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

For most Afro-Americans, the slave ship was the vessel that ushered their unwilling ancestors from their homeland to the New World. That is why Michael Cottman's Spirit Dive resonates with such horror and history, as he uncovers the sordid tale of the Henrietta Marie, which sailed from London to West Africa and on to America, where it sank off the coast of Key West in 1700. In an emotional narrative that combines scuba diving; American, Caribbean, and African history; and underwater archeology, Cottman's descriptions of the ship's discovery, the horrible instruments of bondage the Africans were forced to endure, and the soul-killing greed that dehumanized the Europeans who participated in this hellish "business" make Spirit Dive an unforgettable read. "I needed to know about the man who had captained the Henrietta Marie," Cottman writes. "The ironmongers who had manufactured the shackles for the ship; the crewmen who had set the sails and helped navigate the 120-ton vessel from London to Africa; the deckhands who had enslaved the Africans as part of their daily duties, men who had showed no remorse in senselessly slaughtering rebellious human beings in the time it takes to think." --Eugene Holley Jr.