Customer Reviews

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

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I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED SPIRIT DIVE! It was a compelling and powerful book that combined rich history with adventure and a personal journey that offered some life lessons along the way. I haven't been this moved by a story that examines the slave trade since ROOTS. Cottman successfully gives us a glimpse into the slave trade through one ship, the Henrietta Marie, that sailed 300 years ago. Cottman then provides us with some contemporary perspective by introducing the black scuba divers (and he is a member) who explored and examined the slave ship. What Cottman does best is to put us in the hull of these ships to experience the agony, to put us underwater on the site of the ship to give us a feel for his experiences beneath sea. The book is also a wonderful metaphor for Cottman's personal journey. Cottman reminds us that we all have journeys to take in life and that with faith and courage, our journeys can be as enriching as Cottman's.

I really enjoyed reading Spirit Dive. I found it very interesting, inspiring and informative. It was an excellent way to learn about slavery without feeling depressed. I liked the idea of weaving one man's personal experience with the history of one slave ship. The book made me laugh and cry. But it gave me a new way of thinking regarding the issue of slavery - African Americans survived slavery and continue to be a strong race of people.

The author notes that as a ten year old in Detroit he loved the program SEA HUNT. Scuba diving led to a journey to uncover a slave ship's past. The book opens with a timeline of events significant to the operation of the HENRIETTA MARIE.

Mel Fisher is probably the most well known treasure hunter in the world. Moe Molinar, a successful black treasure hunter, found the shackles. Additional diving in 1973 produced more rusted shackles. They were stored in a warehouse in Key West. The first artifact identifying the wreck was a bell inscribed HENRIETTA MARIE, 1699. This was discovered by David Moore, an archeologist, in the Gulf of Mexico.

The author conducted research at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England. David Moore and the author were haunted by the one hundred shackles found in the wreck of the HENRIETTA MARIE. Their presence showed without a doubt the ship's purpose. The author had been taught by his mother to use the story of slavery for inspiration.

On its second slave voyage, and what proved to be its last, two hundred fifty Africans began the trip. Landfall after the Middle Passage was a location in Jamaica, Port Royal, where the African people were sold for three thousand one hundred forty four pounds. In the Florida straits the HENRIETTA MARIE was blindsided by strong winds. The ship sank thirty seven miles west of Key West.

In Jamaica Michael Cottman, the author, may have met descendants of the people transported on the HENRIETTA MARIE. They had the same surname as a family of Jamaican plantation owners and English manufacturers of the cannon installed on the HENRIETTA MARIE. The meeting in Jamaica occurred after four years of research.

In 1992 Michael Cottman attended his first national conference of the National Association of Black Scuba Divers. It was the organization's second national meeting. Safe diving practice means sticking to a buddy system. The association of black divers grew out of the need to obtain partners to follow the sport of scuba diving.

The dive to the HENRIETTA MARIE was undertaken in May, 1993. It was quite an accomplishment to find the wreck after an absence of nine years; sand shifts, currents move and displace objects. Visibility underwater is frequently poor. Having located the wreck of the slave ship the HENRIETTA MARIE on New Ground Reef, the divers paid tribute to those ancestors and others who lost their lives during the Middle Passage. The dive was a sort of pilgrimage.

In 1996 Cottman went to Dakar, to Goree Island. Historians believe the HENRIETTA MARIE once sailed along the West Coast of Africa. In 1996 since there were severe problems in Nigeria, Cottman elected to travel to Senegal. Michael Cottman and his guide went to a structure named the House of Slaves. Goree Island was a place of mass suffering and tormented souls.

The book is moving. The terrible wound inflicted, slavery, needs to be discussed in this country. There is a Holocaust Museum memorializing a European event. No museum memorializes the peculiar institution.

I have always wanted to visit the Motherland, but never more than after reading Michael Cottman's "Spirit Dive." I thoroughly enjoyed his rich descriptions of the people and places he encountered there on his quest, especially his visit to the Door of No Return on Goree Island and scuba diving the clear water off the west African coast. I enjoyed the passages about scuba diving--the kinship between the black divers, the adventures of the underwater treasure hunters, Cottman's encounters with playful schools of fish and no-so-playful sharks. I also found impressive the detail the book included of the workings of the slave trade from a business perspective--the way the enslavers were so single-minded in their greed that they completely disregarded the value of black life. I will never forget the image of the tiny shackles imprisoning babies--it was disturbing but richly described. I found it difficult to put "Spirit Dive" down and have shared it with my young son, nephews, nieces and several friends. So many of the stories about slavery and the struggle of our forebearers are written in a disconnected way. This book was a warm and personal account of a journalist and father's search for truth about his heritage.

The account of the discovery of this slave ship and the painstaking research that went into telling us its history is inspiring. Cottman writes it in a spiritually uplifting and journalistically compelling manner. Every American should read it and share it with every child they know.

It's not often that a book successfully makes the link between contemporary man and the past. Spirit Dive by Michael H. Cottman is a notable exception.

Cottman's journey back through time to research the history of a slave ship is an eye-opening work, rich with details about the operation of the slave trade, the risks and the lucrative payoffs for the slavers, which helps to explain why it became a major industry.

It's also a story of how contemporary men -- black and white -- came together to document an accurate history of an event that was a perfect example of scenes that were played out repeatedly as slave ships traversed the Atlantic.

It was a perfect circle in many ways. Slavery drove white and black apart over an uncommon evil, but hundreds of years later, the search for the slave ship brought black and white together for a common good.

I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED SPIRIT DIVE! It was a compelling and powerful book that combined rich history with adventure and a personal journey that offered some life lessons along the way. I haven't been this moved by a story that examines the slave trade since ROOTS. Cottman successfully gives us a glimpse into the slave trade through one ship, the Henrietta Marie 300 years ago, and then he provides some contemporary perspective by introducing the black scuba divers (and he is a member) who explored and examined the slave ship. What Cottman does best is to put us in the hull of these ships to experience the agony, to put us underwater on the site of the ship to give us a feel for his experiences beneath sea. The book is also a wonderful metaphor for Cottman's personal journey. Cottman reminds us that we all have journeys to take in life and that with faith and courage, our journeys can be as enriching as Cottman's.

My name is Michael H. Cottman, author of Spirit Dive. I want to thank the readers from across the country who took the time to write and call after reading my book, and sharing with me your profound observations. It's gratifying to interact with readers who understand the importance of history, and our place in history. Thanks also to the readers who called after my appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show. END

I was interested in the detailed look Cottman took of a sunken British slave ship he researched. Interwoven with interviews of possible slaveship descendents in Jamaica and interviews with people who currently live in the house in England where the shackles were made are Cottman's experiences being part of a groundbreaking group of African American SCUBA divers. Still, Cottman tried my patience as he grew more and more absorbed by his personal journey - a journey which did not particularly draw the reader closer to his subject. For example, I would have liked more photographs of his subjects and fewer of him in his scuba gear. After a while, it felt like... Here I am diving in Africa, here I am in Jamaica, here I am... I didn't learn much new about slavery, but I was interested in African Americans trying to break into the world of scuba diving. I could have done without the deep-karmic-significance the project seemed to have for the author.