Spirit Dive : An African American's Journey to Uncover a Sunken Slave Ship's Past

by COTTMAN, MICHAEL

• ISBN13: 9780609805527
• ISBN10: 0609805525
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2000-02-01
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press

Summary

When prize-winning journalist and avid scuba diver Michael Cottman participated in an underwater expedition to survey the sunken wreck of a slave ship off the coast of Florida, he was overwhelmed by powerful feelings of kinship and oneness with his African ancestors. As he held in his hands the very shackles that had bound hundreds of men, women, and children in their tortured passage from their African homeland to America, Michael Cottman became determined to tell their stories and the story behind the ship that had carried them away from all they knew and loved. Spirit Divetakes readers back three centuries and to three continents in order to trace the complex and moving story of the slaves and the slavers. We travel to England on the trail of the shipbuilders and the captain and his crew; to Goree Island, located off the westernmost extension of the African continent near Dakar, where the ship almost certainly docked and from which its enslaved passengers would have gotten their last view of their homeland; and to the Caribbean, where the Henrietta Marie sank without a trace--until its recent rediscovery gave us a tangible key to one of history's most terrible episodes. Spirit Diveis a powerful and compelling testament of one man's attempt to make sense of the history of his ancestors, chronicling his journey while confronting questions with no answers and striving for reconciliation with his homeland's past and his own country's future.

Author Biography

MICHAEL H. COTTMAN is a political analyst at the Washington Post. He is the author of Million Man March and The Family of Black America. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Prologue	xv
Time Line	xxi
Chapter 1	1	(3)
Chapter 2	4	(12)
Chapter 3	16	(4)
Chapter 4	20	(11)
Chapter 5	31	(14)
Chapter 6	45	(11)
Chapter 7	56	(12)
Chapter 8	68	(10)
Chapter 9	78	(18)
Chapter 10	96	(13)
Chapter 11	109	(13)
Chapter 12	122	(7)
Chapter 13	129	(10)
Chapter 14	139	(16)
Chapter 15	155	(16)
Chapter 16	171	(14)
Chapter 17	185	(10)
Chapter 18	195	(12)
Chapter 19	207	(18)
Chapter 20	225	(4)
Epilogue	229	(4)
Bibliography	233	(2)
Index	235	(6)
Photo Credits	241