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Written in the Waters: An interview with author Tara Roberts - Ep 296
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Today, Chris interviews explorer and author Tara Roberts. She dove and worked with Diving with a Purpose, a non-profit organization that excavated underwater wrecks of slave ships. She tells the stories of the slave ships and the people doing the work. We talk about her career and her journey to writing the book.
Links
- Written In The Waters - Hardcover on Amazon
- Written In The Waters eBook on Amazon
- Diving with a Purpose
- Into the Depths Podcast (Apple)
- Tara Roberts website
- @tararoberts_explorer on Instagram
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts head over to https://archpodnet.com/archaeology/296
Contact
- Chris Webster
chris@archaeologypodcastnetwork.com - Rachel Roden
rachel@unraveleddesigns.com
RachelUnraveled (Instagram)
ArchPodNet
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Transcript
Introduction to The Archaeology Show
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to The Archaeology Show. TAS goes behind the headlines to bring you the real stories about archaeology and the history around us. Welcome to the podcast.
Interview with Tara Roberts
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Archaeology Show, episode 296. On today's show, I interview Tara Roberts about her new book, Written in the Waters, a memoir of history, home and belonging.
00:00:27
Speaker
Let's dig a little deeper.
Tara's Journey with Black Scuba Divers
00:00:34
Speaker
Okay, here's a little bit about Tara before we start the show. Tara spent years following, diving with, and telling stories about black scuba divers as they searched for and helped document slave shipwrecks around the world.
00:00:46
Speaker
Her journey was turned into an award-winning National Geographic-produced podcast called Into the Depths and featured in National Geographic magazine. Tara became the first black female explorer ever to be featured on the cover of Nat Geo.
00:00:58
Speaker
In 2022, Tara was named the Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year. Currently, she is an explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society, and her book, Written in the Waters, a Memoir of History, Home, and Belonging, is available now, despite what I'm about to say in the interview.
00:01:14
Speaker
Tara also worked as an editor for magazines like Cosmogirl, Essence, Ebony, and Heart and Soul, and edited several books for girls. She was a fellow at the MIT Open Documentary Lab.
00:01:25
Speaker
She founded her own magazine for women who are too bold for boundaries. And Tara spent an amazing year backpacking around the world to find and tell stories about young women change agents. The journey led to the creation of a nonprofit that supported and funded their big ideas. And now on to the interview.
Status of 'Written in the Waters'
00:01:41
Speaker
Welcome to the Archaeology Show. So we have an interview today, as we mentioned last week, and joining us today is Tara Roberts, and she's written a book that will be out for, well, it's out for pre-order right now. So you can pre-order this on Amazon, check the show notes for a link for that, but it should be available March 4th, 2025.
00:02:00
Speaker
If you're listening to this in the future, hopefully you're clicking that link and ordering it right now. But it's called Written in the Waters, a memoir of history, home and belonging. And it's from National Geographic Digital.
00:02:11
Speaker
So Tara Roberts, welcome to the show. Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me.
Tara's Scuba Diving Beginnings
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, no problem. So this is all about diving and working and just this whole life of of working with this. But I want to get I want to step back just a little bit.
00:02:26
Speaker
How long have you been diving? How did you get into diving and doing that whole thing? And then we'll get into some other stuff later. Sure. And I just want to make one note about the book. It's actually out now.
00:02:39
Speaker
Oh, ah Amazon still says it's on pre-order. Well, the digital version, so the ebook is on pre-order, but the book came out on January 28th. Gotcha. Okay.
00:02:51
Speaker
Perfect. Yeah. We'll make sure that link is also in the show notes. so Okay, perfect. Well, I will say that I got into this completely by accident. Before i started this work, I was not a scuba diver. And I was also not that interested in history. i know your your listeners are probably going to hate me for saying that.
00:03:15
Speaker
But yeah, i'm I'm one of those like sci-fi fantasy future girls who's always sort of looking ahead and not looking back. um But this work has taught me a lot. And so my perspective has changed completely.
