Playback: Rooting, from Into the Depths

Summary

Overheard at National Geographic

Episode: Playback: Rooting, from Into the Depths

Date: June 20, 2023
Host/Narrator: Tara Roberts
Theme: Exploring Ancestry, Connection to the Past, and the Search for Slave Shipwrecks

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Episode Overview

This episode, “Rooting,” from the podcast series Into the Depths by National Geographic, follows explorer and narrator Tara Roberts as she dives into both metaphorical and literal depths of Black American history. Tara traces her family’s ancestry, draws connections to Africatown—a community of Clotilda descendants in Alabama—and ponders the significance of knowing where we come from. The episode artfully connects personal discovery, collective trauma and healing, and the rediscovery of overlooked American history, centered on the recovered last-known slave ship, Clotilda.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Power of Knowing Ancestry

• Tara’s Journey to Her Roots: Tara travels to Edenton, North Carolina, her mother’s hometown, to explore her family estate and examine what connects her to this land (01:21). She reflects on her childhood experience of the place and wonders about the possibility of her own deeper connection.
• Africatown's Unique Heritage: Residents of Africatown, Alabama, know their ancestors arrived on the Clotilda, the last documented slave ship to bring Africans to the US (05:16). Their stories have been preserved and passed down through generations.
  • Quote: "The descendants grew up hearing the stories of how their family had reached Alabama from what is present day Benin and Nigeria." — Tara Roberts (06:03)
• Collective Trauma and Ritual: Tara builds on previous discussions of how rituals and connections to ancestors can aid in healing collective trauma (01:21).

The Story of Clotilda and Africatown

• History of the Clotilda: Details on the illegal 1859 voyage bringing enslaved Africans from Benin/Nigeria to Mobile, Alabama, despite the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade (06:18).
  • Quote: “Only 110 made it onto the Clotilda. One was Khosala, later given the enslaved name Cujo.” — Tara Roberts (07:31)
  • The survivors pooled funds after emancipation to buy land and found Africatown—showing resilience and community-building (09:01-10:46).
  • Quote: “They had the brilliance and the intellect and the passion and the wherewithal to do all of those things. ... If that doesn’t motivate you ... then I don’t know what will.” — Jeremy Ellis (10:46)

Genealogy and the ‘1870 Brick Wall’

• Limitations of Historical Records: Due to lack of pre-1870 official documentation, tracing African American lineage beyond emancipation is a challenge (15:31-16:04).
  • Quote: “The problematic date in the research is 1870... before it, enslaved African Americans were not officially documented by name, age, gender or otherwise.” — Tara Roberts (15:31)
• Tara’s Experience with a Genealogist: With Renata Yarborough Sanders’ help, Tara learns about her great-great-grandpa Jack, lands he owned post-emancipation, and his involvement in the Civil War (27:13-28:20, 27:47).
  • Quote: “Not only does this bring up feelings of pride for me about Jack and my family, but it makes him feel like a real human being.” — Tara Roberts (28:27)

Rediscovered Narratives: Harriet Jacobs and the Maritime Underground Railroad

• Local History Connection: Tara discovers that Harriet Jacobs, an Edenton native, escaped slavery on the Maritime Underground Railroad and published her account Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
  • Quote: “She essentially hid out in her grandmother's attic for about almost seven years before she was able to escape on a ship dressed as a sailor on the Maritime Underground Railroad.” — Charles Boyette (23:01)
• Underreported Histories: Tara laments not learning about Jacobs or the Clotilda as a child, reflecting on the impact such stories could have had.

The Search for the Clotilda

• The Archaeological Hunt: Led by Jim Delgado and Fred Hebert, with Diving with a Purpose (DWP) members, the search for the physical wreck was rigorous and community-driven.
  • False leads and environmental challenges delayed discovery, but eventually, wood sample analysis confirmed the Clotilda’s identity (17:00-21:20).
  • Quote: “...it’s a time capsule of sorts that has been cracked open. When you are in that space and you see how small it is, very tangibly ... gives you a glimpse of just what happened here.” — Jim Delgado (21:20)

Relevance for Today and the Future

• Connecting the Past and Present: Discussions reveal how unearthing these histories is critical to understanding America’s foundations and healing rooted trauma.
  • Quote: “If we’re not aware of these stories, ... in order for us to go forward with a sense of justice, a sense of honesty, ... we have to tell the whole story.” — Kamau Siddiqui (26:36)
• Expanding the Work: The need for continued resources and the vision for more Black divers and communities to engage in discovery and preservation (36:51-37:51).
  • Quote: “We would like to train individuals, particularly young people, to have the skill sets to do this kind of work.” — Kamau Siddiqui (37:10)

