National Geographic - March 2022

03.2022

INTO
THE
DEPTHS

Searching for shipwrecks from slavery’s hidden past—
to help heal the present



FURTHER MARCH 2022

CONTENTS On the Cover

National Geographic
Explorer Tara Roberts,
here in the Florida Keys,
dives with a group that’s
reclaiming the stories
and artifacts of African
captives transported on
slave ships.

PHOTO: WAYNE LAWRENCE

PROOF EXPLORE

15
THE BIG IDEA
28
A Chance to
‘Become a Fish’
With the Aqua-Lung,
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
opened an underwater
world to researchers
and regular folks.

BY RACHEL HARTIGAN

6 DATA SHEET BASIC INSTINCTS

The Samurai Spirit Revealing All … Meet a Hermaphro-
Through portraits in Apps ditic Sea Slug That
focused on descen- From your age to your Wields a Needle
dants of the famed bank account, apps This fragile-seeming
Japanese warriors, a know a lot about you. animal practices “trau-
photographer learns matic insemination.”
about the past, the BY ALBERTO LUCAS LÓPEZ
present, and himself. BY EVA VAN DEN BERG
AND KELSEY NOWAKOWSKI
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
ALSO CLOSER LOOK
RYOTARO HORIUCHI
The Benefit of Blue Pottery of the Night
Otters Aiding Plants A new generation
of artisans is bringing
back the authentic
tradition of Mexico’s
black clay ceramics.

BY RACHNA SACHASINH

ALSO

Origins of Counting
Tips on Urban Wildlife

M A R C H | CONTENTS

F E AT U R E S Hidden No More Saving Winter Defending the
About a thousand ships Alpine economies Land, Paying With
sank during the transat- depend on snow, so Their Lives
lantic slave trade, many what happens when In Colombia, activism
with captive Africans there’s less of it? is a dangerous pursuit.
on board. Today Black
divers are exploring BY DENISE HRUBY BY JORDAN SALAMA
and documenting the
wrecks. “As long as we PHOTOGRAPHS BY PHOTOGRAPHS BY
dive for these ships,”
says the Smithsonian’s C I R I L J A Z B E C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. 58 F LO R E N C E G O U P I L . . . P. 100
Lonnie Bunch III, “the
people who died on Big Cat Haven The Cricket Catchers
them are remembered.” A conservation success A key protein source
story plays out on an in Uganda, bush crick-
BY TARA ROBERTS Indian tiger reserve. ets are at risk from
overharvesting.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY BY YUDHIJIT
BY HALIMA ATHUMANI
WAY N E L AW R E N C E . . . P. 36 B H AT TAC H A R J E E
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
J A S P E R D O E S T . . . . . . . . . P. 120
S H A A Z J U N G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. 86

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M A R C H | FROM THE EDITOR

Who Gets to Tell T H E AT L A N T I C O C E A N , Tara Roberts writes, is full
the Story Matters of “souls who have never been acknowledged or
mourned. Dreamers, poets, artists, thinkers, sci-
BY SUSAN GOLDBERG entists, farmers.”
P H OTO G R A P H B Y WAY N E LAW R EN C E
And so begins a powerful essay of discovery: this
In Edenton, North Carolina, Scan this QR code issue’s cover story and a special six-part Nat Geo
National Geographic Explorer to listen to the podcast called Into the Depths. Roberts, a National
Tara Roberts visits her grand- podcast series Into Geographic Explorer, has traveled coastal waters
parents’ former home, now the Depths, about from the United States to South Africa to Costa Rica,
empty. This issue’s cover story Roberts’s journey searching for what remains of the ships that an esti-
was written by Roberts, whose following Black mated 12.5 million Africans were forced onto during
research on the transatlantic divers exploring four centuries of the transatlantic slave trade.
slave trade inspired her to inves- slavery’s past.
tigate her own roots. Among Roberts seeks signs not just of those captives who
the facts she’s unearthed: Her arrived on the Americas’ shores—but also of the 1.8
ancestor Jack Roberts fought in million people who perished along the way from
the Civil War in the U.S. Colored inhumane conditions in cargo holds or by drowning
Troops and was a delegate in shipwrecks.
to the 1865 North Carolina
Freedmen’s Convention. Roberts participates in these searches with a
group called Diving With a Purpose, which trains div-
ers—most of them African American—to locate, doc-
ument, and conserve artifacts they find in the water.
They are looking for what remains of ships such as
the São José Paquete d’Africa, a Portuguese vessel
bound for Brazil that sank off Cape Town, South
Africa, in 1794. Many of the 512 captives jammed in
the ship’s cargo hold were from the Makua ethnic
group of northern Mozambique. Two hundred twelve
went down with the ship, their stories lost to history.

“In some ways, there’s so much we know about
slavery,” says Lonnie Bunch III, the secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution and founding director of the
National Museum of African American History and
Culture in Washington, D.C. “But there’s so much we
still don’t know. And I would argue the last frontier
is what’s under the water.”

For Roberts and many other Americans whose
ancestors were enslaved, deep dives into the past
could provide both new information on the slave
trade and a new perspective: Who gets to tell the story
matters—in terms of which facts are included, what’s
emphasized, what’s glossed over. And history, as
most of us have read it over the years, largely has been
shaped by an unrepresentative group of narrators.

As Roberts puts it, “We know very little about the
people in the cargo hold, except the horrors. I wonder
if Black divers would notice different details. If they
would focus on finding artifacts that help us under-
stand the full humanity of the captive Africans.”

Ultimately, Roberts’s journey into the past compels
her to investigate her own roots. The last part of her
story is set in Edenton, North Carolina, the home of
her great-great-grandparents Jack and Mary Roberts,
who were both born enslaved.

I cannot do justice to Roberts’s moving history,
neither will I reveal what she discovers. I’ll let
Roberts tell you herself, beginning on page 36. As
in many of the most important stories, what she
learns doesn’t make itself apparent immediately;
it is uncovered bit by bit.

Thank you for reading National Geographic. j

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PROOF

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
VOL. 241 NO. 3

THE SAMURAI
SPIRIT

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LOOKING
RYOTARO HORIUCHI AT THE
EARTH
Portraits showcase the beauty FROM
and reverence associated with the E V E RY
warriors of old, still celebrated in POSSIBLE
the Japan of today. ANGLE

6 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

At Japan’s Soma Nomaoi
Festival, armor-clad par-
ticipants, some of whom

have samurai ancestry,
parade and race on

horseback. Here, Mitsuo
Abe—in everyday life, a
dealer in antique armor—

dresses as a type of
samurai called go-taisho,

a battalion general.

MARCH 2022 7

PROOF

For her portrait, Miwa Hosokawa is outfitted as a cavalry warrior, known as a kiba. During the festival, she cares for the
participants’ mounts, using skills she has developed through her work on a horse ranch.
8 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

A onetime civil servant, Yukio Imada acts as a samurai-taisho, a company commander who supports the general of
a battalion. To intimidate opponents, his headdress features an oni, a fearsome creature in Japanese folklore.

MARCH 2022 9

PROOF

Katsunao Kamo’s training as an armorer helped him suit up properly for his role as a gunja, a samurai who aids the chief
of staff and vice chief of staff. Kamo, now deceased, also managed the festival’s general affairs.
10 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Most days, Yuichi Takahashi leads a construction company. As a festival osakinori, he leads the samurai marching cavalry and
festival spirits and oversees the safety of the route. The armor he wears dates from the late 1500s to early 1600s.

M A R C H 2 0 2 2 11

PROOF

THE BACKSTORY

A PHOTOGRAPHER’S SEARCH FOR HIS JAPANESE IDENTITY
L E A D S H I M TO R E D I S C OV E R T H E PA ST I N T H E P R E S E N T.

A F T E R Y E A R S O F making images out- helped them persevere through life’s
side of Japan, Ryotaro Horiuchi turned adversities, including the devastating
the camera toward his home country. earthquake and tsunami that hit the
As he questioned what constitutes Soma area of Fukushima in 2011 and
Japanese identity—and his own iden- caused a nuclear disaster.
tity as a Japanese person—he began
looking into matsuri, the communal Hearing stories of these modern-day
celebrations held in every region of festivalgoers and seeing the strength of
Japan since ancient times. their conviction, Horiuchi knew that
his next project would be an attempt to
When Horiuchi attended Fukushima “capture their personalities and their
Prefecture’s Soma Nomaoi Festival, identity as a samurai.”
where samurai descendants and dev-
otees dress in armor and compete on The past shapes the present for
horseback each July, he was “over- samurai admirers. Throughout the
whelmed and moved by the power history of the festival, attendees have
and human aspect,” he says. adapted to the evolving times without
relinquishing their connection to the
The festival has been held for more samurai. And through these portraits,
than a thousand years; its origins lie Horiuchi has found his own sense of
in the military training of the lord of self—one that shifts with changes in
Soma’s samurai, who dedicated their time and place but preserves the spirit
lives to protecting his. Today’s par- of tradition. — GA I L T S U K I YA M A
ticipants take inspiration from the
discipline, honor, and loyalty prac- Gail Tsukiyama is a best-selling author whose
ticed by the samurai—values that have novels include The Samurai’s Garden, Women
of the Silk, and The Color of Air.