00:03:29
Speaker
But I'll say that... This all started really randomly, again, accidentally, because i visited the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
00:03:46
Speaker
And there in the museum on the second floor, the second floor is this really tiny floor that most people skip. But thank goodness I didn't
Joining 'Diving with a Purpose'
00:03:56
Speaker
skip it. Yeah.
00:03:58
Speaker
There I saw a picture that basically changed my life. It was a picture of a group of primarily black women in wetsuits on a boat I had never seen.
00:04:13
Speaker
ah pictureer A group of black women in wetsuits on a boat before. So I was immediately intrigued. It just, it, it made me remember my dreams as a kid.
00:04:28
Speaker
Again, i was like one of those geeks that used to read a bunch of books and the books that I loved. were these sort of adventure fantasy books with characters that were always doing something adventurous in the world.
00:04:44
Speaker
And they were doing something adventurous that had meaning, like they were often going out to save the kingdom in some way. And I wanted to be one of those characters. wanted to be somebody That would like live life adventurously and that would help the world in some way.
00:05:03
Speaker
So when I saw this picture, when I'd never just, i didn't know Black women having a relationship with the water in this way.
00:05:15
Speaker
So it intrigued me. And then when I read the rest of the information that came with the exhibit, I saw that they were a part of this group called Diving with a Purpose.
00:05:26
Speaker
And then what they did was they helped to search for and document slave shipwrecks around the world. And I was like, what? Wait, did I read that right? Wait, what? They do what?
00:05:40
Speaker
I was so intrigued. I mean, who would even think One, who thinks about slave shipwrecks? And then to actually have people who are out there trying to recover them.
00:05:52
Speaker
It was fascinating to me. um i think I stayed on that floor looking at that exhibit for like an hour. I was just so intrigued. And I ended up Googling them right there in the museum.
00:06:06
Speaker
And then I called them up. And that's how the story went on from there.
The Diving Community's Mission
00:06:13
Speaker
Were you a diver before that? No. um so you're just like, hey, let's just do this diving thing. hi i'm I'm from Atlanta. yeah and luck i didn't know anything about the ocean at all.
00:06:26
Speaker
i will say that I was a swimmer. Like I loved pools. I love the water. But I didn't know. Yeah, that definitely helps. I didn't know anything about the ocean.
00:06:39
Speaker
i will say i i I had gone scuba diving once in my life before. And it was probably like 20 years earlier. happened to be on vacation with my boyfriend at the time. And we were at a resort. And you know how the resort offers you scuba experience?
00:06:58
Speaker
So I did it once. And I remember also really having a hard time going down. My ears wouldn't equalize. Like it wasn't an easy experience, but i do remember when I got down, I thought it was just beautiful.
00:07:12
Speaker
So I did have that reference, but I'd not been diving since then. I'd never really thought about it since then. It really was those women that made me go, oh my goodness, that's amazing.
00:07:26
Speaker
So the diving with a purpose people get this phone call from somebody who doesn't dive, is not an academic, and they say, come on over. that's Exactly. Well, that's awesome. and So, I mean, how was it getting into working with them? And what was that? I guess i guess just what was that process like for you? What was that journey like?
00:07:49
Speaker
Well, so the women that I saw in the picture were all surrounded or they were surrounding a gentleman on the boat. And this gentleman is an older gentleman who just this year turned 80 years old. So he's he's incredible.
00:08:06
Speaker
But his name is Ken Stewart, and he is the co-founder of Diving with a Purpose. And it was Ken that answered the phone when I called. And Ken was great.
00:08:17
Speaker
Yeah. I have to say that the majority of the divers who participate in diving with a purpose are not academics or scientists.
00:08:28
Speaker
They are regular lay people who love to scuba dive and wanted to dive with a purpose. But they range from their students, engineers, policemen, yoga teachers. Like it's it's a broad variety of people who are a part of it.
Training and Commitment to Diving
00:08:47
Speaker
Do they do this on like a volunteer basis or is it funded somehow? Okay. No, they're all volunteers. Nobody gets paid. They really just feel called, I think, by the mission.
