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

by Michael Cottman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
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.

Product Description
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 Dive takes 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 Dive is 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.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1st Pbk. Ed edition (December 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609805525
• ISBN-13: 978-0609805527
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,535,814 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A WONDERFUL BOOK I'M RECOMMENDING TO FRIENDS, June 16, 2000

By A Customer

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book To Read, June 23, 2000

By A Customer

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars Shackles, August 26, 2004

By	Mary E. Sibley (Carneys Point, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.