Tradition meets modernity: Samurai descendant and festival follower Mitsukiyo Monma
sometimes trades a horse for a Harley.

EXPLORE IN THIS SECTION

Learning Numbers
The Benefit of Blue
Urban Wildlife Aid
Your Data’s Security

ILLUMINATING THE MYSTERIES—AND WONDERS—ALL AROUND US EVERY DAY

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VOL. 241 NO. 3

A Chance to
‘Become a Fish’

JACQUES-YVES COUSTEAU’S CO-INVENTION OF THE AQUA-LUNG OPENED
THE UNDERSEA REALM TO SCIENTISTS—AND A WONDERING PUBLIC.

BY RACHEL HARTIGAN

L “LOOK,” MY SON SAID.

We were bobbing in the shadow of a pier on Isla
Vieques in Puerto Rico. Wooden slats a few feet
above our heads sheltered us from the tropical sun.
Weather-beaten pilings disappeared beneath the
water’s surface. It was cool there but barren—a
human-made spot suitable only for a quick rest
during our first foray into snorkeling.

Will pointed down. His eyes were wide behind his
mask. He dipped his head underwater. I followed.

We entered another world. Above the water the
pier was a dull structure of warped wood and chipped
paint. Underwater it teemed with life—orange and
yellow corals wrapping around the pilings, lush sea
plants undulating in the current, darting schools of
silvery fish. This narrow place beneath a dock built
decades ago for U.S. warships was as fecund as any
jungle—but unlike a jungle, we could float in the
midst of it and examine it from every angle.

M A R C H 2 0 2 2 15

E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA

We had never imagined being surrounded by so “The best way to become a
much wildlife—and yet it wasn’t enough for Will. fish—or a reasonable facsimile
“That was so cool,” he said, as we drove back to the thereof—is to don an under-
hotel in our guides’ rattletrap pickup truck. “I want water breathing device called
to try scuba diving.” He didn’t want to be tied to the the Aqualung,” said Cousteau
surface by our rented snorkels. He dreamed of div- (left), the apparatus’s co-
ing deeper, of seeing more of the ocean for himself. inventor. In this National Geo-
graphic archival photo (right),
Such a dream is possible—even ordinary—because Aqua-Lungers descend to
of an extraordinarily simple device co-created by Sha’ab Rumi, a Red Sea reef,
Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the French explorer known to bag specimen fish.
for his films, his TV shows, and marine conservation.
Cousteau made his motto, “Il faut aller voir—We must allowing cars to operate on cooking oil, an essential
go and see for ourselves.” With his 1943 co-invention of wartime adaptation when the Nazis had comman-
the Aqua-Lung, the first safe self-contained underwa- deered all the gasoline for motor vehicles.
ter breathing apparatus (SCUBA), he invited ordinary
people to take that motto as their own, to experience When Cousteau traveled to Paris in 1942 to explain
the undersea world for themselves. the air pressure problem to Gagnan, the engineer
thought his gas regulator could be the solution.
Cousteau learned to swim when he was four, but Together they tinkered until they had something they
his earliest ambitions aimed at the sky, not the sea. could test, a regulator attached by tubes to three can-
In 1930 he entered the French naval academy to isters of compressed air. Cousteau took the prototype
become a pilot, a dream sidetracked by a nearly fatal for a swim in the Marne River, east of Paris. “I took
car accident that fractured both his arms. Fellow normal breaths in a slow rhythm,” he said, “bowed
naval officer Philippe Tailliez suggested Cousteau try my head, and swam smoothly down to 30 feet.”
ocean swimming to help his recovery. Tailliez loaned
him a pair of goggles and took him spearfishing in The device worked—while he was horizontal.
the Mediterranean near Toulon, France. When he was upright, it leaked air. Cousteau and
Gagnan rearranged the intake and exhaust tubes to
Swimming with the goggles was a revelation: “As be at the same level. Eventually they had a version
soon as I put my head underwater, I got it, a shock…I that Cousteau felt comfortable trying out in the sea.
understood that from that day on, all my free time
would be devoted to underwater exploration.” Over the course of many months in 1943, Cousteau,
Tailliez, and their friend Frédéric Dumas cautiously
Eventually Cousteau could go as deep as 60 feet tested the device they were calling the Aqualung.
and stay there for up to 80 seconds. But that wasn’t They made more than 500 dives in the Mediterra-
long enough or deep enough for him. “Always I nean, going a little deeper each time. By the onset of
rebelled against the limitations imposed by a single autumn they’d reached 130 feet. By October Dumas
lungful of air,” he wrote in a 1952 article for National had descended 90 feet more.
Geographic, his first for the magazine.
“The best way to observe a fish is to become a fish,”
IN THE 1930S THE OPTIONS for deepwater diving were Cousteau wrote in that first National Geographic
few. Mobility in the diving suits the French called article. “And the best way to become a fish—or a
pieds lourds (heavy feet)—rubberized canvas suits reasonable facsimile thereof—is to don an under-
with a copper helmet and lead-soled shoes—was water breathing device called the Aqualung. The
restricted by the length of the hose supplying air Aqualung frees a man to glide, unhurried and
from the surface. An autonomous breathing device unharmed, fathoms deep beneath the sea.”
created by Yves Le Prieur in 1925 freed divers from
the cumbersome hose, but the air supply ran out N E A R LY 8 0 Y E A R S A F T E R its invention, the same
quickly because of its continuous flow, limiting basic design is still in use. “It’s as simple and elegant
time underwater. as a doorknob,” says longtime National Geographic
underwater photographer David Doubilet. “It doesn’t
Cousteau had to come up with his own solution. fail. In 65 years of diving, I have never had a failure.”
“I became an inventor by necessity,” he said.
But the ability to plumb the depths exposed divers
To go deeper, he needed a device that would provide to other dangers. Although the Aqua-Lung made it
breathable air that also matched the pressure of the easier to breathe by balancing ambient and internal
water: As a diver descends, the pressure increases, pressure, it couldn’t prevent what’s known as rapture
reducing the volume of air in the body and potentially of the deep—nitrogen narcosis, when the nervous
causing the lungs to collapse. Cousteau’s father-in-law system becomes saturated with nitrogen as the diver
put him in touch with engineer Émile Gagnan, an descends. To Cousteau it was “an impression of
expert in high-pressure pneumatic design. euphoria, and then a gradual loss of reflex control,
and then a loss of the self-preservation instinct.” To
It was the middle of World War II, and Germany Albert Falco, who sailed with Cousteau for nearly 40
controlled most of France. Gagnan worked for years, “Air takes on a funny taste, and you get drunk
France’s largest commercial gas company, in Paris, on your own breath.”
where he’d designed a valve that regulated fuel flow,
Nitrogen narcosis can be deadly. In 1947 Cousteau,

16 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

PHOTOS: THE COUSTEAU SOCIETY (COUSTEAU PORTRAIT); ROBERT B. GOODMAN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION

E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA

who was still in the French Navy as part of its under- The 2021 film Becoming D I S PATC H E S
water research group, organized autonomous diving Cousteau, from National Geo- FROM THE FRONT LINES
tests in Toulon. He wanted to show that the Aqua- graphic Documentary Films,
Lung would allow divers to go more than 100 meters is now streaming on Disney+. OF SCIENCE
(328 feet) deep. But the person to make the initial AND INNOVATION
attempt, First Mate Maurice Fargues, died. After for more than 70 National Geographic feature stories.
passing 120 meters (394 feet), he lost consciousness. To him, “the Aqua-Lung regulator meant a passport ECOSYSTEM SCIENCE
He was frantically pulled to the surface but could not to 70 percent of our planet”—and Cousteau stands as
be resuscitated. Cousteau was devastated: “I start “a person whose importance to the planet can never, OTTER-LY BENEF
to wonder if what I’m undertaking makes sense.” ever be forgotten or underestimated.”
WHEN SEA OTTERS DIG FOR MEALS
To the French Navy it did. The diver group was Photographer Laurent Ballesta, who grew up GENETIC DIVERSITY IN THREATENE
deployed by the navy to clear the deadly aftermath swimming, snorkeling, and scuba diving on France’s
of World War II from the Mediterranean, removing Mediterranean coast, was influenced by Cousteau as S N U G I N T H E A N I M A L K I N G D O M ’ S thic
mines hidden near harbors and retrieving pilots’ well. When Ballesta was 16, he was out with friends live their whole lives in the ocean, feedi
bodies from downed airplanes. on a boat when they were surrounded by sharks. animals. In British Columbia they often
Based on his passionate viewing of Cousteau’s docu- eelgrass (Zostera marina), leaving divots
But Cousteau wanted to use his invention to mentaries, he recognized them as harmless basking of the aquatic vegetation. In meadows tha
explore, not just salvage. In 1949 he left the navy sharks and jumped into the water to swim with them. with those they don’t, the eelgrasses are
and soon acquired the Calypso, a former British and the plants more resilient, accordin
minesweeper. Adventuring on the ship, he advanced When Ballesta told his parents what had happened the journal Science. That’s because by
underwater photography, discovering that there, and they didn’t believe him, he says, “That was the the seabed, otters prompt the plants to fl
“colors existed as brilliant and as beautiful as any at point where I decided that I have to learn photography.” and their digging provides more space
the surface.” In 1956 Cousteau made the movie The settle and germinate. Seagrasses such
Silent World with a young Louis Malle, who in time Jacques Cousteau remained active in undersea as a result of warming and pollution; th
would become one of French cinema’s top directors. exploration until his death at age 87 in 1997. His job, because they filter contaminants from th
he once wrote, “was to show what was in the sea—the provide habitat and food for many anim
DAV I D D O U B I L E T SAW the film, which won an Oscar, beauties of it—so that people would get to know is a powerful example of how predato
with an uncle and cousin when he was 10. “My eyes and love the sea.” There’s still much to explore: The ecosystems in unseen and little-known w
grew larger and larger and larger,” Doubilet says. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Erin Foster. — D O U G L A S M A I N
Cousteau became his hero. A year or two later, estimates that more than 80 percent of the undersea
Doubilet learned to dive in a swimming pool at a world remains largely unknown. PHOTOS (FROM TOP): STEFANO MACCHETTA; RALPH PACE; F. D’E
beach club in New Jersey: In roughly a decade Cous-
teau’s groundbreaking Aqua-Lung had been adopted In the 79 years since Cousteau and Gagnan invented
by the public as a recreational pursuit. the Aqua-Lung, more than 28 million people have fol-
lowed them into the ocean and learned to scuba dive.
“I put the thing on, and I went right to the bottom
of the pool,” Doubilet recalls. “I was plastered on the This spring my son and I will join them. It’s what
bottom, but I was breathing, and it was just heavenly.” Will wanted for his 17th birthday—a passport to
another world. j
Doubilet would go on to photograph the Sargasso
Sea, the Great Barrier Reef, and other ocean marvels Staff writer Rachel Hartigan has written recently for the magazine
about the conflict in Ethiopia and the life of Explorer Robert Ballard.
She’s writing a book about the ongoing search for Amelia Earhart.