00:08:58
Speaker
And so they volunteer their time to do this, which is beautiful. So, yeah, I called them up. And at the time, i still like I want it to be a part of them somehow.
00:09:14
Speaker
But I didn't know if I could or if it made sense. So I sort of called them up with a pretense. Yeah. oh i was I was working for a nonprofit at the time and diving with the purposes of 501c3 nonprofit.
00:09:30
Speaker
And so I was like, well, maybe they need help with funding. Maybe I can help them get some money. And I'm not a fundraiser, but I happen to be working for an organization that supports change makers and they give
From Job to Storytelling Grant
00:09:44
Speaker
fellowships or individual grants to people that are making a big difference in the world.
00:09:48
Speaker
So I just thought, Well, Ken started this incredible organization. Maybe I can help him get a grant. So that's how we started our conversation. um And we ended up having a number of conversations.
00:10:04
Speaker
He connected with the people at the organization, but it turned out that it wasn't quite a fit. ah But because Ken and I had had so many conversations, we became friends.
00:10:15
Speaker
And at some point towards the end of this cycle, Ken was like, you know, he he likes to call me by my full name. So he was like, Tara Roberts.
00:10:29
Speaker
do you know that you live in the epicenter of black scuba diving? And this is, I was just living in DC at the time. And I was like, wait, what? I was like, I live in DC. And he was like, you live there with all the all the the cats.
00:10:44
Speaker
You are right there in the middle of it all. And I was like, are you kidding? And he was like, no. He's like, why don't you join us? And if you want to, i will get you in um a diving class that is starting right now.
00:10:58
Speaker
And it turns out that there is a group or club, but diving club in D.C. that's called the Underwater Adventure Seekers. And they are the oldest black diving club in the United States.
00:11:14
Speaker
They are over 65 years old. wow all The person who is credited with being the grandfather of black scuba diving, his name is Dr. Albert Jose Jones, is the one who founded that club.
00:11:28
Speaker
And then he went on to found the National Association of Black Scuba Divers. Wow. So, yeah i I was like, okay, yes, you've given me permission. Yes, I want to be a part of it.
00:11:41
Speaker
So Ken got me into the diving class and it turns out that it was a serious diving class. I said that, you know, i I participated with my boyfriend at a resort like 20 years earlier.
00:11:57
Speaker
And that consisted of, I think it was a day... And an afternoon of training. This was three months of training. and we were in the pool every week and we were in the classroom every week. So it was twice a week that we trained for three entire months because they take scuba diving very seriously.
00:12:18
Speaker
right So I did it. I got certified. and when i went up So during this whole process, I was getting to know the divers more and more.
00:12:31
Speaker
and I was getting to know more and more about the mission of diving with a purpose. Most of the divers who are, I won't say most, but many of the divers who are a part of the underwater adventure seekers were also trained with diving with a purpose.
00:12:50
Speaker
So a lot of them had um done the training And participated in the work. So during this process, I started to learn more and more about their mission.
00:13:01
Speaker
I learned more and more about the ships that they were finding. and I became even more intrigued. um And at some point, I realized that...
00:13:15
Speaker
Like I am trained as a journalist and as a storyteller. That's my, okay that's my world. I'd done a bit of a detour for like a decade where I was in the nonprofit world, but my deepest, deepest passion yearnings are all around storytelling and adventure.
Evolution of Tara's Storytelling
00:13:37
Speaker
And so at some point as I got to know the divers, I was like, wow, somebody, people should know this story and they should know what these divers are doing. then it clicked for me one day and I was like, oh, duh, hello.
00:13:50
Speaker
Maybe this is a story that I could help tell and get out in the world. Okay. Well, that is a good point to take a break because I wanted to transition to the storytelling aspect of this. And we'll do that in segment two, back in a minute.