Intergenerational Connection and Hope

• Family as Pride and Anchor: Tara’s relatives and local community connections offer a sense of belonging and pride, shifting her perception of her heritage's value (32:12-32:40).
• Empowering the Next Generation: Honest, open dialogue with her nieces about the painful and proud parts of history, and envisioning more inclusive, nuanced storytelling in schools and society (38:30-40:09).
  • Quote: “When you get older, you'll be able to tell people that you had this cool aunt and she did all this stuff ... I wish I could do it, but I still got school to finish up.” — Tara’s niece (39:49)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "If you're not connected to your ancestors, it's like you always going to be wondering, lost, misguided, not knowing what direction you should be taking." — Kamau Siddiqui (03:08)
• "It feels good to be looking." — Tara Roberts, on her genealogical journey (16:32)
• "It's a very sobering and terrible place to be. And yet it serves as tangible physical evidence ... of the ability of this site to continue to help tell this story." — Jim Delgado, on diving the Clotilda wreck (21:20)
• "The words of Lonnie Bunch III, now Secretary of the Smithsonian, still ring in my ears. ... Do you think it matters to know that kind of history where we came from?" (38:30)
• "All migration or movement or journeys aren't all traumatizing. They actually are creating and reforming and rebuilding. ... It's adaptive, too." — Renata Yarborough Sanders (35:49)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:21 – Tara arrives at her family estate, introduces the theme of rooting and ancestry.
• 05:16 – Introduction to Africatown descendants and their stories.
• 06:18-09:01 – Account of the Clotilda voyage and its aftermath.
• 10:46 – Jeremy Ellis on the resilience of Clotilda survivors.
• 15:09-16:32 – Challenges in genealogical research (“1870 brick wall”).
• 17:00-21:20 – The archaeological search and discovery of the Clotilda wreck.
• 23:01-25:14 – Harriet Jacobs’ escape and the Maritime Underground Railroad.
• 26:36 – Kamau Siddiqui on the necessity of telling the Clotilda story.
• 27:13-28:27 – Tara receives news about her ancestor’s history.
• 32:12-32:40 – Tara bonds with extended family in Edenton during Juneteenth.
• 36:51-37:51 – The future vision for Diving with a Purpose (DWP) and community-led discovery.
• 38:30 – Reflections on the importance of knowing and teaching this history.
• 40:09 – Tara’s niece expresses pride and excitement about their shared legacy.

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Concluding Reflection

Rooting interweaves sweeping historic narratives with one woman’s personal quest for belonging, pride, and understanding. By the end, Tara, once ambivalent about her roots, feels grounded in her heritage and hopeful for future generations to grow ever deeper roots through honest storytelling, commemoration, and discovery.

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For more information, resources, and educational tools, visit natgeo.com/intothedepths.

Transcript

[Narrator/Reader]

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[Joyce Lynde]

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[Kamau Siddiqui]

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[Joyce Lynde]

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[Tara Roberts]

Hey, I'm Carla wills from the NatGeo audio team. All of June, we're playing some of our favorite episodes. This one is episode six of into the Depths with National Geographic explorer Tara Roberts, who follows a group of black scuba divers who traverse the globe in search of long lost slave shipwrecks.

[Renata Yarborough Sanders]

Cute little car.

[Tara Roberts]

Yeah, it's really little. I can find Mom.

[Renata Yarborough Sanders]

Get that child to do your nail.

[Tara Roberts]

You might tell me they're not looking.

[Renata Yarborough Sanders]

Don't call now, baby.

[Tara Roberts]

Mom, please don't call me ten times. Oh, I need the keys to the house. Yeah. Sunday evening.

[Renata Yarborough Sanders]

All right, my dear, let's get a good hug.

[Tara Roberts]

I'm off to Edenton, North Carolina, the town where my mom grew up to visit her family estate. That sounds super grand, doesn't it? The family estate? It's really just the house and land where she was born. When I used to visit my grandmother as a kid, my impression of the place was miles and miles of cornfields. Lazy, quiet. Only the droning of bees and singing of crickets to break up the monotony of the day. I. I felt the oppressive weight of the silent country resting upon my shoulders back then. But now I wonder if there was something in this place for me, something necessary and strong that could also help ground and root me. In the last episode, we talked about collective trauma and the power of ritual and ceremony to heal. We also saw how healing can come from a direct connection to the ancestors on these ships. In this episode, we'll get even more specific and explore what kind of difference knowing your particular ancestry makes. I heard about this unique community right here in the US In a place called Africatown, located in Mobile, Alabama. Many of the people who live there know that they have ancestors who were brought over on the Clotilda, a ship that trafficked humans during the transatlantic slave trade. And so I wanted to know more. Plus, I wondered if I could go as deep into my own history, could I also trace my ancestors all the way back to a slave ship? And does it matter if I can.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

If you're not connected to your ancestors, it's like you always going to be wondering, lost, misguided, not knowing what direction you should be taking.