Advances such as this diving
bell enabled Laurent Bal-
lesta and his team to spend
28 days deep in the Medi-
terranean Sea in July 2019.

PHOTO: LAURENT BALLESTA

BREAKTHROUGHS | E X P L O R E E X P L O R E | DATA SHEET

Studies dwell on blue blooms REVEALING ALL ...
A review of 280 Alpine regional plant
studies over 45 years shows that blue BY ALBERTO LUCAS LÓPEZ A N D KELSEY NOWAKOWSKI
flowers got the most attention;
yellow, white, or red/pink the next Facial recognition
most, and green/brown blooms much
less. Also popular: tall flowers (so Leonardo da Vinci’s
scientists don’t have to stoop?). The “Mona Lisa” may
research bias has implications for which have one of the most
flowers get protection. — L O R I C U T H B E RT recognizable yet myste-
rious visages of all time.
FICIAL N U M E R AT I O N Would today’s apps know
what makes her smile?
S, THEY ENCOURAGE Exploring 22 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
ED AQUATIC PLANTS. the Origins
of Counting
ckest fur, sea otters can
ing heavily upon seafloor How did humans
n dig clams out of fields of go from an innate,
s in otherwise dense mats general sense of
at otters inhabit compared quantity—a pair,
e more genetically diverse a few, many—to
ng to a study published in inventing numbers
foraging and disturbing and arithmetic?
flower and produce seeds, Why are counting
and sunlight for seeds to systems so diverse
as eelgrass are imperiled across global cul-
hey’re vital to ecosystems tures? Answering
he water, store carbon, and these questions
mals. The study’s finding isn’t as easy as one,
ors often influence their two, three, so the
ways, says lead researcher European Research
Council is funding
ERRICO QUANTA, a multi-
year inquiry into
counting’s origins.
QUANTA will pore
over linguistic and
ethnographic data,
as well as artifacts
such as this 60,000-
year-old notched
hyena femur, which
may have served
as a Neanderthal’s
scratch paper.

—MICHAEL GRESHKO

E X P L O R E | DATA SHEET TRAVEL APPS FOOD AND DRINK E N T E R TA I N M E N T S
AND MEDIA
... IN APPS Applications are ordered
by category and amount
CLICKING “ACCEPT” without reading the of data they can gather.
fine print is the norm for many of us when Uber
first accessing a digital app. But what exactly FILLED BOXES Airbnb
are we accepting? Clario, an internet-security INDICATE Jet2
software company based in the United Arab Am. Air.
Emirates, compiled 2021 data from some of the DATA CAN BE Ryanair
world’s most used apps to assess which data COLLECTED Trainline
they can collect and store once we tap that Amtrak
button. The information includes the basics Deliveroo
such as name, date of birth, and email address. DoorDash
But it can quickly get more personal, from our Just Eat
pets and hobbies to height, weight, and sexual McDonald’s
orientation. Many apps also can store bank Wetherspoon
information and connect to our social media Spotify
accounts. Social media apps—increasingly Clubhouse
under fire for privacy concerns—collect data Netflix
from the broadest variety of sources. Oculus
YouTube
Disney+
Nat Geo

Top collectors PERSONAL DATA: Hobbies Meta said last November that it would
Mobile number stop using facial recognition on Face-
29 of 37 24 23 22 19 book—and that executing the change
Home phone number would result in the deletion of more
Apps for social networking (Facebook and Instagram), Phone, device type than a billion people’s individual facial
dating (Tinder and Grindr), and transportation (Uber) Email recognition templates.
are data collection leaders. For example, Facebook Name
can mine information from 29 of the 37 personal data Languages Many apps share data.
variables examined in the study. Age Spotify, for example,
can tap into your social
Top collectors owned by Meta Bank account details media profiles to learn
Live location your musical interests.
29 of 37 19 17 10 8 If you share a photo
Home address on Instagram of a con-
In 2021 an ex-employee of Facebook (now named Meta) Contacts cert you’ve attended,
leaked documents about privacy and misinformation the artist or band might
abuses within the company. The Facebook app can access Image recognition (face) show up in your Spotify
the most data directly; all other Meta apps can gather Image recognition (environment) recommendations.
data from the Facebook app if accounts are linked.
Image recognition (object)
Types of imaging Image recognition Religious belief
helps companies Salary
Facial: Recognizes study an app user’s
people and their appearance and Current employers
key features surroundings to Voice recognition
tailor ads to that Health and lifestyle
Background: person’s needs and Allergies and intolerances
Detects elements in interests. Of the 58
the environment apps in this study, Interests
16 use some form of Country of birth
Object: Identifies image recognition. Past employers
an object or prod- Employment status
uct within an image
Job title
Access to image library

Pet ownership
Race

Height
Weight
Marital status
Sexual orientation
Gender and sex
Social profile (friends)
Social profile (hobbies)
Social profile (interests)

SOURCE: CLARIO.CO. DATA ARE FROM JULY AND NOVEMBER 2021 AND INCLUDE DATA
A COMPANY CAN COLLECT AND STORE ONLY AFTER SECURING USER PERMISSION.

OCIAL NETWORKING H E A LT H SHOPPING LIFESTYLE FINANCE WORK AND TASK
AND FITNESS
Facebook
Tinder APP DOES NOT
Grindr COLLECT DATA
Instagram
TikTok
Twitter
WhatsApp
Messenger
Strava
MyFitnessPal
Sleep Cycle
Flo
Tesco
Lidl Plus
eBay
ASOS
Depop
Nike
Ocado
Amazon
Ikea
Walmart
CVS Pharmacy
OfferUp
Slimming World
CoStar
Headspace
Credit Karma
PayPal
Coinbase
Bet365
Slack
Google Maps
Zoom
Facetune
Gmail
Google Docs
Google Sheets
VSCO

Some apps use voice recog- Hobbies
nition to grant access. But it’s Mobile number
information gleaned from fac- Home phone number
tors such as a person’s location Phone, device type
or images, not conversations, Email
that helps them target ads. Name
Languages
Several dating apps, including Age
the popular Grindr, have Bank account details
removed ethnicity filters from Live location
their platforms. Most social Home address
networking apps in this study Contacts
do not collect racial data. Image recog. (face)
Image recog. (environ.)
Image recog. (object)
Religious belief
Salary
Current employers
Voice recognition
Health and lifestyle
Allergies and intolerances
Interests
Country of birth
Past employers
Employment status
Job title
Access to image library
Pet ownership
Race
Height
Weight
Marital status
Sexual orientation
Gender and sex
Social profile (friends)
Social profile (hobbies)
Social profile (interests)

THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY IS MAJORITY OWNER OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PARTNERS.
PHOTO: “MONA LISA,” CA 1503-1516, BY LEONARDO DA VINCI, LOUVRE, PARIS, BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

E X P L O R E | PLANET POSSIBLE In spring, help wild things
and their offspring thrive
PLANET with hands-on projects—
and by keeping hands off.
For more stories about how
to help the planet, go to BY ANNIE ROTH
natgeo.com/planet.