00:14:05
Speaker
Welcome back to the Archaeology Show, episode 296, and we're here with Tara Roberts. So we're continuing our conversation, and you were just getting into the writing aspect of this, which was literally one of my next questions. And I was going to ask how you got into all the writing stuff, but I didn't know you were trained as a journalist initially. Talk about your, you know, before you you said took took sort of a 10-year break doing ah your nonprofit work,
00:14:31
Speaker
What kind of journalism did you do before that? I'm just curious. And then, you know, we'll get into what led you into the into writing about the the diving with a purpose activities. But what kind of journalism did you do before that? I'm just curious.
00:14:42
Speaker
Sure. i was a magazine editor. okay I worked for magazines like Essence, and Cosmo Girl, Heart and Soul. It was mainly women's magazines. Yeah. magazines So I did mainly I was an editor and I did some writing. Okay.
00:15:03
Speaker
Nice. Nice. All right. And then you took those skills once you got into diving with a purpose, it sounds like, and said, hey, somebody needs to be writing about this. I'm shocked that nobody was, to be honest with you, but somebody needed to tell these stories.
00:15:19
Speaker
Right. It seems like, well, this is amazing. Yes. Someone should be telling these stories. and And I mean, they did have some stories written about them.
00:15:30
Speaker
but I wanted wanted to go deep with them. So let me be fair. Like there are some stories about diving with a purpose and about these divers, but I wanted to travel with them around the world to really be ah part of the mission, a part of the work and to do some deep, deep storytelling.
00:15:53
Speaker
So when I got this idea, And I wanted to tell stories about them. I went to Ken and their executive team or their board, and I asked them if I could do this.
00:16:05
Speaker
And they said, sure. um And then I realized, again, like I wanted to go all in and I didn't feel like I could do that and still do my nine to five.
00:16:19
Speaker
So I decided to quit my job um so that I could tell these stories. And at the time, I didn't have funding. i didn't have an assignment from any paper or magazine or website.
00:16:33
Speaker
I just felt called. So I went back to Ken and I told him, i was like, Ken, I'm quitting my job so that I can tell your stories. And he was like, wait, wait, no, do not quit your job.
00:16:49
Speaker
We cannot be responsible. and i was like, no, don't worry. i just, I feel like I have to do this. and So I did And to participate in Diving with the Purpose, you have to get 30 ocean dives under your belt because the work ah that Diving with the Purpose trains you on is underwater archaeology mapping.
00:17:13
Speaker
So you're down under the water or under the surface. drawing. um So you have to have really good control of yourself when you're under the water. So they require you to work on your buoyancy and to get your dives in on the ocean.
00:17:31
Speaker
So when I quit my job, I went to go get my dives in And while I was doing that, I was like, oh you know, maybe I need to apply for some funding to be able to help support this.
00:17:45
Speaker
When you run your own nonprofits um for 10 years, you don't make very much money, but at least I didn't. i Well, I should say that the coffers needed to be replenished at that time. yes yes yeah So I applied for grant with National Geographic. I actually applied for two grants. I didn't get the first one, but I got the second one.
00:18:13
Speaker
and that grant is a small grant, and it allowed me to travel with the divers. a I was able to travel to Mozambique, South Africa, Senegal, Canada.
00:18:28
Speaker
Benin and Togo, Costa Rica, St. Croix, and around the US. And my grants with NatGia, that first grant was to support me around writing blog entries about the journey and about my travels.
00:18:47
Speaker
So I did that first for the first year, but as I was out on the road and as I was meeting all of these incredible
Creating 'Into the Depths' Podcast
00:18:57
Speaker
people, people who ranged from the divers, but there were also archaeologists, there were historians, there were park rangers, there were students, there were descendants of people who were on the boat from all of these different locales.
00:19:15
Speaker
And as I was traveling, as I was recording from them and you might really appreciate this Chris but I I was recording them and a number of different formats because I didn't know what the story would be and I just wanted to have in as many formats as I could so I took pictures I had a video camera I had my audio recorder.
