Episode 5: Healing

02/24/22 • 35 min

National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts begins to understand the healing power of diving for shipwrecks from the slave trade when she learns of a ceremony that honored the 212 Africans lost aboard the Portuguese ship São José Paquete d’Africa. Diver Kamau Sadiki, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III, and South African luminary Albie Sachs take turns describing the ritual, held in both Mozambique and South Africa, which brought tears, reflection, and resolution. Tara invites fellow Explorer Alyea Pierce to help visualize the centuries-long disintegration of the São José, which sank off the coast of Cape Town in 1794.

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Check out our Into the Depths hub to learn more about Tara’s journey following Black scuba divers, find previous Nat Geo coverage on the search for slave shipwrecks, and read the March cover story.

And download a tool kit for hosting an Into the Depths listening party to spark conversation and journey deeper into the material.

Also explore:

Find out more about the Slave Wrecks Project, the consortium of organizations working to uncover and document slave shipwrecks globally, hosted by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The Iziko Museums of South Africa provides a closer look at the wreck of the São José through its exhibition, Unshackled History: the Wreck of the Slave Ship, São José, 1794, which includes online resources.

Watch footage from a dive exploring the wreck of the São José off the coast of Cape Town’s Clifton Beach, and hear accounts from historians and the divers documenting the findings.

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Want more?

And download a tool kit for hosting an Into the Depths listening party to spark conversation and journey deeper into the material.

Also explore:

Watch footage from a dive exploring the wreck of the São José off the coast of Cape Town’s Clifton Beach, and hear accounts from historians and the divers documenting the findings.

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Previous Episode

Episode 4: Disassembling

National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts heads to Africa, her ancestral homeland. She visits Doors of No Return, walks the slave trail in Benin, and learns about the long legacy of African free divers who excavated ships all over the world as far back as the 16th century. After an initial burst of Afro-joy, Tara soon realizes she’s viewed largely as American rather than Black on the continent. Her understanding of self, Blackness, and Africa are turned upside down. But later, while dancing to South African house music under the stars, she finds a connection once again.

Want more?

And download a tool kit for hosting an Into the Depths listening party to spark conversation and journey deeper into the material.

Also explore:

If you’re interested in the history of Black aquatic culture, historian Kevin Dawson lays out the connections between African people and the water in his book Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Cultures in the African Diaspora.

Read the powerful account of Kossola, also known by the name Cudjo Lewis, in author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston’s book, Barracoon: The Story of the Last ‘Black Cargo.’

Find out more about the many “doors of no return” that dot Africa’s west coast, including the sites at Ouidah and Elmina Castle, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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Next Episode

Episode 6: Rooting

National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts is inspired by the stories of the Clotilda, a ship that illegally arrived in Mobile, Alabama, in 1860, and of Africatown, created by those on the vessel—a community that still exists today. The archaeologists and divers leading the search for the Clotilda lay out the steps it took to find it. As Tara talks to the living descendants of those aboard the ship, she admires their enormous pride in knowing their ancestry, and wonders if she can trace her own ancestors back to a ship. She hires a genealogist and visits her family’s small hometown in North Carolina. The surprising results bring a sense of belonging to a place that she never could have imagined.

Want more?

And download a tool kit for hosting an Into the Depths listening party to spark conversation and journey deeper into the material

Also explore:

Dive into more of National Geographic’s coverage of the Clotilda with articles looking at scientists’ ongoing archaeological work, the story that broke the discovery of the ship, and the documentary Clotilda: Last American Slave Ship.

Meet more of the descendants of the Africans trafficked to the U.S. aboard the Clotilda, and find out what they’re doing to save Mobile’s Africatown community in the face of difficult economic and environmental challenges.

Read the story of Kossola, who later received the name Cudjo Lewis, in the book Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” by author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston.

Learn more about the life of abolitionist Harriet Jacobs, author of “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” who escaped Edenton, N.C., through the Maritime Underground Railroad.

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