[Tara Roberts]

This is our last episode y', all and we're headed back into the depths to bring it all home. That is right after the break. When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn [e-mail] your teen adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained, one who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist. New Team the new fragrance by Miu Miu defined by you My trip to North Carolina was inspired by the people who came over on the Clotilda. The Clotilda is the last known ship that brought captive Africans over to the United States, to Mobile, Alabama. And the incredible thing about the Clotilda is that some of the people who live in the area now in Africatown actually descend from those original captured Africans who were on that ship. These residents know the names of their ancestors. They know their stories. There is a direct connection. I had been to Africatown a few months earlier to meet them.

[Joyce Lynde]

My name is Joyce Lynde.

[Jeremy Ellis]

My name is Jeremy Ellis and I'm a fifth generation descendant of Polly and.

[Joyce Lynde]

Rose Allen, Charlie Lewis and Maggie Lewis.

[Jeremy Ellis]

Who were enslaved African Americans brought over the slave ship Clotilda.

[Tara Roberts]

And say just a little bit more about who Pulley and Rose are, exactly what you know about them.

[Jeremy Ellis]

Rose Allen, she was one of the enslaved Africans on the ship. She was the first wife of Polie Allen. So we know that he was a reverend. We know that he, when he was enslaved, worked on the steamboat. That's how he found out about his freedom. He was a gardener. He grew onions and garlic and plums and apples. And also he was a carpenter. He built his house.

[Tara Roberts]

The descendants grew up hearing the stories of how their family had reached Alabama from what is present day Benin and Nigeria.

[Joyce Lynde]

Growing up, I heard about the story of Timothy Mayer making a bet.

[Tara Roberts]

It was 1859 and the transatlantic Slave trade had been abolished by countries around the world. A plantation owner and shipbuilder in Mobile, Alabama named Timothy Mayer had heard that West African tribes were at war and that King Glele of the kingdom of Daome in what is now modern day Benin was willing to sell enemy prisoners to be enslaved.

[Joyce Lynde]

I heard that they came from different villages and they wanted to make sure that they spoke different languages so they wouldn't communicate with one another. So that was. I was like, wow. So it was a carefully thought out plan.

[Tara Roberts]

Mayor's friend and partner, Captain William Foster, sailed there to purchase the local prisoners.

[Jeremy Ellis]

He was there for about nine, where he would go down into the barracoon and he would literally select Africans. What we know is that for every man, he would look to select a female, a woman to go. And so $9,000 plus some gold and silver, he purchased about 125 slaves.

[Tara Roberts]

Only 110 made it onto the Clotilda. One was Khosala, later given the enslaved name Cujo. We met him in episode four. He was interviewed starting in 1927 by writer, anthropologist and one of my personal sheroes, Zora Neale Hurston. I actually named my cat after her. The book the Story of the Last Black Cargo based on those interviews with him was published recently. Kosala shared a first hand account of the voyage as a captive.

[Joshua C. Thomas (voice of Khosala)]

The boat we uncured, the clutter. Kojo suffers so on that ship. Oh Lord, I so scared on the sea. The water, you understand me, it makes so much noise, growl like the thousand beasts in the bush. The wind got so much voice on the water.

[Jeremy Ellis]

And they were actually under in the bottom of the of the Clotilda. And so it was a very brutal trip for them.

[Joshua C. Thomas (voice of Khosala)]

Soon we get in this ship, they make us lay down in the dark. We stay there 13 days. They don't give us much to eat. We so thirst. They give us a little bit of water twice a day. Oh Lord, Lord, are we so thirsty. The water tastes sour.

[Jeremy Ellis]

What we do know is that they arrived July 8th and they actually avoided customs. They knew that what they were doing was illegal.

[Tara Roberts]

The ship arrived in the middle of the night. And after those on board were taken off and hidden in the swamp at the edge of the river, Captain Foster needed to hide the evidence. He set the ship on fire and sank it in the muddy Mobile River.

[Joshua C. Thomas (voice of Khosala)]

First divide us up with some clothes. Didn't carry us up the Alabama river and hide us in the swamp. But the mosquitoes, they're so bad, they're about to eat us up. So they took us to come burn mayor's place, invite us up.

