Nelson's Caribbean Hellhole: An 18th-Century Navy Graveyard Uncovered

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Nelson's Caribbean Hellhole

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Nelson's Caribbean Hell-Hole: An 18th-century Navy Graveyard Uncovered

Sam Willis

Rupert Edwards

Tim Green

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Factual: History

Nelson's Caribbean Hell-hole: An Eighteenth Century Navy Graveyard Uncovered

01/05/2013

BBC Four - Nelson's Caribbean Hellhole: An 18th-Century Navy Graveyard Uncovered

Sam Willis explores how the Caribbean sugar islands were a kind of hell in Nelson's time.

As archaeologists excavate a mass grave of British sailors, Sam Willis explores Antigua's ruins and sees how the Caribbean's sugar islands were a kind of hell in Nelson's time.

Human bones found on an idyllic beach in Antigua trigger an investigation by naval historian Sam Willis into one of the darkest chapters of Britain's imperial past. As archaeologists excavate a mass grave of British sailors, Willis explores Antigua's ruins and discovers how the sugar islands of the Caribbean were a kind of hell in the age of Nelson. 

Sun, sea, war, tropical diseases and poisoned rum.

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Nelson's Caribbean Hellhole: An 18th-Century Navy Graveyard Uncovered

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