1

BIRD-SAFE WINDOWS CAREFUL SPRING CLEANING 3 W E N E E D I N S E C T S to polli-
BUILD nate plants, remove waste
Transparent, reflective BEFORE FIRING UP THE AN from ecosystems, and feed
glass confuses birds. Up MOWER OR HEDGE TRIM- INSECT other animals; insects need
to a billion a year in the MER, CHECK GROUNDS ABODE safe places to rest and to
U.S. die from collisions AND SHRUBS FOR SMALL lay their eggs. Stores sell
with glass—nearly half ANIMALS, BIRDS, AND bug hotels to put in your
from hitting home win- NESTS. IF YOU FIND yard—but for an all-ages
dows. These DIY fixes A CREATURE NEEDING project, why not create
discourage birds from RELOCATION OR HELP, one? 1. Find a cardboard
trying to fly through SEARCH FOR A NEARBY box with one open side.
windows: Mark glass ANIMAL RESCUE/REHAB 2. Fit toilet tissue tubes and
with tempera paint, E X P E RT AT AHNOW.ORG. smaller tubes of rolled paper
stickers, or tape, mak- into the box. 3. Fill the tubes
ing gaps in the pattern with sticks, grasses, and
no larger than 2 inches leaves, and place the box in
tall by 4 inches wide— an undisturbed corner of the
or 2 inches by 2 inches yard. Voilà: an insect inn.
for greater deterrence.
The American Bird
Conservancy has more
ideas at abcbirds.org/
glass-collisions.

4 WATCHING THE BABIES

Do you assume a young
animal is in peril if its
mother isn’t around? Don’t,
says urban wildlife expert
Jim Monsma. Some babies
(ducks, opossums) are
always with mom; others
(rabbits, deer) spend hours
a day with no mother in
sight. When in doubt, don’t
touch the animal; first,
seek a rehabber’s advice
(see #2), Monsma says.

PHOTOS: REBECCA HALE, NGM STAFF (WINDOW, BUG HOTEL); JOEL SARTORE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTO ARK (SQUIRREL); ROLF KOPFLE, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (FAWN)

BASIC INSTINCTS | E X P L O R E

MEET A HERMAPHRODITIC SEA BIZARRE PAIRING
SLUG THAT WIELDS A NEEDLE
Siphopteron makisig sea slugs
I N I T S N AT I V E PAC I F I C WAT E R S , the sea slug Siphopteron makisig have both female genitalia
looks tiny and delicate, like a bud of colored glass. But in reality and a double-ended penis.
this slug is a mirror-image mating machine, as modeled by the
pair in the photograph below. Female 0.05
Tail genitalia inches
Like most sea slug species, S. makisig is a hermaphrodite,
endowed with both male and female reproductive organs that it Foot Head
uses at the same time during mating. But unlike other sea slugs,
it tops off trysts with unusually targeted stabbing. Penile Penile
stylet bulb
The sex starts normally enough. To fertilize eggs developing
in each slug’s female parts, the other slug deposits sperm with its Intertwined for mating, they
penis. Actually, only half of its penis, which has two prongs: one reciprocate sperm delivery
that delivers sperm with its bulbous end, and the other tipped by extending the bulb into
with a syringe-like stylet (and sometimes called hypodermic the female genitalia.
genitalia). During the sex act, each slug stabs the other with the
stylet, which delivers prostate fluid likely bearing hormones. Then each pokes the stylet
Evolutionary biologist Rolanda Lange says the fluid may “increase into the other’s forehead,
the fecundity of a sea slug’s own sperm, or inhibit that deposited injecting fluid that may
by previous partners.” affect neural function.

When other animals stab partners during sex (aka traumatic
insemination), they spear various body parts. But in a study Lange
co-authored, she identifies S. makisig as “the first known instance”
of an animal stabbing its partner between the eyes—perhaps the
better to influence the central nervous system. —EVA VAN DEN BERG

DESCRIPTION
S. makisig, a marine gastro-
pod, is less than a quarter
inch long, with yellow and
red markings on its trans-
lucent white exterior. (The
blue seen here is water in
the image background.)

HABITAT
The sea slug lives on sand
beds at ocean depths from
about 20 feet to about
90 feet and commonly
nestles within microalgal
formations.

RANGE
The mollusk has been
identified in waters off
the Philippines, Australia,
and Indonesia.

DIANA MARQUES, NGM STAFF. PHOTO: NILS ANTHES AND ROLANDA LANGE, UNIVERSITY OF TUEBINGEN

E X P L O R E | CLOSER LOOK ACCORDING TO LEGEND, the clay in San
Bartolo Coyotepec village is blessed.
POTTERY OF Artisans who use it to make Oaxaca’s
THE NIGHT famous barro negro, black clay pottery,
are reluctant to reveal its secrets.
IN MEXICO, AN ANCIENT ART
IS EMERGING AS A SUSTAINABLE But 66-year-old Amando Pedro
Martínez is an exception. Sparks
ALTERNATIVE TO PLASTIC S. crackle from the earthen oven in his
BY RACHNA SACHASINH studio as I watch him reach, with
cloth-covered hands, into the still cool-
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ing kiln and pull out smooth ebony
MARICEU ERTHAL GARCÍA plates one by one.

Beautiful and functional, Made from clay mined on the slopes
the Bartolo jug by of the Sierra Madre across the valley,
Colectivo 1050° is a these pieces started out the color of
return to the traditional wet mud. Impregnated by heat and
roots of black pottery. smoke, they transformed into sleek
grays and blacks evocative of twilight.
It’s no wonder Zapotec folktales call
barro negro “pottery of the night.”

Pedro Martínez is upholding
an artisanal tradition that dates
back more than 2,500 years. Just
beyond his studio, the town’s tidy,
broad avenues are lined with home
workshops where extended families
labor side by side turning clay into
pots and figurines. Travelers arrive in
tour buses to buy the distinctive black
pottery—but what tourists see isn’t
exactly traditional.
When tin, aluminum, and plastics
began to replace watertight black clay
vessels, artisans adapted to a changing
market by introducing new shapes,
offering decorative pieces, and incor-
porating different techniques, such as
etched patterns and plastic molds.
While these changes have helped

F ROM AC A D E MY AWA R D ® - N OM I N AT E D A N D E M MY ® -W I N N I N G F I L M M A K E R L I Z GA R B U S

The Extraordinary Life of the Ocean’s
Great Protector

Now Streaming
Only on

E X P L O R E | CLOSER LOOK

black pottery survive, and some might say prosper, While the majority of the region’s pottery was made

they have also compromised the village’s historic to absorb the thermal shock of cooking on top of a hot

relationship to clay. flame, San Bartolo Coyotepec’s was different. Fired

However, a talented new generation, including in sealed underground ovens at high temperatures,

the cooperative Colectivo 1050°, which counts Pedro barro negro combines the color and impervious clay

Martínez as a member, is steering black pottery back body that result from intense carbonization. It’s

to its utilitarian roots. In the process, the artisans suited to holding and transporting liquids—but not

are bringing attention to the craft’s sophisticated for cooking, as traditional red pottery is.

design and inherent sustainability, an antidote to “In Oaxaca, clay represents a way of living,” says

single-use plastic. industrial designer Kythzia Barrera, co-founder of

“Barro negro is the megafauna of Oaxacan Colectivo 1050°, which collaborates with Indigenous

pottery,” says Eric Mindling, documentary photog- potters to spotlight the craft’s ancient system of

rapher and author of Fire and Clay: The producing and consuming in balance

Art of Oaxacan Pottery. “It’s the most with the Earth—what Barrera calls the

recognizable, but its rise is dependent “artisan mindset.”

on a rich pottery ecosystem.” Mindling MEXICO “Take the well jug, for instance,”
has visited more than 70 villages across Mexico says Barrera. “It’s got a short neck for
City

Oaxaca and encountered at least as Monte Albán tying the rope to lower it into a well.

many variations in pottery style. OAXACA The round, egg-shaped body is ergo-

The earliest examples of black pot- nomically designed to tilt when it hits

tery were found in Monte Albán, a Mesoamerican water. The mouth scoops the water and keeps it in

Zapotec and Mixtec stronghold dating to 500 B.C. without spilling. This is good design, perfectly suited

Situated roughly five miles southwest of Oaxaca City, to the task with no waste. It’s a design that no doubt

Monte Albán rises at the vital junction of Oaxaca’s was worked out by the whole community, over time.”

three main valleys. This heaving landscape, with its In Oaxaca, where traditional communities struggle

sinuous valleys, mountain passes, and trading routes, with marginalization, clay is an integral part of

harbors at least 16 distinct ethnic groups. They still identity. “So we will continue to make and use clay,”

practice the milpa farming system of cultivating corn, says Barrera. “We must.” j

beans, and squash together. Rachna Sachasinh writes about travel and culture and has worked
Oaxaca’s pottery evolved to perform tasks related with artisan groups, including those in Oaxaca. Mariceu Erthal
García is a Mexican photographer based in Querétaro.
to milpa, such as cooking, storing, and irrigation.

In San Marcos Tlapazola, an Indigenous Zapotec village known for its red clay pottery tradition, María Cruz López begins
the process of molding a comal, or griddle. Oaxaca’s diverse earthenware includes black, red, and green pottery.

NGM MAPS

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MARCH 2022

F EAT U R E S Slave Shipwrecks ......... P. 36
Alpine Snow Loss ........ P. 58
Big Cat Reserves ........ P. 86
Colombian Activists ..P. 100
Cricket Catchers ........ P. 120

86

THE CHANCES
OF SEEING
BIG CATS SUCH
AS LEOPARDS
AND TIGERS
IN INDIA HAVE
GONE UP
SIGNIFICANTLY
DURING THE
PAST DECADE,
THANKS TO
SUCCESSFUL
C O N S E RVA T I O N
EFFORTS
THAT INCLUDE
WILDLIFE
RESERVES.