[Tara Roberts]

The group was then dispersed, distributed to the financial backers of the Clotilda, with Timothy Mayer keeping 32 of the captured people. The punishment for this illegal act next to nothing, maybe because of the close ties the mayors had with the city government. So with the kind of money and power he had, it was easy to take these kinds of risks. Then came the Civil war and in 1865, five years after reaching Alabama, the people who came over on the Clotilda were free. Their first wish? To return to Africa. But they didn't have enough money to buy passage. So the community decided to pool their earnings and purchase 57 acres of land. It probably cost around $300. With it they formed their own version of home and called it Africatown. Incorporating their agricultural knowledge and folk traditions. An Africatown took the residents built three dozen houses, a church, a school. They even had their own graveyard.

[Jeremy Ellis]

That's a 14 year time frame. Essentially out of those 14 years, only nine of those years they were free and they had the brilliance and the intellect and the passion and the wherewithal to do all of those things. I look back and I even try to reflect over what did I do in 10 years. If that doesn't motivate you or get you excited understanding that that DNA resides in you, then I don't know what will.

[Tara Roberts]

More after the break.

[Joyce Lynde]

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[Renata Yarborough Sanders]

Continue on I85 north for 35 miles.

[Tara Roberts]

Welcome to North Carolina. So I'm here, I made it to the house and I am parked and Joseph Beasley, the guy who cuts our grass is coming. But I'm just sitting here and looking at the property do you know if that's, if that's our land? If that's my grandfather's land? Well, you're not sure?

[Kamau Siddiqui]

No, I'm not sure because all the.

[Tara Roberts]

Way back to the.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

It's another path where you can come.

[Tara Roberts]

In and go down and I'mma finish taking care of this grass here. Okay. I made it to my mom's childhood home, my grandparents house in Eatonton in Chowan County, North Carolina. It was actually a big house, two stories with a porch and columns. But it was in a state. There was a big hole in the side wall, a hole I could actually bend my leg, stoop down and walk through. Most of the ceiling in the kitchen had fallen down. There was plaster debris everywhere, even visible mold on the wall walls. The windows had all been broken and there was glass below them. I don't know why this just dawned on me, but my grandfather, who only had a fourth grade education, managed to buy a former plantation with around 100 acres of land back in the 1930s. How could I have not understood the significance of this? Growing up, I think it was learning the story of Africatown and understanding the legacy of that land that put this acquisition in a new light. It made me realize I'd probably miss more about my family's legacy. Plus I'd never really thought to see how far back I could go. I decided to hire a genealogist to help me go back further and deeper.

[Renata Yarborough Sanders]

Can you hear me?

[Tara Roberts]

Renata Yarborough Sanders specializes in African ancestor genealogy. So do you think that I can find the ship that my ancestors came over on?

[Renata Yarborough Sanders]

I never say never, but it is. It's something that not very many people have been able to do.

[Tara Roberts]

Renata explained that the problematic date in the research is 1870.

[Renata Yarborough Sanders]

That's when you get to that fork on the road.

[Tara Roberts]

Many people call it the 1870 brick wall because before it, enslaved African Americans were not officially documented by name, age, gender or otherwise. Renata said she'd see what she could find out about my great, great grandpa Jack, who was born in 1837. Is there anything that maybe I didn't ask that comes to mind?

[Renata Yarborough Sanders]

Just a reminder for you to be patient and to not really get your hopes up because it's going to be tough, very tough to find those generations before him that will take us back to a slave ship. And so as I mentioned to you, that's not a really. I don't ever like to say it's never going to happen, but it's not realistic.

[Tara Roberts]

I may not be able to find this specific ship. But it feels good to be looking. The residents of Africatown didn't have to do this particular kind of searching. There had always been rumors and folklore in Africatown around where the wreck of the Clotilda was located. It was known that when the ship reached Mobile, William Foster had wanted to hide the evidence.

[Jim Delgado]

And there, he says, I burnt and sank my schooner in 20ft of water.

[Tara Roberts]

Jim Delgado is the historian and maritime archaeologist who has been at the helm of the mission to find the ship. Fred Hebert, the archaeologist in residence at the National Geographic Society, helped with the search, along with DWP lead instructor Kamau Siddiqui. You met him in the last episode.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

There's always the people in the community always ask the question, we need to find the ship. We need to find this ship. And I guess in a sense, they knew how important it was to find a tangible artifact that got them where they are to help tell their story. But I think it was back In January of 2018, due to some meteorological conditions in the region, the water level of the Mobile river dropped, and it exposed this old wooden vessel, possibly the Clotilda.

[Jim Delgado]

And then crusading environmental reporter Ben Raines went and figured out that there likely was a ship.