00:19:41
Speaker
And of course, I had my notebook where I was taking pictures or taking notes. Quickly, i realized I am not a videographer filmmaker. was so stressful. Yeah.
00:19:55
Speaker
Worrying about, oh my God, the battery is running out. Do I have all the equipment? Oh, the sun is here. oh right looking i was just like, this is too much for me.
00:20:06
Speaker
I admire all filmmakers that are out there. You guys are incredible. But i it was a little too much for me. And what I started to realize, especially when I was writing the blog entries, I would listen to my notes, my the audio recorded notes.
00:20:22
Speaker
Mm-hmm. and I started to hear a story. There was something about all of these different accents, something about the way that they understood this history in their own words that just felt beautiful to me.
00:20:42
Speaker
And so I started to think, I think this is an audio story next. yeah I went back to Nat geo and told them that I wanted to make a podcast about this journey.
00:20:55
Speaker
And I wanted it to be a narrative podcast, like a limited series yeah podcast. And they got it. And so they gave me additional funding and I partnered.
00:21:07
Speaker
So my grant is from National Geographic Society. And i partnered with National Geographic Media, ah their audio division,
Writing the Book
00:21:16
Speaker
in order to to make a podcast called Into the Depths, which yeah is out there. it's still streaming.
00:21:24
Speaker
anybody wants to listen to it. i found it. The link is in the show notes if you want to find it on Apple Podcasts. And I'm sure you can find it in other places as well. Yes. Yeah. The podcast tells the story of my journey in six episodes and there 30 minutes each and you really get a sense of being out there. It tells the story of six of the ships that we found.
00:21:52
Speaker
It tells the story of some of the divers and it tells a little bit of my journey and some of my transformation. Like again, i I said earlier that I was a person who didn't really like to look back at the past
00:22:08
Speaker
yeah But by the end of the journey, i was like, wow, there's so much richness in understanding the past and where we came from. So you get to see a little bit of my my transformation.
00:22:22
Speaker
So that was the podcast that came out in 2022. Yeah.
00:22:27
Speaker
I still was traveling with the divers, still learning, still growing. and i so I realized there was still so much more to say. and there was even more about my own transformation. So it just felt natural that the next piece would be a book.
Timeline of Tara's Journey
00:22:45
Speaker
And so that's where we are now. real Real quick, what is the I'm just curious, 2022, I was actually a little surprised when I saw that number on the podcast. I for some reason, I thought that would have been longer ago. What is the timeline here? When did you what kicked this all off? What year did you see that museum exhibit at the in Washington, D.C.?
00:23:07
Speaker
It's so funny that you asked that because when i look back, I'm like, it has been a really long time. Like, how did this happen? Yeah. but i I went to the museum 2017. Yeah.
00:23:19
Speaker
okay And I started the journey um at the end of 2018. That's when I got my grants from Nat Geo. So it's really been since 2019 that I've been on the road telling stories about the divers.
00:23:34
Speaker
did I'm curious, did COVID slow the divers down too much? I mean, under the water, ah you're pretty much socially isolated. i mean, not up in the ship, but I mean, how but did that really slow everything down? Like it slowed the rest of the world down? I imagine it did just from a travel perspective.
00:23:50
Speaker
It did. And I will will say that... some of the diving with the purpose divers are diehard divers. they're I got to get in the water some kind of way.
00:24:01
Speaker
so some of them were diving, but a lot of places were closed. sure And i I, I took a bit of a, of a break then. Like I focused more on the storytelling, like really being all of these interviews, I'd say when all was said and done, i had about,
00:24:22
Speaker
100 interviews, hours long each. Like it was a lot of material to go through. so i really spent the prime time of COVID working on the podcast.
The Work of 'Diving with a Purpose'
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah. Really. Yeah. Shaping the material into into a story. Okay. All right. Well, let's take our last break. And on the other side, we'll talk about the book back in a minute.
