| Black
Scuba Divers Visit Sunken Slave Ship off Fla. Coast
Date:
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
By: Michael H. Cottman, BlackAmericaWeb.com
Eighteen
black scuba divers boarded a boat in Key West, Fla.
last week, cruised out to sea and descended 25 feet
into the Gulf of Mexico to explore the scattered wreck
of a 17th Century slave ship that sank 300 years ago.
The dive to the wreck of the Henrietta Marie slave ship
marks the first of what will become an annual pilgrimage
to pay tribute to the enslaved Africans who were chained
aboard the Henrietta Marie -- innocent victims of the
Atlantic slave trade known as the Middle Passage. The
pilgrimage was sponsored by members of the National
Association of Black Scuba Divers.
After a two-hour ride to New Ground Reef, the divers
that included this writer formed a tight circle, held
hands as the boat rocked easily, and were led in prayer
by Bill Murrain, a health-care administrator from Atlanta
and a past president of NABS.
“We invite God’s presence to join us as
we pay homage to our forefathers whose fateful voyage
on the Henrietta Marie through no choice of their own
brought us back to this place,” Murrain told the
divers, that included a representative from BlackAmericaWeb.com.
“We stand on the shoulders of those who preceded
us to honor their memory and to make this world a better
place.”
Strapping on air tanks, the divers dropped to the ocean
floor and swam around the buried wreckage, pausing to
read the bronze plaque embedded on a concrete, 3-foot-tall,
one-ton monument that was placed near the wreck by black
divers in 1993.
The inscription on the plaque reads: “Henrietta
Marie: In memory and recognition of the courage, pain
and suffering of enslaved African people. Speak her
name and gently touch the souls of our ancestors.”
One of the divers who positioned the monument facing
east toward Africa in 1993 was Jose Jones, a marine
biologist, co-founder of NABS, and a pioneer in the
diving industry. Last week, Jones spent 82 minutes underwater
scraping away marine growth from the plaque to make
it legible.
“As I sat underwater, a reconnection was made
with the Henrietta Marie, the enslaved people it carried,
and the Henrietta Marie legacy,’’ said Jones,
who has logged more than 6,000 dives in 50 countries.
He has characterized his exploration of the Henrietta
Marie as “the most emotion-filled dive I have
ever made.”
Enslaved Africans did not actually die aboard the Henrietta
Marie when it sank during a storm in 1700. They were
off-loaded and sold on auctions blocks in Jamaica weeks
earlier. In fact, of the 190 African people aboard the
Henrietta Marie, there were 90 men, 60 women, 30 boys
and 10 girls. According to historians, many Africans
died aboard the Henrietta Marie or perished deep in
the Atlantic during the ship‘s sailing years.
“There was a spiritual linkage here,” said
Pamela K. McField, a nurse from Los Angeles who traces
her linage back to the Honduras in the 1500s. “I
needed to make this pilgrimage. This spiritual connection
made my voyage to the Henrietta Marie necessary and
the connection was forceful.”
She added: “I felt tears rolling down my cheeks
and yet I felt uplifted and encouraged. A sense of comfort
overcame me. My ancestor’s eyes were watching.”
The membership of NABS is made up of black professionals
representing a range of interests and occupations. Today,
half of all NABS members are women.
There are 53 NABS clubs across America, and clubs in
Africa, Belize and Cuba.
“This experience will go down as one of the most
awesome experiences of my life,” said Ruth Cauthen,
a dentist from Virginia Beach, Va.
Cauthen said her feelings diving on the wreck of the
Henrietta Marie were perhaps similar to Jews, who are
often reminded of the suffering their families endured
as a result of the holocaust.
“I only wish that our history was documented as
well as the concentration camps were documented so more
people would be truly aware of the atrocities that occurred
during the Middle Passage and the slave trade,’’
she said.
Archeologists now believe the Henrietta Marie has yielded
more than 22,000 artifacts, including nearly 100 pair
of iron shackles, the largest collection of slave ship
shackles ever found on one site, and more than 15,000
multi-colored glass beads, used by Europeans to trade
for African people along the coast of West Africa. The
artifacts represent the largest collection of tangible
objects from the 17th Century slave trade.
Included in the shackles recovered from the site were
tiny shackles -- about one pound each -- that fit into
the palm of a hand, shackles designed for children.
The wreck was first discovered in the summer of 1972
by a treasure salvaging company. One of the divers who
originally discovered shackles from the wreck was Moe
Molinar, a longtime underwater treasure hunter.
Molinar, who was born in Panama, was the only black
diver working for the company. The last black men to
touch the slave ship shackles had been bound by them
and packed into the lower decks of the ship. Centuries
later, one of the first people to touch those same shackles
was another black man -- Molinar.
“This past weekend I rediscovered history,”
said Erik Denson, an Orlando, Fla.-based engineer with
NASA and a NABS member. “The truth must be told
so that history does not repeat itself. The story must
be told so our ancestors can truly rest.’’
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