[Tara Roberts]

There had been come to a pretty good idea of what stretch of the river it was. So we, Jim Delgado's company search, along with the National Park Service, the slave wrecks project, Diving with a purpose and with support from National Geographic, we all.

[Jim Delgado]

Reached out and offered to help. We all went out there, working with the Alabama Historical Commission, who were the stewards of all of the history and archaeology. We met out in March 2018. We went, we mapped, we measured, and.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

Came to the conclusion very quickly that this vessel was too big, too broad. Based on the measurements we knew of the Clotilda, you know, it had a depth of hole of about 7ft, a length of almost 88ft, and the breadth was about 23ft or so. So when we did the quick dimensions of this earlier ship, we know that it was over 100ft long. And so we knew right off it wasn't. But it was an interesting vessel nonetheless.

[Tara Roberts]

The local community, though, had gotten excited. So the following year, Jim, his team, Fred and Kamau, went out again to a different part of the river, which their research showed was a more likely spot, and they started the search again.

[Jim Delgado]

We went back twice, systematically mowed the lawn with sonar, with magnetometers that detect buried masses of metal that exert a magnetic influence.

[Tara Roberts]

We're out there on this Iron barge towing this sonar behind us, making a beautiful map of the bottom. Tara. It was so hot. It's like there's no shade. There's just. I mean, it's 120 degrees. You know, people cope. We had people who were fishing who came by and they kind of laughed at us and said, like, you know, it's so hot, even the alligators aren't out. They found hundreds of anomalies. It turned out the area was a ship's graveyard, meaning wreckage and debris from many ships.

[Jim Delgado]

One target stands out, though. It's the right size, but sonar records alone aren't good enough. It really needs to be systematically looked at. We have to dive and look at everything.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

It's a very dangerous sort of environment simply because the wreck is in the condition that it's in. It could actually collapse at any point.

[Tara Roberts]

The search team needed to put a technical diver into the water. Okay.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

Divers got all wood hull. So when he got in the water, he immediately said, I can't see a thing. And so he started feeling his way around. And then he came up on this wooden vessel that was.

[Tara Roberts]

Got all wood hull reaching over six.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

To seven feet above vertical relief. Correct. And we all could hear the communications on the barge. Right. And so that's when those things have sort of gotten real tense. What is he going to say? Over six or seven. Seven feet above, he said, I feel something here. It feel as if a bow. I'm running my hands up. It's over my top of my head and I can feel it. Put another dive in the water. Came back with some samples, some very small samples, because we don't want to destroy anything. It was evidence. There was enough material to analyze the wood.

[Jim Delgado]

So with that, we were able to then announce that we had identified this wreck as the likely Clotilda. It's a time capsule of sorts that has been cracked open. And in that, I will just say this simply. When you are in that space and you see how small it is, very tangibly, physically, viscerally gives you a glimpse of just what happened here. This is. It's a very sobering and terrible place to be. And yet it serves as tangible physical evidence not only of the crime that was done, but of the ability of this site to continue to help tell this story.

[Tara Roberts]

Back in Edenton, I went looking for my own history. Edenton totally charmed me this go round big porches, the pier downtown. Friendly folks who wave at you from across the street. And as it turns out, my family's hometown has a surprising connection to an enslaved woman who had escaped bondage using a network I'd never heard of. Outside the historic Edenton State Historic Site, I found a plaque. It had on it the name Harriet Jacobs. When I met with the local historian, Charles Boyette, he told me an incredible story.

[Charles Boyette]

She essentially hid out in her grandmother's attic for about almost seven years before she was able to escape on a ship dressed as a sailor on the Maritime Underground Railroad.

[Tara Roberts]

Wait, rewind. What? The Maritime Underground Railroad.

[Charles Boyette]

The Maritime Underground Railroad was the hidden network of connections and safe houses that allowed enslaved persons to seek their freedom along the waterways. The waterways were the major arteries of trade back then before, you know, paved highways. And they. A very large portion of the sailors, dock workers, fishermen, just people who made their living off the water and waterfront, were African American, either free or enslaved.

[Tara Roberts]

Harriet Jacobs went on to write about her experiences being enslaved and escaping from slavery in Incidents in the Life of a Slave girl, published in 1861.

[Narrator/Reader]

When I entered the vessel, the captain came forward to meet me. He was an elderly man with a pleasant countenance. He showed me to a little box of a cabin.

[Tara Roberts]

Her account was one of the few known narratives of the enslaved. That's where these excerpts come from.