00:24:47
Speaker
Welcome back to episode 296 of The Archaeology Show, and I'm back with Tara Roberts. And we're going to about the book this segment, but I had a couple of questions that kind of popped into my head on the last one. And just for little bit of context here, I was just wondering if you know Just thinking about the slave ships, I mean, we could have a whole session just in fact, I really would like to interview some people with diving with a purpose, actually, because this would be a fantastic topic for the show. But just for some context to bring that in, do you know how many slave ships are estimated to be wrecked out there? Obviously, we probably don't know all of them, but there is probably some estimates out there of the numbers that are out there in the world.
00:25:29
Speaker
Yeah, well, They think, or they, they actually, and they don't think this because the numbers are well documented. wow okay There are, well, not of wrecked ships, but there were 12,000 ships that participated in the slave trade over the course of the 400 years of the history of the trade.
00:25:53
Speaker
And they estimate that approximately a thousand of those ships have wrecked and date. They have found less than 20 even fewer ah have been properly documented. Right. So it's an area where there is a lot of unexplored history. Wow, that is shocking. How long has Diving with a Purpose been around and and doing their work?
00:26:23
Speaker
It's funny. Dive in with a purpose has been around for over 20 years. They started out with um the wreck of the Guerrero, which is a ship that wrecked off the coast of Florida. That was the wreck that sort of brought Ken in.
00:26:42
Speaker
And they have spent the last... 20 plus years trying to confirm that wreck. mean, one thing about these ships is that they are notoriously hard to find and they're hard to identify. And that's primarily because most of these ships, you know, were built in the 16th and 17th centuries.
00:27:04
Speaker
So they were built out of wood. and when wood wrecks on the ocean, floor it splinters, it wrecks in pieces.
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah. And the ocean takes back those pieces. So they're hard to find. Right. Sometimes hard to identify. That's part of the problem.
00:27:26
Speaker
But the other problem is also like this area of study hasn't been an area of study that's of prior, that's a priority. And so it's sort of both of those things working together.
Story of the Clotilda Shipwreck
00:27:38
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I mean, ships don't ships at that time generally don't wreck gently in calm waters. It was probably a storm or something like that. It tore it apart and then, yeah, it went down. So, yeah. Or bad navigation. One of the two are or or both of them. So.
00:27:54
Speaker
often both of those things yeah Yeah, exactly. So, man, that's that's crazy. Well, talking about the book, let's just talk about, you know, kind of lay out the book for us. What does the book what can people expect from this from this book?
00:28:10
Speaker
The book is i'd say it's a deeper version of the podcast. and you get much more in-depth stories about the ships. And let me tell you, like, there's some incredible wrecking stories. Like if you just look at it from a pure nautical ship um perspective, you got it pirate chases, you got mutinies, you've got navigational errors. Like it's all of those things, incompetent crew. It's all of those things happening. So I tell deeper stories about the ships,
00:28:45
Speaker
the ships. I tell deeper stories about the divers who are, again, like from all walks of life. They are some incredible human beings who again have volunteered their time to do this work.
00:29:01
Speaker
So I'm able to uplift some of their stories. And then probably most importantly, i am telling stories. So this is where i I've now embraced the past.
00:29:13
Speaker
wholeheartedly. I'm like, Oh my God, it's so fascinating. I can't believe I wasn't into this before, but I tell stories about this history, this period between, you know, the 15th and or the 16th and 19th centuries.
00:29:30
Speaker
And I, I tell stories about the people whose lives were lost, but also about the impact of this trade on various communities.
00:29:45
Speaker
I also talk a lot about my connection to my own history as a result of doing this work. like When I started, I really was thinking that this history feels important just from ah sort of collective perspective.
00:30:03
Speaker
historical record kind of perspective. Like it's just, true it helps us understand more of what happened in the past and we should all know it. But I wasn't thinking about this personally, which maybe is a little dumb because hello, I'm a black girl.
00:30:21
Speaker
my I know that my people were enslaved at some point. So clearly there's a connection here, but I wasn't really thinking about that. um But the more that I did this work, the more that I talked to people,
00:30:36
Speaker
the more I realized that there's so much life and beauty and incredible stories of resilience and resistance and survival and even stories of love. Like it's,
00:30:56
Speaker
There's just so much there that I really hadn't considered before. And that's partly because I thought that this history was maybe a bit too painful and too traumatic to really approach.