PHOTO: SHAAZ JUNG

BY TARA ROBERTS
P H OTO G R A P H S BY WAYNE LAWRENCE

NO
MORE

A diver’s quest for the stories
of those lost on slave ships reveals
the human side of a tragic era—and helps her
connect with her family’s rich history.

Diving With a Purpose
(DWP) lead dive
instructor Jay Haigler
cradles a stone from
a ballast pile in Coral
Bay, St. John, in the
U.S. Virgin Islands. The
stones have been key
to identifying slave
ships; they often were
used to balance the
weight of captives in
a ship’s cargo hold.

DAVID DOUBILET

37

THE WATER IS COOL AGAINST MY SKIN,

the silence absolute, and as I hover over the remains,
I feel peaceful, thankful, a sense of coming home.

Descend underwater with me—not too deep, maybe
only 20 feet or so—and you’ll see about 30 other divers,
paired in sets of two. They calmly float in place, despite
strong currents off the coast of Key Largo, Florida,
sketching images of coral-encrusted artifacts or taking
measurements. For the first time, I am helping map the
remains of a shipwreck.

Most of the divers are African American. We’re
training as underwater archaeology advocates, gain-
ing the skills necessary to join expeditions and help
document the wreckage of slave ships being found
around the world, ships such as the São José Paquete
d’Africa in South Africa, the Fredericus Quartus and
Christianus Quintus in Costa Rica, and the Clotilda in
the United States. An estimated 12.5 million Africans
were forced onto ships like these during the trans-
atlantic slave trade from the 16th to the 19th centuries,

38 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Storyteller and diver
Tara Roberts is helping
document some of the
thousand slave ships
that wrecked in the
Atlantic Ocean. She is
working to tell the
story of DWP and the
complex history of
the global slave trade
in an inclusive way that
amplifies Black voices.

according to Nafees Khan, a professor in the the spray of seawater as the boat races home
College of Education at Clemson University after a day’s work. It is soul-lifting to look at the
and adviser to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade tired faces of those around me and know these
Database. ordinary people—teachers, civil servants, engi-
neers, students—are here despite their busy
“It took at least 36,000 voyages,” he says. One schedules, volunteering because they love to
thousand or so ships likely sank. dive and believe in this important work.

Enter Diving With a Purpose, a group that Lounging on a return trip, you might hear
trains divers to find and conserve historical lead instructor Jay Haigler’s booming voice and
and cultural artifacts buried deep in the waters. his trademark cackle—and you might see the
Since its founding in 2003, DWP has trained twinkle in his eye and his infectious joy when
some 500 divers to help archaeologists and his- he says, quietly before nodding off, “This is
torians search for and document such ships. The what I live for.”
group’s goal is to help Black folks, in particular,
find their own history and tell their own stories. And it just might touch you.

“When you are African American and you’re M AYBE BY STARTING at the start—at the
diving on a slave ship, that’s a whole lot different beginning of the voyages from those
from somebody else doing it,” says legendary shores to these shores, and inside the
diver Albert José Jones, a co-founder of the ships—we can find clues to a history
National Association of Black Scuba Divers
and board member of DWP. “Every time you little discussed, to stories that have
go down, you realize basically two things: One
is that maybe your ancestors were on the ship. been lost in the depths. We can begin to assemble
The other thing you realize is that you have a
history. Your history didn’t start on the shores long-lost threads that help us better understand
of the United States. It didn’t start with slavery.
Your history started [in] Africa at the beginning our obligation to the past and to each other, and
of time, the beginning of civilization.”
change the way we think about who we are as a
The National Museum of African American His-
tory and Culture, in Washington, D.C., showcases society and how we arrived at where we are today.
DWP’s work as part of the Slave Wrecks Project, a
network of groups that uncover and document the We are deeply connected to those who made
remnants of slave ships and work to tell a more
inclusive history of the slave trade. the crossing. And we are connected to the esti-

Diving With a Purpose members are “using mated 1.8 million souls who perished along
their skills to dive to help us find the stories that
are buried under the water,” says Lonnie Bunch the way. The Atlantic Ocean is full of forgotten
III, the museum’s founding director and the sec-
retary of the Smithsonian Institution. “In some people, churning with the spirits of folks whose
ways, there’s so much we know about slavery. But
there’s so much we still don’t know. And I would names we may never know. Souls who have
argue the last frontier is what’s under the water.”
never been acknowledged or mourned. Dream-
Under the water. Out here in the deep. It is
magic feeling the ocean breeze on my skin and ers, poets, artists, thinkers, scientists, farmers.

The National More than just cargo or bodies packed in a hold.
Geographic Society,
committed to illuminat- More than faceless statistics. More than people
ing and protecting
the wonder of our world, bound for enslavement.
supports National
Geographic Explorer And their day of reckoning is at hand. It is
Tara Roberts’s storytell-
ing about the search time for their stories to rise from the depths, to
for wrecked slave ships.
be told in their fullness, in their wonder—and
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MCKENDRY
with love, with honor, with respect. Finally

helping heal a wound that has festered for far

too long. That is the dream. That is the promise.

That is the possibility of this work, of this watery

resurrection that DWP has taken on.

These ships “allow us to honor those that

didn’t make it,” Bunch says. “They allow us to

sort of almost touch sacred spaces that are not

just spaces of death, but spaces of memory. And

that as long as we find those spaces, as long as we

dive for these ships, as long as we learn as much

as we can, those people whose names we’ll never

know are not lost. They’re remembered.”

But there is a truth, an obstacle, in the way:

The wrecks are notoriously hard to find. Ships IT IS TIME FOR THE
from that time were primarily made of wood,

and they have disintegrated over time and been STORIES OF THOSE
absorbed by the sea. Searchers today use equip- WHO DIED ABOARD
ment such as magnetometers and side-scan SLAVE SHIPS TO RISE
sonars to detect unnatural, manufactured mate-
rials in murky water. The work can take place
amid treacherous conditions or at sites teeming
with marine life that should not be disturbed.

“Once you disturb a site, there’s no making that FROM THE DEPTHS,
site how it was before it’s been disturbed,” says

Ayana Flewellen, a co-founder of the Society of TO BE TOLD IN THEIR
Black Archaeologists and instructor with DWP. FULLNESS—WITH LOVE,
“So we’re really intentional about how we are HONOR, AND RESPECT.
documenting, being very cognizant of what is
in the water around us to ensure that we’re not
disturbing the wreck or ocean creatures.”

The sandy ocean floor covers and reveals as

it fancies. What may be seen today may not be

seen tomorrow. A proper expedition with histo-

rians and archaeologists can take years. But it is

important to take as long as is needed to look.

“Our identities are informed by the past,”

says Calinda Lee, the head of programs and as can be, with a beautiful voice that rises and

exhibitions for the National Center for Civil and falls with the cadence of a soulful love song. He

Human Rights in Atlanta. “The past provides is my herald, a songbird who called me forth and

necessary context … and [it] is something that who continues to encourage me on this voyage.

we have to engage if we’re going to be honest I remember feeling my heart pound and leap

about what race means for us, has meant for us.” as I gave him a resounding yes when he invited

me to join them. A yes that started a rolling, pow-

I LEARNED OF DWP from a picture of Black erful wave that eventually would wipe my life
women divers that I saw at the National clean. I would resign from a communications
Museum of African American History and director’s job, give up my apartment in Washing-
Culture. Also in the photo was Ken Stewart, ton, D.C., and siphon funds from my small bank

the visionary who got DWP off the ground account to travel and get the dives required to

almost 20 years ago. He had met the lone archae- participate in DWP’s training program.

ologist at Biscayne National Park in the Florida I joined DWP partly because I wanted this

Keys, Brenda Lanzendorf, who needed divers to adventure. Diving sites around the world. Push-

help find the Spanish slave ship Guerrero, which ing myself physically. But also because I’ve

had wrecked in 1827. As the southern regional felt lost these past years. As if I don’t belong. I

representative for the National Association of am single, have no children, and among my close

Black Scuba Divers, Stewart had access to lots friends, I’m the only one who has had 10 differ-

of divers. He rounded up a few. They learned ent addresses—in eight cities, three countries,

how to map shipwrecks. Stewart and on three continents—in the past

declared that it was time for the group 15 years. As a storyteller traveling the

to dive with a purpose. Since then, DWP world reporting for magazines and

has helped document 18 shipwrecks news sites, I’ve felt like a global citizen

and logged more than 18,000 hours in but also like a leaf floating in the wind.

six countries. Listen to the Unrooted. Unmoored.
Stewart steps with the quickness and podcast Into I prepared for a journey that I hoped
the Depths.
the rhythm of an uptown New Yorker. Use your phone’s could help me answer one core ques-
He is meticulously groomed, his salt- camera to scan tion: How can finding and telling the
and-pepper beard and mustache as neat the QR code. lost history of the slave trade help me,

H I D D E N N O M O R E 41

‘BEING
CONNECTED WITH
YOUR ANCESTORS
IS A VERY POWERFUL
THING. IF YOU BREAK
THAT CONNECTIVITY,
IT’S LIKE YOU’RE

WANDERING
AROUND LOST.’