[Narrator/Reader]

The vessel was soon underway, but we made slow progress until there were miles of water between us and our enemies. We were filled with constant apprehensions that the constables would come on board. Neither could I feel quite at ease with the captain and his men. I was an entire stranger to that class of people, and I had heard that sailors were rough and sometimes cruel. We were so completely in their power that if they were bad men, our situation would be dreadful. Now that the captain was paid for our passage, Might he not be tempted to make more money by giving us to those who claimed us as property? I was naturally of a confiding disposition, but slavery had made me suspicious of everybody.

[Tara Roberts]

Harriet's story wasn't a one off, by the way. The Maritime Underground Railroad operated for years, leveraging the shipping routes that were already delivering goods from the south to the north.

[Charles Boyette]

We have a marker down here on our waterfront. We have a picture of the type of boat she probably was able to escape in.

[Tara Roberts]

Whoa. This is just a wooden boat. It's like a rowboat.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

Yeah.

[Charles Boyette]

She would have got to the ship on that. They would have rowed her to the ship. Then it was on a regular ship.

[Narrator/Reader]

Ten days after we left land, we were approaching Philadelphia. I was on deck as soon as the day dawned to see the sun rise for the first time in Our lives on free soil. We watched the reddening sky and saw the great orb come up slowly out of the water.

[Tara Roberts]

I had never heard about either the Maritime Underground Railroad or Harriet Jacobs when I was at school, or the Clotilda, either. Harriet could have been my role model as a kid. She was from my family's hometown and I was destined for maritime exploration. Perhaps I would have felt the same sense of pride for her that the descendants of the Clotilda felt for their ancestors.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

I think the Clotilda should be particularly US history, if not world history, but has a specific role to play. You know, if we're not aware of these stories, you know, we're just going to go along merrily and then all of a sudden these stories pop up and people start asking questions, what? Why? Why wasn't I told this? Why wasn't I aware of this? So in order for us to go forward with a sense of justice, a sense of honesty, being candid with each other, we have to tell the whole story.

[Tara Roberts]

Renata sent me an email. She had some results. She told me that Jack was indeed enslaved and that she had managed to find out who one of the enslavers was. A guy called James L. Roberts. I guess we get our name from him. She hadn't found a ship, but she had found out other things about my great great grandpa Jack. First, he had land, a lot of land, at least 174 acres in total. Renata showed me the deeds outlining the boundaries of the land he left in.

[Renata Yarborough Sanders]

My great Grandpa allotted to J.H. roberts. Beginning at a ditch on the road, middle of swamp, thence up middle of swamp.

[Tara Roberts]

Second, Jack was a chosen delegate to the 1865 Free Freedmen's Convention in North Carolina to discuss constitutional rights for freed slaves. Finally, there was evidence that Jack fought in the Civil War in the United states Colored Troops, 2nd Regiment, Company B.

[Renata Yarborough Sanders]

If that's your ancestor, it is a huge big deal.

[Tara Roberts]

Not only does this bring up feelings of pride for me about Jack and my family, but it makes him feel like a real human being.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

I can trace my ancestry back to my great great grandparents.

[Tara Roberts]

Kamau goes back about the same as me, but he sees his ancestry in the Clotilda, even though his family didn't come over on that ship.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

I see my story as part of Clotilda's story as well. You know, I know enough about history to know that we're connected in that way. So we have very similar stories to tell, you know, and our cultural, cultural experiences. Have been very, very similar, too. You know, the whole discussion of race, People find it very sensitive to talk about that when it's the bedrock of why we're where we are right now. And so we should have open dialogue and discussion, honest discussions about, you know, can we get to the point where we can treat each other as an individual, individual human beings? And so if we don't tell the Clotildia story, I don't think we'll be able to get there, because the Clotilda story plays in these other slave vessels and the whole history of race and the efforts of white supremacy and. And the deconstruction of reconstruction. You know, I played into getting us where we are now.

[Tara Roberts]

Mosquitoes are insane. Like, literally, the mosquitoes.

[Charles Boyette]

Yeah.

[Tara Roberts]

Fred, look at this. It's like 10 of them in here. All right. It's gonna kill me.

[Charles Boyette]

All right.

[Tara Roberts]

Do you want to get in the car? Yeah. Fred and I had gone to visit the house that Kosala of the book barracoon built and lived in. But when we got there, we found a literal swarm of mosquitoes, perhaps greeted not that differently than Kosola had been when he reached mobile over 160 years ago.

[Joshua C. Thomas (voice of Khosala)]

The mosquitoes, they so bad, they bat eat us up.

[Tara Roberts]

Joycelyn said she never seen anything like this before.

[Jim Delgado]

You know where it is, right?