00:31:11
Speaker
But I learned that it is it. I mean, it is some of that for sure, but it's complex and it's rich and it's fascinating. And it gave me a way to connect to my own ancestors. Yeah.
00:31:25
Speaker
Yeah, I ended up hiring a genealogist to do some tracing back to see if we could trace my roots back to a slave ship. But that only happened because i met the descendants of the ancestors who were on the Clotilde slave ship.
00:31:42
Speaker
which Yeah, that ship is the most recent ship to be found. It was found in 2019 and it was found in Alabama in the Mobile River.
00:31:54
Speaker
And those the descendants of the people who were on that ship, they know their ancestors stories and can trace their ancestors back to specific villages on the African continent.
00:32:08
Speaker
So they're very unique. Well, that I didn't even think about the fact that there might be survivors, actually. I guess it crashed. I guess it wrecked close enough to shore that they were able to get out.
00:32:21
Speaker
Well, with the Clotilda, it's a it's a whole story, Chris. Yeah, I bet. It's a long story. I don't think we have time for it. but Probably not. The brief version of it is that um an Alabama plantation owner made a bet that he could sell ship to Africa my god after ah the slave trade had been made illegal. But he was like, he he made a bet that he could do it.
00:32:50
Speaker
Right. Of course. did it He built a ship and he sailed it across and he did it and he brought it back. And he had all of the people unloaded from the ship And then the ship was burned to hide the evidence.
00:33:05
Speaker
Oh, my God. They burned it in the Mobile River, which is a muddy river. And so the mud ended up preserving ship. so probably Thank you, science.
00:33:20
Speaker
ah yeah It's amazing because that ship is the only ship so far that has been found intact. I know I just said that most of the ships are in pieces the floor, but this isn't a river that is full of mud. And so yeah it is the the exception.
00:33:40
Speaker
And it's giving us so much archaeological information. Like it's incredible to have made kind Yeah. But so the people who were on that ship survived.
00:33:50
Speaker
um They settled in that area. It's an incredible story because they ended up, once they were freed, they bought land. These enslaved people bought land and presented Africatown.
00:34:04
Speaker
And Africatown still
Personal Connections and Ancestry
00:34:06
Speaker
exists today. Like it became an actual thriving community in Mobile, Alabama that was founded by these formerly enslaved people.
00:34:15
Speaker
So their descendants grew up in Africatown and then more descendants and more descendants. So those descendants can really trace the stories of their ancestors all the way back.
00:34:28
Speaker
And there was such a sense of pride and just like Yeah, like they had a sense of accomplishment of their ancestors. And it just that was one of the things that made me realize that these aren't just stories of pain and stories of trauma, that they're also stories of life and of laughter and of joy yeah accomplishment.
00:34:58
Speaker
So that gave me the courage to go back and trace my own ancestors back. So anyway, the book tells that story. It's really ah memoir that like the the subtitle sort of lays it out. It's a memoir of history, but it's also of home. It's of me searching for where do I belong in this world as an African-American woman. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:26
Speaker
belonging. So like, who do I belong to? Well, I will say, well, i have links for the digital version that's coming out March 4th. The, well, the ebook version, I should say, and the, um the hard copy version, which you did tell us is out now, but also I did find and actually ordered and we'll be listening to the, uh, audio book.
00:35:46
Speaker
because I do a lot of driving as an RVer and we have a lot of international travel coming up in March. So at some point I will be listening and it's narrated by you as well. So I'll be listening to ah you narrate the book. I love it when the author narrates the book and you sound like, I mean, your voice, i love your voice. So you're going to be a fantastic book narrator. It's going to be awesome. It'll be great.
