The Florida Slave Trade Documentation and Education Center offers a broad picture of the transatlantic slave trade from about 1620 to 1863. The largest group of artifacts is from the English merchant slaver, Henrietta Marie, which sank off the Florida Keys in 1700. This shipwreck provides the most complete group of objects from a slaving vessel in North America, including all the items and equipment needed on the Middle Passage, as well as trade goods, ship parts, and personal items belonging to the crew.

In addition to artifacts from the Henrietta Marie, the collections include:

• Items from the Africa trader, known as the Ivory Wreck (c. 1620)
• Artifacts, archaeological surveys, and documentation of the illegal slavers, Guerrero (1827), Brothers (1858), Peter Mowell (1860), and William, Wildfire, and Bogota (1860)
• An archaeological survey of the British anti-slavery vessel, HMS Nimble (1827)
• Surveys and documentation of the Key West African Cemetery (1860)
• Original letters and period publications describing experiences of the trade, the laws that governed it, and changes to that law.