KAMAU SADIKI

DWP lead instructor mission, represents
Kamau Sadiki (at left) a new generation
has participated in searching for wrecked
more than 20 diving slave ships and docu-
missions. Sadiki helped menting African Amer-
identify the slave ships ican history. Preparing
São José Paquete to become a professor,
d’Africa in South Africa she wants to increase
and Clotilda in Mobile, the presence of Black
Alabama. Jewell women academic lead-
Humphrey, an archae- ers, who make up just
ology doctoral student 3 percent of faculty
on her first diving on college campuses.



I BEGIN TO SEE A WAY I also hear stories of the São José Paquete
OF INTERPRETING ONE d’Africa shipwreck. The Portuguese ship trav-
OF THE MOST PAINFUL eled from Lisbon to Mozambique Island in 1794.
PARTS OF AMERICAN
HISTORY THROUGH A NEW Traffickers loaded more than 500 people,
many of the Makua ethnic group, into the ship’s
LENS, WITH THE cargo hold. Headed for Brazil, the ship met its
POSSIBILITY OF REPAIRING fate in the wee hours of the morning on Decem-
ber 27, on the rocks off Cape Town, South Africa.
A DEEP WOUND. Two hundred twelve of the captive Africans on
board were killed, the survivors sold into slavery.
as a Black American woman, figure out where I
belong—and to whom I belong? The Slave Wrecks Project had been on a mis-
sion to find the São José and several other wrecks
MOZAMBIQUE & SOUTH AFRICA: AFFIRMATION since 2008. The evidence eventually pointed to
the area around Clifton, a suburb of Cape Town.
M Y J O U R N E Y B E G I N S on Ilha de Moçam-
bique (Mozambique Island), an island “We knew about the shipwreck, and Clifton,
just under two miles long and less than because it was identified by treasure hunters in
a quarter of a mile wide, in the north of the eighties as a Dutch ship,” says Jaco Boshoff
of the Iziko Museums, the lead archaeologist of
Mozambique. The island was the colo- the wreck and a co-founder of the Slave Wrecks
Project. But he thought “maybe the identifica-
nial capital of Portuguese East Africa from the tion was wrong, let’s go have a look.”

16th through the 19th centuries. Portuguese col- DWP provided divers to assist in the search.
While Ken Stewart is my herald, Kamau Sadiki
onizers eventually turned it into a center of the has been my guide, my sensei. He has served as
my instructor and dive buddy. A shining light of
slave trade; hundreds of thousands of Africans clarity and purpose, he has been on more than
20 missions. He shares what it has meant for him
were trafficked from its port. to travel to Cape Town in 2013, to dive into those
turbulent waters, and to find and touch artifacts
I have come at the invitation of DWP and the from the São José.

Slave Wrecks Project, hosted by the National “It was like you can hear the screams and the
hollering and the pain, and the agony of being
Museum of African American History and Cul- on a vessel in shackles, the sinking and break-
ing up in the sea,” he says. “You know, in scuba
ture. The project includes the George Washing- diving we wear a mask, and sometimes they get
foggy. But mine got wet from tears.”
ton University, the Iziko Museums of South
Trauma. Exactly what I feared to face. But
Africa, the U.S. National Park Service, and DWP, then the story shifts and takes a surprising, and
a soul-affirming, turn.
among others.
After positively identifying the São José and
The island is colorful—reds, pinks, and blues determining that some of the people held captive
in its cargo hold were Makua, the team, which
painted on colonial-style buildings. On nondive included Bunch and Sadiki, went back to the
Makua-descendant community in the coastal
days, I stroll through the cobblestone streets and village of Mossuril across from Mozambique
Island to deliver the news.
the dirt paths. I eat good food such as matapa de
Following a ceremony of singing, dancing, and
siri siri, a stew of seaweed, cashews, and coco- speeches, Chief Evano Nhogache, the highest
ranking Makua there, presented Bunch with soil
nut milk that looks like creamed spinach. I note from the island in a special cowrie-shell vessel
with explicit instructions.
bright smiles on friendly faces that say, “Tudo
“He said that his ancestors have asked that
bem—How’s it going?” as I pass. when I go back to South Africa … if I could

44 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

sprinkle the soil over the side of the wreck, so for The young men started scuba diving with the
the first time since 1794, [his] people can sleep nonprofit diving group Centro Comunitario de
in their own land,” Bunch says. Buceo Embajadores y Embajadoras del Mar
(Ambassadors of the Sea Community Diving
“I lost it,” Bunch adds, shaking his head as he Center) when they were only 14 years old. The
recalls the scene. “I’m crying …I’m just thinking center has galvanized and trained local teens
about the contradictions, the beauty that sur- and young adults as scuba divers and citizen
rounds me, the fact that I’m a historian, but this scientists since 2014.
is about how living people feel and think.”
“People call us recreational divers. And we
The team returned to South Africa to carry are—re-creational,” says journalist María Suárez,
out Chief Nhogache’s request. It was a rainy, a co-founder of Ambassadors of the Sea. “We are
stormy, dreary day on June 2, 2015. About 30 re-creating diving. We are re-creating the history
people turned out. Sadiki and two other divers of Costa Rica. We are re-creating the way that the
walked into the water, and each distributed the kids relate to the ocean.”
soil from the cowrie-shell vessel.
Ambassadors of the Sea leads a community
“We stood for a moment. And I think there’s effort to help identify and document two possi-
one point where we just stood and embraced. ble wrecks of slave ships in their harbor, and it
And just let the waves hit us and wash us,” Sadiki collaborates often with DWP.
says. “I couldn’t speak at all. And tears started
flowing down all three of our eyes.” The Browns are one of the oldest families in
Puerto Viejo, 200-plus relatives who look out for
After traveling to Cape Town to see the wreck one another fiercely—and have a variety of skin
site for myself, I sit on the Sea Point Promenade, hues, even within the same family unit. Stories
a two-mile stretch of palm trees, paved paths, of late, whispered in beds at night and over cof-
and joggers that connects neighborhoods along fee in the morn, hypothesize that maybe the first
the coast. It is adjacent to the location where Brown ancestor in these parts came in the cargo
the São José sank. I listen to the violence of the hold of one of the slave ships in the harbor.
crashing waves on a bright sunny day, imagin-
ing what it would have been like more than two Historians and archaeologists have gathered
centuries ago as the ship struck those rocks and evidence that strongly suggests the bricks, can-
sank in the darkness. My heart aches for what nons, anchors, bottles, and pipes at a site in the
those in the São José’s cargo hold must have felt waters of Cahuita National Park belong to two
that night of the wreck. The trauma still seems Danish slave ships, the Fredericus Quartus and
to exist as an actual energy radiating out from the Christianus Quintus.
the sea. And I feel it.
“That site is just amazing,” says Danish
But this time, I feel something else. Healing. archaeologist Andreas Bloch, who has been help-
Finality. Resolution that comes from knowing ing Ambassadors of the Sea document the ships.
what happened. “You have an archaeological site exactly where
you’ve got tourists snorkeling and enjoying the
And I am transported to a place of hope and wildlife. You have this amazing story that’s just
possibility. I begin to see a way of interpreting lying there as an open-air museum for every-
one of the most painful parts of American history body to see.”
through a new lens, with a loving perspective, and
with the possibility of repairing a deep wound— The two ships set sail from Denmark in 1708,
of closure. And that feels revelatory. heading to St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies
filled with 806 captives from West Africa. But the
COSTA RICA: A QUEST FOR IDENTITY ships, which were traveling in a convoy partly
because of concerns the captives might rebel as
I H E A D TO C O STA R I C A , to the small towns of they had once before, were blown off course by
Puerto Viejo de Talamanca and Cahuita, bad weather and navigational errors. In March
about 10 miles apart in Limón Province on 1710 they landed in the harbor at Cahuita. The
the Caribbean coast. crews on both ships mutinied. The sailors divided
I meet with cousins Kevin Rodríguez the ships’ gold among themselves, then burned
Brown and Pete Stephens Rodríguez, then the Fredericus and scuttled the Christianus after
19 and 18, respectively, and their aunt Sonia some 650 Africans still alive reached shore.
Rodríguez Brown.
About 100 of the Africans soon were

H I D D E N N O M O R E 45

NORTH AMERICA

UNITED STATES 1860

Gulf Coast Mobile, South Maryland Other Clotilda
Alabama Carolina East Coast
13,000 21,000 ports The last ship known to import captive Africans
151,000
Arrived Virginia 39,000 to the U.S.—a practice outlawed by the U.S. in
Grand Bay, Miss.
83,000
July 8, 1860;
towed to Ala., Departed 1808—was set ablaze to hide the crime. After
then scuttled between
Feb. 27 and slavery was abolished, many of the 108 Clotilda
March 4, 1860
MAINLAND Bermuda (U.K.) survivors formed a community, Africatown,
N. AMERICA which still exists near Mobile, Alabama.

Gulf of Mexico 307,000 Clotilda route to Africa

Spanish MEXICO CUBA ATLANTIC OCEA N
N. American 764,000
colonies

241,000

BELIZE

GUAT. 695,000 DOM.

HOND. JAMAICA HAITI REP. Puerto Rico
EL SALVADOR 935,000
29,000 (U.S.)