00:36:07
Speaker
So I'm very, I'm looking very much forward to hearing the stories in this book and how this goes. So this one last thing I wanted to ask you about, well, I guess two things really first, what's next? Because now that the book is published, it's it's out there, it's almost fully out there with all the different versions.
Future Projects and Memorializing History
00:36:27
Speaker
What are you working on now? Is it anything you can talk about or, you know, what's next for you in this space? I can talk about it. I'll talk a little generally though.
00:36:38
Speaker
so Nat geo invited me to become an, uh, an explorer in residence so that we could work on part two of this project.
00:36:50
Speaker
Um, one of the things that feels really important to me about this history is memorializing this history and also,
00:37:03
Speaker
honoring the people whose lives were lost because of it. right We didn't really talk about this number on air, but I'll just share this number because it was shocking to me find this number.
00:37:19
Speaker
And I didn't know this But there were approximately 1.8 million Africans who died just in the crossing from Africa to the Americas.
00:37:36
Speaker
So we're not talking about the number of people who died on the march to the boats or the number of people who died once they arrived and were enslaved. Just in the crossing from one shore to the other, approximately 1.8 million people died.
00:37:51
Speaker
So what we want to do is, will we want to memorialize that loss? ah So we are working on a pretty big project that I think will be very exciting to some.
00:38:10
Speaker
yeah And I'll say this, too, that we don't just want to memorialize this loss because this story, again, it isn't just a story of the trauma itself.
00:38:22
Speaker
or the pain. This is also a story of connection because there is a way that Africa, Europe, North America and South America are intricately interwoven because of the transatlantic slave trade.
00:38:39
Speaker
When you think about the transfer cultures, of beliefs, of religions, of philosophies, of goods, of people, like all of these things have made us deeply connected to each other. And we're connected in a way that cannot be undone.
00:38:57
Speaker
So when I think of honoring this past and honoring the connection that we have with each other, it makes me wonder that if we see ourselves connected, could that potentially change how we think we're responsible for each other?
Conclusion and Future Storytelling
00:39:16
Speaker
So all of the work that we're doing in this next phase will be about honoring ah loss, but also honoring our connection to each other. Yeah.
00:39:26
Speaker
Right. Wow. That's amazing. I love it. Well, this has been fascinating discussion, I got to say, and I really do would like to get some of the people from Diving with a Purpose, I think, on this show as well. That would be great. i you're yeah I was just going to say you should get Diving with a Purpose. and one of the key partners of Diving with a Purpose is the Society of Black Archaeologists.
00:39:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And i I know a few people in there, too. So, yeah. yeah Yeah. So my other question was actually, how did you become a National Geographic Explorer in residence? You kind of went into that, but it's just I saw that on there. i was like, man, that's amazing. i mean, you just kind of started this journey not that long ago.
00:40:10
Speaker
And now you're a National Geographic Explorer in residence. That's awesome. I love it. That's awesome. But we're kind of up on time anyway. But again, i one more thing I will say to you. You did a one-off podcast series with Janssen Geographic, but I'm sure your narration of the audio book audiobook is going to be awesome. You're obviously a great storyteller.
00:40:30
Speaker
You really should just have a regular weekly podcast. I'm just saying. You've got so much to say. You know what i mean? Okay. so Yeah. Take care. All right.
00:40:42
Speaker
Well, thanks, Tara. Appreciate you coming on the show. And I look forward to everything you've got coming out in the future. Thank you, Chris. Thank you for having me. It's been fun. All right. Thanks a lot. We'll see you guys next week.
00:41:01
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the archaeology show. Feel free to comment and view the show notes on the website at www.archpodnet.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at ArchPodNet.
00:41:12
Speaker
Music for this show is called I Wish You Would Look from the band Sea Hero. Again, thanks for listening and have an awesome day.
00:41:26
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network is 10 years old this year. Our executive producer is Ashley Airey. Our social media coordinator is Matilda Sebrecht. And our chief editor is Rachel Roden. The Archaeology Podcast Network was co-founded by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in 2014 and is part of Cultural Media and DigTech LLC. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:41:47
Speaker
Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.