Christiansborg Castle, their primary slave fort in Accra, Ghana. They sailed together in November 1709 towards St. Thomas, their main site for sugar production but went off course and landed in Costa Rica in 1710. Approximately 650 Africans survived along with the Danish crew. My novel documents the complexity of the journey, highlighting the legacy of AfroCosta Ricans today who came directly from those African survivors in 1710.