NIC. C a r i b b e a n 26,000 St. Thomas
Santa Catalina I.
Other islands
Sea CARIBBEAN
COSTA RICA Storm 1,572,000 ISLANDS

Cahuita Bay forces 4,021,000
Arrived
course 207,000
March 2, 1710; change
1708-1710shipTCCrmdsehohasovescyorrtuesiclatstrlttaeRtahltiewinaecaddsnarn,tomautfhtistPsheAhsQoyeNeuAdmsuseMaituAnhtntweidtniuorimCesDdOdi,leaLe,FnOsrstreiM.sienlUheBdapaIftAersoiioegrnndiaactosrueorfsismvSsatQeu.l3pTui61nVp,h50aEomr00reNmt0ocsEuasadZepssUedtbrEinvLay-BAedrsiatiysh7G5Gu,U0ia0YnA0aNDSuA2UtC6cRh0hINr,iG0Astu0Miia0aEnnuas2FVr1.,a0Gn0dul0FoiartenidladearicruosuIVterotuoteUto.St.he
C
to save food, then scuttled the ships.
Caribbean

SOUTH Amazonia Unknown
destination
136,000
791,000

CRUEL AMERICA BRAZIL Pernambuco DEATHS
recorded
430,000 en route

1,309,000

Bahia

1,214,000

COMMERCE MAINLAND
SOUTH AMERICA

3,763,000

Southeast Brazil

1,389,000

Spain first transported captive Africans to URUGUAY Río de la Plata
the Americas in the early 1500s to replace ARG.
the dying Indigenous labor force in its 92,000
colonies. More than 36,000 slave voyages
had sailed for the Americas by 1866, when
the last recorded transatlantic slave ship
arrived in Cuba. About a thousand vessels
were lost at sea—several hundred with
Africans aboard. Only a few slave ships
that sank have ever been found.

DENMARK Copenhagen

Depart for Africa TOBACCO
Christianus V–November 6, 1708 RICE
Fredericus IV–December 5, 1708 FISH
TAR
U.K. EUROPE CLOTH UROPE
IRE. TIMBER
METAL TOOLS
N E
AM FIREARMS
IRON
FRANCE EROICRATH FURNITURE SILVER
TEXTILES
Christianus V (Quintus) SUGAR SUGAR
and Fredericus IV (Quartus) COFFEE COFFEE BEADS A F R I C A
route to Africa MOLASSES CACAO GGuulifnoeaf

SPAIN Caribbean ATLANTIC
Sea
OCEAN
PORTUGAL
GRAIN MiddAlFeRPICaAssNaSge
To MEAT
Europe BUTTER TH
ICA
8,000 SO
AME
U
R

MOROCCO

Canary
Islands

MAURITANIA LUCRATIVE TRIANGLE

European nations traded goods, such as

Returned to Africa Clotilda arrived on metals and textiles, from their empires to
May 15, 1860, purchase captives in Africa. Those Africans
122,000 and departed were shipped via the months-long Middle
(mainly intercepted Passage to the Americas to work in agricul-
slave ships) around May 24

Cape SENEGAL TOGO NIGERIA ture and extract natural resources. Goods
Verde THE GAMBIA BENIN produced by the labor of enslaved people
were then sent back to Europe.
Senegambia

GBUIISNSE6AA0U- 3,000SieGrrUaINEA CÔTE GHANA
Leone
D’IVOIRE Ouidah Bight of Biafra

246,000 Windward Gold Coast 1,117,000

Coast 745,000 3 i5,gBh0etn0io0nf CAMEROON
ão José Paquete d’Africa route
LIBERIA 202,000 EQ.
GUINEA
B 1,5

GABON

TOTAL EQUAOTt2Oh,Re3r0A2f,0ri0ca0 Depart for the Americas DEM. REP.
RECORDED
AFRICAN December 1709 OF THE
CAPTIVES CONGO
CONGO

10,631,000

West Cen3t,r4a7l 2A,f0ri0c0a AFRICA

MOZAMBIQUE

Mozambique
Island

ANGOLA Depart for the Americas
December 3, 1794

St. Helena 1794
(U.K.)
São José Paquete d’Africa
24,000
Bound for Brazilian plantations with
DEADLY CROSSING Southeast
Africa more than 500 enslaved southeast
Of the more than 10 million recorded
409,000 Africans, the Portuguese ship ran
captives forced onto ships, on average
aground during a storm near Cape
one in eight died during the voyage.*
Town. Survivors were resold in local

slave markets; 212 captives drowned.

SOUTH S
AFRICA
MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, JASON TREAT, AND
SOREN WALLJASPER, NGM STAFF. SCOTT ELDER Cape of Good Hope Cape Town
SOURCES: TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE DATABASE, Ship wrecked
SLAVEVOYAGES.ORG; SLAVE WRECKS PROJECT,
SMITHSONIAN-NMAAHC; ECU MARITIME STUDIES; December 27, 1794
GEORGE NØRREGÅRD, FORLISET VED NICARAGUA 1710

*HISTORICAL RECORDS FROM THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE DATABASE ARE SHOWN IN THIS MAP. WHILE INCOMPLETE, THESE

RECORDS HAVE BEEN USED BY THE DATABASE TO ESTIMATE THE TOTAL NUMBER OF AFRICANS PUT ON SLAVE SHIPS AT 12.5 MILLION.

†SCIENTISTS ARE WORKING TO CONCLUSIVELY IDENTIFY THESE SHIPWRECKS.

Along this arm of the two-thirds of the
Mobile River in Ala- structure survived,
bama are the remains making it the most
of the Clotilda, the last intact slave ship found
known American ship to date. Some of the
to bring captive Afri- Africans trafficked on
cans to the U.S., in 1860. the Clotilda were buried
The captain tried to at Old Plateau Cemetery
burn the ship because (right) in Africatown,
importing enslaved a community founded
people had been illegal by the ship’s survivors
in the U.S. since 1808. after slavery had
Discovered in 2019, been abolished.

H I D D E N N O M O R E 49

‘THE STORY OF
SLAVERY IS A
STORY OF
EMPOWERMENT. IT’S
ALSO A STORY OF
RESILIENCE, A STORY
OF TRIUMPH.’

JAY HAIGLER

Albert José Jones (top) co-founded the
has been on more than National Association
7,000 dives and is con- of Black Scuba Divers,
sidered the godfather in 1991. DWP’s Haigler
of Black scuba diving (right) has trained
in the U.S. He founded divers and searched
the country’s oldest for slave shipwrecks
Black diving club, for 15 years. He says
Underwater Adventure being underwater
Seekers in Washington, is a “life-changing,
D.C., in 1959, and spiritual experience.”

PHOTO (TOP): COURTESY ALBERT JOSÉ JONES



ON A DIVE, I SEE IT: water. She wondered, “Why this is not in history?
THE OUTLINE OF AN Why our family never taught us that? Why the
ANCHOR ON THE community never say anything?
OCEAN FLOOR. I HOVER
ABOVE AND FEEL THIS “So I make myself a question,” Sonia contin-
INTENSE, DESPERATE ues in her soft and lyrical voice. “Who I am? And
LONGING TO KNOW MY I think that is the most beautiful question that
OWN FAMILY’S STORY. any people can do to [themselves]: Who I am?”

Author Tara Roberts’s great-great-grand- W H O I A M ? Who am I? This kind of ques-
parents Jack and Mary Roberts raised tioning sounds familiar.
their family in Edenton, North Carolina.
Nearly 1,500 miles north of Costa
recaptured and enslaved. But some disappeared Rica, along the Gulf of Mexico, are
into the hills, into oral history and myth. Some
likely mixed into the local BriBri Indigenous Mobile, Alabama, and Africatown,
community and left a line of descendants who
still inhabit the area today. another Afro-descended community.

Kevin Rodríguez Brown says they know the In Africatown many know for certain that
Brown family is part BriBri and part “Afro,” the
term Costa Ricans use to describe people of their direct ancestors came over in 1860 on the
African descent. But before diving at the wreck
site, he always thought the Afro part was 100 per- Clotilda, the last known ship to bring captive
cent Jamaican, since he knew Jamaicans came
as immigrants to Costa Rica in the late 1800s to Africans to U.S. shores. But those descendants
build the railroad.
are also fighting to get the story of the Clotilda
Sonia says the questions she and other mem-
bers of the community began to ask deepened as and Africatown more widely told. They ask: Why
the young divers started finding artifacts in the
is our history not in history books?

In 1808 the transatlantic slave trade had been

abolished by the U.S. But an Alabama plantation

owner and shipbuilder, Timothy Meaher, made

a bet with a group of northern businessmen that

he could bypass the law. He sponsored an expe-

dition to West Africa and transported 110 captive

people to the U.S. on the Clotilda (two died en

route). The captain burned the ship on its return

to hide the evidence, and Meaher dispersed most

of the captives to the expedition’s financial back-

ers. He kept 32 people for himself.

Five years later, in 1865, the Civil War ended,

and the captives were emancipated. The men

worked in lumber and gunpowder mills and at

the rail yards; the women grew vegetables and

sold produce door-to-door. Some of these men

and women, who had arrived on Alabama’s

shores naked and in shackles, managed to save

money and eventually bought 57 acres on which

to build their own version of home.

