Bermuda will this week celebrate what was a remarkable occasion for 70-odd slaves that unexpectedly arrived here 175 years ago.

In 1835 the Enterprize was on its way from Jamestown, Virginal to Charleston, South Carolina, when it was blown off-course.

The captain of the American brig decided to stop off in Bermuda for provisions.

It was then that its hidden cargo was discovered 78 slaves not listed on the ship's manifest, all of whom were offered their freedom under Bermuda law.

All but one took the opportunity a lone woman decided she and her five children would stick with the Enterprize as it resumed its journey to South Carolina.

The Corporation of Hamilton and Bermudian Heritage Museum member Ross Smith will unveil 'We Arrive', at Barr's Bay Park on Thursday. The statue is planned to commemorate the ship's arrival.

Mr. Smith started researching the details of the Enterprize more than a decade ago.

To his surprise, there were many in Bermuda who knew nothing about the brig or the freeing of her occupants.

"I went to our local archives, went through the microfilm, and through the [Bermuda] National Trust I got some ideas of where I could go," he said.

"Then I took a couple of trips to Washington DC, Georgetown, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, because these were the points where the Enterprize had come from."

Still, his attempts at tracking down the descendants weren't as clear cut as he had expected.

The information on the unofficial manifest only states the slaves' details sex, age, height, colour, who sent them and who was receiving them.

"There is no multiple of the same last name but you do see children who appear to be siblings. We believe at that age a Bermudian family would have taken them in," Mr. Smith said.

"I don't know this for sure, but they might have taken on the name of the Bermudian family. One was six months, and you have one that was three weeks. I think 40 out of the 72 that stayed were children, and a good portion of them had no adult with them."

He had no success at all in finding the lone woman who opted to remain in slavery.

"Why [did] she choose to go on to Charleston, South Carolina where she would be a slave?" he questioned. "I went to Charleston.

"What I have is the will of Oliver Simpson, as she ended up living with him. And, let's put it this way, a woman of a similar name and age range, along with children of a similar age range, lived on until the 1850s.

"He, Oliver Simpson, who was the consignee for the majority of [the slaves on-board] had taken out a $20,000 life insurance policy on them and had claimed and received.

"The money was taken out on 73 of the slaves on board, who were consigned to him. Of the 73, he only received six. It was recorded in foreign papers that he was considered a rich man but, through unwise investments, he did not die this way."

Mr. Smith's travels abroad to find answers were just as frustrating initially.

"In one state you have to go to three or four different locations [to find information]," he explained. "Also the ship's [unofficial] manifest had both the first and last names [of the slaves] and when I went to the states, they only had the first names, no last names.

"So you are looking for Mary and you know she is a slave of John Smith, but what you get is, Mary, slave of John Smith. This happened right up to the 1860s, so how did they have last names [listed within the Archives]?

"I was led to believe that maybe there were plantations in that area and they were given the last names."

Adding to his hurdles was that state and county lines had moved several times.

"So what was Virginia became part of Maryland or Washington DC," he said.

He eventually found an ally in the Charleston Library. Mr. Smith was able to send the institution the relevant information. He would then be advised how the boundaries had changed and where he should look.

"That helped a lot in the research part of it," he said.

Mr. Smith said he had also attempted to track down direct descendants of the slaves.

Some people had responded to advertisements placed on behalf of the Bermudian Heritage Museum and others had contacted a Bermudian researcher focusing on the Enterprize as part of her thesis.

"Some were reluctant to come forward," he said. "What information she had was given to her orally, and she then did the research through births, marriages to authenticate that.

"Again, a lot of this is oral. Some is documented but there is conflicting information as well. And when I say conflicting, some of the dates may not be exact, but they are authentic."

The aim is to make all the documentation public, he said. However he has found that many descendants are reluctant to have their information put in the newspaper.

"Some of them have given us pictures. We have a picture on display at the museum and that is OK but we don't allow you to come down and take pictures."

Slaves of the Enterprize were freed on February 18, after a court case ruled in their favour. Bermuda has set aside Thursday as the date of the unveiling of the statue the date the Enterprize arrived on the Island.

"Normally, at that time, if you were coming in under duress, you'd come into St. George's," Mr. Smith explained. "To go anywhere else you'd need a pilot and most of the pilots were black.

"If the pilot brought it in then how did the information that there were slaves on the ship information which was not on the manifest get to the local population?"

Mr. Smith's theory is that persons interacting with the ship, perhaps the Police or the Sheriff, found out and raised the issue with the ship's captain.

"I gather that when it was discovered that they had slaves on board [there was a question of] what to do with them and this was at the Governor and Privy Counsel status levels.

"It blossomed into an incident between the United States and Great Britain."

That incident had directly affected the slaves of the La Amistad, in 1839. Those slaves were picked up by another American ship while travelling off Long Island, New York.

Their case was tried by the same lawyer who defended the slaves on the Enterprize. US president John Quincy Adams also won their freedom, citing the Enterprize as precedent.

A replica of the Freedom Schooner Amistad is now in Bermuda and will take part in this week's events.

• Events planned at Barr's Bay Park at noon tomorrow include a staging of Act I of 'Re-enactment', a play about the Enterprize.

The audience will then be able to follow the '78 representatives' along a route retracing steps made 175 years ago through Hamilton and up to Supreme Court Number One, on the ground floor of the Sessions House.

It was there the court hearing to decide whether or not the slaves should be freed, took place. That event will be played out in the court by Kelvin Hastings-Smith, Stephen Notman, John Cox, Rotimi Martins, Royce Ann Dill and Boyd Smith.