[Tara Roberts]

Ah, yes. He just let in, like, 10 mosquitoes. Had to be thousands of mosquitoes that suddenly appeared from nowhere, diving, bombing, biting, filling my car, because Fred wouldn't close the door fast enough. I wondered if the ancestors were spotted speaking to us that day, trying to get our attention again. I couldn't have planned this if I tried. But I ended up in Edenton during the first ever national juneteenth century celebration. June 19, 1865, was the day that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, got the news that they were free in Africatown. Jeremy's great, great, great grandfather was on the steamship working here in Edenton, North Carolina. Who knows where my great great grandpa Jack was that day, But I like to think of him running home to hug his wife Mary, spending their evening planning their future. And there I was in Edenton, experiencing the new national holiday in a place bursting with family.

[Joyce Lynde]

I just love Edenton.

[Tara Roberts]

I'm connected to the Roberts family through marriage.

[Joyce Lynde]

I've married into the Roberts family.

[Tara Roberts]

And can we note that, like, we've never met before, and you're just passing by, and I'm like, the Roberts? And you're like, wait, which Roberts? Like, that's crazy. So say what the connection is exactly.

[Joyce Lynde]

Well, Tina is your uncle, right? And I'm married to his stepson.

[Tara Roberts]

I'm not going to go into the details of Uncle Teenie here, except to say he's my cousin Karen's father. She's the one from the first episode who started doing all this family research in the first place. Kismet. The point here is that in downtown Edenton, I kept running into people who were family or who knew my family, and it made me feel great. That evening there was a vigil. They lit a candle to get rid of the negative energy of plantation culture and citronella to dispel it. And then they topped it off with sage to bring in positive vibrations. I've spent my life thinking that this area was boring and that black people were disregarded at the bottom of the heap. It depressed me coming here, but I did a full 180. I started calling realtors about buying property in town. As I sat on the porch of my B and B on Broad street, feeling the breeze, I thought about what I learned so far. The necessity of telling this history of who tells this history of involving the community as framers of this history. I thought about this new idea of a global blackness not based on geography that is emerging in my mind. I am. We are more than something created as a juxtaposition against something else. I thought about the power of ritual around these ships to heal our collective past trauma and this connection to the ancestors, to seeing glimpses of their full lives and stories that can make us feel pride. I felt more grounded. This journey following diving with a purpose of learning about the ships and of digging into my past has given me a new sense of pride. It's helped me see threads of resistance and rebellion. And I see that we actually have healed some of this trauma as a community. We're not at the start of this process. Some of you have known this all along. People like Kamau, people like Karen, like Loni, maybe even like you. I was late to the party, but I'm so glad I finally accepted the invitation. Since great great Grandpa Jack was born in 1837, it's possible that I'm only a generation away from finding a ship and a direct route back to the African continent to knowing my whole story, or at least the fullness of, of these particular chapters. I needed to check in with my girl Karima. I wanted to ask her what she thinks about where I am now. Do you think I've changed? Oh, yeah.

[Renata Yarborough Sanders]

Yeah.

[Tara Roberts]

I think the change is going to be a certain amount of peace. I think you've understood and come to that aspect of grace. All migration or movement or journeys aren't all traumatizing. They actually are creating and reforming and rebuilding. And, you know, it's adaptive, too. But where do we go from here? Around the search for more shipwrecks. Only a few wrecks have been found out of a potential thousand. And these missions cost money. Organizations like dwp, Ambassadors of the Sea and others need more divers, more equipment, more resources. You know, Kamau, but do you remember Ken Ayana and Justin, DWP divers from earlier episodes? Well, I asked them about their visions for the future.

[Jim Delgado]

DWP missions needs to be, obviously, maybe finding some more wrecks, but telling the story of the African Diaspora and bringing it back to life and not to undercut it.

[Tara Roberts]

Right. And put it into the background.

[Jim Delgado]

It needs to be a solid piece of history taught in the schools.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

We do know there's a number of vessels out there up and down the eastern seaboard of the US and the Caribbean and South America, off the coast of Africa, around islands like St. Helena in the middle of the Atlantic, and all these other island nations as well. So we would like to train individuals, particularly young people, to have the skill sets to do this kind of work. I think it's critically important that DWP takes a project from beginning to end. DWP has done so much critical work on existing projects, the work they could.

[Tara Roberts]

Do on their own projects could be.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

Even more powerful and more impactful.

[Tara Roberts]

I don't quite know what that looks like right now, but I know it exists. It sounds cheesy, but it feels free, you know? Yeah. And I like it.