More than 150 years later, Africatown still

exists, having experienced a heyday in the

1960s with more than 12,000 residents and bar-

bershops, grocery stores, churches, a cemetery,

and plenty of descendants who still have letters,

pictures, documents, and stories, passed down

through the generations.

“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?” laughs Jeremy

Ellis, whose ancestors on the ship were named

52 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Pollee and Rose Allen. “If that doesn’t get you While I wait for a call, I decide to drive from
excited, understanding that the DNA resides in my home in Atlanta to my family’s hometown,
you, I don’t know what will.” Edenton, in Chowan County, North Carolina.

In 2019 a team of archaeologists announced My mom and her 13 brothers and sisters grew
the discovery of the remains of the Clotilda in a up in a big house with columns and a porch, out
remote arm of the Mobile River. The wreckage in the country. The house is still there and still in
had settled deep into the mud, which helped the family, but it is in a state. There is a big hole
preserve much of it. It’s the most intact slave in a side wall—a hole I can actually walk through
ship ever found. if I bend my leg and stoop down. The windows
are broken. There is mold on the walls. Plaster
People in the community kept saying “we and debris are everywhere.
need to find the ship,” says Sadiki, who was part
of the search team. “They knew how important When I used to visit as a kid, my impression of
it was to find a tangible artifact that got them the place was miles of cornfields and lazy quiet,
where they are to help tell their story.” only the droning of bees and singing of crick-
ets to break up the monotony of the day. The
Most African Americans cannot trace their oppressive weight of the silent country rested
roots back to a slave ship. They hit what geneal- upon my shoulders back then, and it depressed
ogists call the “1870 brick wall.” Before 1870, the me to come back here.
U.S. census did not track living enslaved people
with names and identifying details. I get out of my car and stand on the property,
looking around and watching the landscaper,
On one of my last days in Costa Rica, María Joseph Beasley, tend the yard, poking at weeds.
Suárez, Kevin Rodríguez Brown, and some of I ask him about the fields.
the other young people take me out on a boat to
see the wreck site for myself. “These little plants—those are soybeans,” he
says. “See that dark green stuff way back yonder?
Mask and gear on, I descend. The water is That’s corn. Right across the edge here.”
murky blue and green. It feels warm against my
skin. Schools of fish swim by. I descend deeper, I don’t know why this just dawns on me now.
feeling at home underwater. But my grandfather, who had only a fourth-
grade education, managed to buy this house,
Then I see it. The outline of an anchor. It is par- a former plantation of an enslaver, and about a
tially buried, encrusted in coral and surrounded hundred acres of land in the 1930s.
by grasses on the ocean floor.
It makes me realize I’ve probably missed even
I hover and imagine the Yoruba, Fon, Asante more about my family’s legacy.
people maybe, young, scared, and suddenly freed
on these shores. And I feel this intense, desperate, I book a room at a bed-and-breakfast on
crushing longing to know my own family’s story. North Broad Street in downtown Edenton,
which is considered one of the loveliest small
I H I R E G E N E A L O G I S T Renate Yarborough towns in the South largely because of this
Sanders, who specializes in African ancestry area. The town sits right on the Albemarle
research, and ask whether she can help me Sound. Colonial mansions that likely housed
trace my family back to a slave ship. enslaved people, or profited from the business
“I don’t ever like to say it’s never gonna of plantations, rise majestically above lines of
happen,” she says. “But,” she shakes her head, trees on carefully tended lawns. In all my years
“it’s not realistic.” coming to my grandparents’ house, this is prob-
ably the second or third time that I have ever
Yarborough Sanders says she will try to find set foot downtown.
out what she can about my earliest known ances-
tor, my great-great-grandfather Jack Roberts, I expect ignorance, subtle racism, an inten-
who was born enslaved in 1837. tional erasure of the complexity of the past. But
I am surprised.
My mom has a picture of Grandpa Jack and
his wife, Mary. They are handsome. He has white Friendly people wave at me as I cross streets.
cropped hair and a neatly trimmed white goatee, Shop owners and waitresses chat me up. The
and she has on a bow tie. twang of the Deep South rings pleasantly in
my ears. As I walk around town, I meet a Black
Jack has these soft brown eyes. They are kind birder walking his dog, who tells me about a local
eyes. I think I might have liked to gather at his church’s reconciliation group, a forum for both
knee and hear his stories.

H I D D E N N O M O R E 53

‘THERE IS
SOMETHING ABOUT

THESE SHIPS,
HOW THEY
MOVED
TRADITIONS,
HOW THEY
MOVED
CULTURE.’

AYANA FLEWELLEN

Archaeologists Photographed while
Justin Dunnavant on a mission to eval-
(at left), a National uate an 18th-century
Geographic Explorer, wrecked merchant ship
and Ayana Flewellen in St. John, they also
are co-founders of run the excavations
the Society of Black at a former Danish
Archaeologists and sugar plantation on
instructors with DWP. nearby St. Croix.



the victims and benefactors of an unjust society DWP was invited by
to tell their stories, that meets every Thursday. the U.S. Virgin Islands’
state historic preser-
Historical markers to African American rebel- vation office to map
lion and accomplishment line sidewalks, not far the remains of Coral
from a big Confederate monument. Bay Shipwreck No. 1, a
merchant ship from the
The contradiction. 1700s that might have
The most notable marker honors Harriet carried human cargo.
Jacobs, a local woman who escaped slavery via This admiralty anchor,
the Maritime Underground Railroad. Jacobs the manner of the
went on to write one of the few known slave ship’s construction, and
narratives, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, an intact bottle helped
in 1861 and became a revered abolitionist. narrow the ship’s date.
Edenton historical interpreter Charles Boyette
tells me that the Maritime Underground Rail- JENNIFER HAYES
road was a “hidden network of connections and
safe houses that allowed enslaved persons to just made an official holiday to celebrate the
seek their freedom along the waterways.” freedom of those who were enslaved. Oh, how
He says that Edenton was part of a network the universe works.
for thousands who escaped to the north with the
help of sailors, dockworkers, fishermen, both And Edenton celebrates all out, with a soulful
free and enslaved, and others who made their band, vendors, and food stalls right at the river.
living off the water and waterfront. I’d never People of different races are communing. That
heard of the Maritime Underground Railroad. I evening, there is a vigil at the Confederate mon-
wonder whether my 12- and 13-year-old nieces ument to get rid of the negative energy of plan-
Shi and Wu Murphy, who live only about 30 min- tation culture and bring in positive vibrations.
utes away in the next town over, know about it.
They don’t. Curious eyes follow me as I walk around with
Yarborough Sanders, the genealogist, calls on all my recording equipment. People ask who
Zoom. She has results. I am and who my people are. And now I can say I
First, it turns out Jack bought even more land am of Jack Roberts’s clan—Jack begot John H.,
than my grandfather. At least 174 acres in total. who begot John A., who begot Lula, who begot
Maybe it’s in the family, because I managed to me. And there is recognition, laughter, stories
buy three homes by the time I was 31. from the past of my mom, my aunt Myrtle, my
Second, he was a delegate to the 1865 Freed- uncle George, my uncle Sonny.
men’s Convention in Raleigh, a statewide
assembly that took place after the end of the Carol Anthony, a stranger passing by, upon
Civil War to consider aspirations and goals for
the formerly enslaved.
That resonates. He tried to be part of the
solution, despite the odds against him.
Finally, there was evidence that Jack fought
in the Civil War, in the United States Colored
Troops—Second Regiment, Company B.
Yarborough Sanders smiles at me. “If that’s
your ancestor, it is a huge, big deal.”
She also tells me with laughter that he may
have owned a speakeasy.
I feel a stirring of pride. I am not a descendant
of sad people, of victims, of faceless people. Jack
has become real to me—not perfect, just real.
As has Edenton.
Turns out, I am in Edenton on June 19, 2021,
“Juneteenth,” the day the federal government

56 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

hearing my name, tells me that she is married any good love story, it has pain and hurt. But this
to my uncle Teeny’s stepson. history, Black history, American history, also has
lifting notes—crescendos—full orchestras that
How did I not know this place? Many African tug at the heart and make it soar.
cultures believe that the ancestors never die,
never lose their connection with the living. That I thought this search for slave ships might
their energy is still there, supporting us, pushing be hard. I thought I would need hands holding
us, loving us. What if, I think, all African Amer- mine, rubbing my back, consoling my tears and
icans could look back and claim their past? See my heartache. Instead I found strength. And
their ancestors fully? Know their whole story? power. And adventure. And camaraderie. I found
Would that change everything? laughter. Love. Life. Kinship. I found something
strong and necessary to root and ground me.
I’m not a scientist or a historian. I am a story-
teller. And I can now see that the stories we find All from a picture in a museum.
as we discover ourselves don’t just belong to us as Welcome home. j
individuals. They also belong to the communities
of which we are a part. And if those groups are Tara Roberts’s maritime archaeology storytelling
brave, they can use those stories to expand the includes our six-part podcast. Wayne Lawrence’s
possibility of who we might all become together. photography, last featured in National Geographic’s
Race Card Project in June 2021, illuminates the
This history—our history—has sad notes. Like complexities of the human experience.

H I D D E N N O M O R E 57

S AV I N G

BY DENISE HRUBY
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CIRIL JAZBEC

58