[Kamau Siddiqui]

What I think history does is it teaches you nuance, it teaches you subtlety, it teaches you complexity, it teaches you ambiguity. Imagine what a contribution you make. If all of America could embrace nuance and complexity rather than simple answer to complex questions.

[Tara Roberts]

The words of Lonnie Bunch iii, now Secretary of the Smithsonian, still ring in my ears. Lonnie NOW oversees the 19 museums and 21 libraries of the Smithsonian. Progress is definitely being made. Do you think it matters to know that kind of history where we came from? I'm here with my nieces, Wu and Shai, trying to be the conduit for them that my ancestors have been for me. We're learning from each other.

[Joyce Lynde]

I think it matters. I think it's pretty cool.

[Tara Roberts]

Let me ask you this. Do you know that your ancestors, like way, way, way back, came from Africa? Did you know that?

[Joyce Lynde]

Yes, I did know that. That my ancestors came from Africa.

[Tara Roberts]

Do you guys know about the work.

[Joyce Lynde]

I'm doing, the history of the slave ships and about your family?

[Tara Roberts]

Yeah. I'm following these divers as they search for slave shipwrecks. So what do y' all think about that?

[Joyce Lynde]

I think that's pretty cool. You get to explore more about the world and you get to learn more stuff that you didn't already know, and I think that's cool.

[Tara Roberts]

Do you care about that history? Like, knowing all that far back?

[Joyce Lynde]

It's awesome. It's cool. Like, when you get older, you'll be able to tell people that you had this cool aunt and she did all this stuff and she got this Florida world. I wish I could do it, but I still got school to finish up, which is boring because if I didn't have school, I would have been joined. You on it, of course.

[Tara Roberts]

Will y' all come scuba diving with me one day?

[Joyce Lynde]

Yes, I will. Yes, I will. Yes, I will. Yes, you will.

[Tara Roberts]

All right.

[Narrator/Reader]

This is a new saying.

[Tara Roberts]

Instead of Obama's yes, I can, it's yes, we will.

[Joyce Lynde]

Yes.

[Tara Roberts]

If you loved this podcast, you can dive [e-mail] into the depths, where we've got a ton of resources to help you explore this history. You'll find more on my work with these divers and stunning photos from photographer Wayne Lawrence. And for all our teachers, we have some great tools you can use in your classroom. Also, check out our special In Depth feature in the March issue. Plus, don't miss Last American Slave Ship, a film from National Geographic Studios premiering on Hulu in February. You can find all the links in the show notes right there in your podcast app. Please rate and review us. And to support more content like this, consider a National Geographic subscription and listen to Overheard, our weekly podcast. That's the best way to support us and hear more adventurers from around the world. Go to natgeo.com explore to subscribe. I'm National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts, host and executive producer. Into the Depths is a production of National Geographic Partners and is funded in part by the National Geographic Society. It's directed by the awesome Francesca Panetta, who got us to the finish line. Thank you. And produced by the tireless Ever Ready Bianca Martin and My Ride or Die Mike Olcott. Our poet is the brilliant wordsmith National Geographic Explorer Aaliyah Pierce. Our executive editor is Carla Wills. Our executive producer of audio is Devar Artilon. Our fact checkers are Kate Sinclair and Heidi Schultz. Our copy editor is Jennifer Vilaga. Our production assistant is Ezra Lerner. Our sound designer, engineer and composer is Alexis Lex Adamora. Our audio engineers are Jerry Buscher and Graham Davis. Additional reporting was done by Tiffany McNeil. Thanks to Harper Collins, publisher of Barracoon, the Story of the Last Black Cargo. Joshua C. Thomas was the voice of Khosala. Special thanks to Helene Pellet and our consultants who offered sharp critiques, insights and encouraging words when we needed them. Aramtin Arablouei, John Asante, Greg Carr, Celeste Headley, Ike Sriskhandaraja and Linda Villarosa. Deborah Adams Simmons is National Geographic's Executive Editor of History and Culture. Whitney Johnson is the Director of Visuals and Immersive Experiences for National Geographic. Susan Goldberg is National Geographic's Editorial Director. Thank you to Flor Pesor from the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Slave Works Project for opening doors, literally to MIT Open Documentary Lab for being an amazing sounding board. Thanks to all our friends and family who listened to these episodes and gave early feedback. We appreciate you so much. Finally, we couldn't have done this series without the support, cooperation and friendship of Diving with the Purpose, Ambassadors of the Sea, the Society of Black Archaeologists and the Slave Wrecks Project. To learn more about Diving with a Purpose, follow them [e-mail] and to my mom, Lula Roberts, for being our biggest cheerleader and reminding us always that the best is yet to come. And thank you for listening. We hope it's been a great journey.