1 00:00:19,236 --> 00:00:21,456 It wasn't just people who were brought from Africa 2 00:00:21,586 --> 00:00:24,146 during the transatlantic slave trade, 3 00:00:24,285 --> 00:00:25,895 it was knowledge. 4 00:00:26,026 --> 00:00:29,326 Knowledge that helped give birth to the world we live in 5 00:00:29,464 --> 00:00:31,774 without most of us knowing anything about it. 6 00:00:34,425 --> 00:00:36,425 We brought our ways with us. 7 00:00:36,558 --> 00:00:38,908 It's not in the history books. 8 00:00:39,039 --> 00:00:41,219 We're going to find it in the bottom of the ocean. 9 00:00:41,345 --> 00:00:43,295 They have an opportunity 10 00:00:43,434 --> 00:00:46,354 to rediscover their ties to the past, 11 00:00:46,481 --> 00:00:48,221 and their connection to the enslaved Africans 12 00:00:48,352 --> 00:00:49,312 who were here. 13 00:00:50,572 --> 00:00:51,922 Woo! 14 00:00:52,052 --> 00:00:55,272 You look at this, and it's beautiful, 15 00:00:55,403 --> 00:00:56,623 but it's also a mathematical. 16 00:00:56,752 --> 00:00:57,932 Exactly. 17 00:00:58,058 --> 00:01:01,318 There were 2,500 enslaved Africans 18 00:01:01,452 --> 00:01:04,592 that ran away to join the pirates. 19 00:01:06,544 --> 00:01:08,594 Here was a world where they had an equal vote 20 00:01:08,720 --> 00:01:10,640 and an equal say alongside their white counterparts. 21 00:01:14,596 --> 00:01:17,376 Your life depends on your skills, 22 00:01:17,512 --> 00:01:21,342 your equipment and your attitude. 23 00:01:21,472 --> 00:01:22,262 Why are you the first Black person I ever seen 24 00:01:22,386 --> 00:01:23,736 play a banjo? 25 00:01:23,866 --> 00:01:25,256 It was known by everybody 26 00:01:25,389 --> 00:01:26,909 as a Black instrument. 27 00:01:27,043 --> 00:01:29,263 All those things have been considered for so many years 28 00:01:29,393 --> 00:01:31,403 to be slave food, 29 00:01:31,526 --> 00:01:33,786 right now, everyone wants to celebrate it. 30 00:01:33,919 --> 00:01:36,919 The memories and talents of the enslaved Africans 31 00:01:37,053 --> 00:01:38,883 who arrived here 32 00:01:39,011 --> 00:01:41,411 helped to create the culture of the new world 33 00:01:41,536 --> 00:01:44,706 in a way we have only just begun to understand. 34 00:02:06,082 --> 00:02:08,522 This community was started by the Africans 35 00:02:08,650 --> 00:02:10,910 who were on the last illegal slave ship 36 00:02:11,043 --> 00:02:13,873 to arrive in America, "The Clotilde." 37 00:02:16,701 --> 00:02:18,621 Five years after they were brought here, 38 00:02:18,747 --> 00:02:21,527 the end of the Civil War set them free 39 00:02:21,663 --> 00:02:23,883 and they started the only African-run town in America. 40 00:02:26,624 --> 00:02:28,974 Grammy award-winning musician, Rhiannon Giddens and I 41 00:02:29,105 --> 00:02:30,885 are here with Joe'l Billingsley 42 00:02:31,020 --> 00:02:32,500 who brought us here to see the monument 43 00:02:32,630 --> 00:02:36,110 honoring her great-great- grandfather, Kazoola, 44 00:02:36,243 --> 00:02:38,983 one of the founders of Africatown. 45 00:02:39,115 --> 00:02:41,855 Kazoola happens to be the one we know the most about. 46 00:02:41,987 --> 00:02:43,377 Right. 47 00:02:43,511 --> 00:02:46,211 Because he lived longer and he shared his story 48 00:02:46,340 --> 00:02:48,780 in a way that a lot of us are learning about it now. 49 00:02:48,907 --> 00:02:49,947 Wow. 50 00:02:50,082 --> 00:02:52,742 My grandmother was born in 18 something. 51 00:02:52,868 --> 00:02:55,778 So her mother was a slave. 52 00:02:55,914 --> 00:03:00,014 So she could talk to me about what that was. 53 00:03:00,136 --> 00:03:03,176 That forms us in interesting kinds of ways. 54 00:03:03,313 --> 00:03:05,013 I mean, people always talk about slavery 55 00:03:05,141 --> 00:03:05,971 like it's ancient history. 56 00:03:06,098 --> 00:03:07,618 - Yeah. - And it's not. 57 00:03:07,752 --> 00:03:09,802 - Mm-mm - And lasted a long time. 58 00:03:09,928 --> 00:03:10,928 That. Yeah. 59 00:03:12,235 --> 00:03:14,365 In Africatown, they grew their own food. 60 00:03:14,498 --> 00:03:16,808 They established their own community 61 00:03:16,935 --> 00:03:18,325 based on what they did in their homeland, 62 00:03:18,459 --> 00:03:20,809 based on their traditions. 63 00:03:20,939 --> 00:03:23,199 And so as you sort of move through the decades, 64 00:03:23,333 --> 00:03:25,213 you'll see that, that community at one time, 65 00:03:25,335 --> 00:03:26,945 when it was thriving, had everything you needed. 66 00:03:29,687 --> 00:03:31,777 Didn't have to go anywhere, to go to the grocery store, 67 00:03:31,907 --> 00:03:33,867 see a doctor to be educated 68 00:03:33,996 --> 00:03:36,036 or even have some entertainment. 69 00:03:37,739 --> 00:03:40,999 Everything you needed to live 70 00:03:41,133 --> 00:03:43,883 was right here in the community. 71 00:03:44,006 --> 00:03:47,006 And so when you talk to people, they have so much pride 72 00:03:47,139 --> 00:03:49,229 in what it used to be. 73 00:03:49,359 --> 00:03:52,969 One time it was 12,000 people, now it's 2000. 74 00:03:58,107 --> 00:03:59,977 Now we're trying to revive Africatown. 75 00:04:03,591 --> 00:04:05,201 We have a place called Kazoola, 76 00:04:05,332 --> 00:04:07,992 named after my great-great- great-grandfather. 77 00:04:23,001 --> 00:04:24,441 So why are you the first Black 78 00:04:24,568 --> 00:04:26,048 person I ever seen play a banjo? 79 00:04:26,178 --> 00:04:27,788 - That's the question. - That is the question. 80 00:04:27,919 --> 00:04:29,619 Because it was like, I grew up seeing white people 81 00:04:29,747 --> 00:04:31,707 play the banjo and kind of going, 82 00:04:31,836 --> 00:04:35,226 oh, that's cool, but it's not part of my culture. 83 00:04:35,362 --> 00:04:37,802 And then I found there are some recordings 84 00:04:37,929 --> 00:04:39,669 of the Black players of this music. 85 00:04:39,801 --> 00:04:41,931 And then as I started to dig 86 00:04:42,064 --> 00:04:44,764 and, like, this used to be a huge tradition. 87 00:04:44,893 --> 00:04:46,943 It was an enormous tradition all across, 88 00:04:47,069 --> 00:04:49,199 not just the south, but all across the country. 89 00:04:49,332 --> 00:04:53,122 So I know the banjo as this, metal strings, 90 00:04:53,249 --> 00:04:55,989 metallic instrument often played bluegrass style. 91 00:04:56,121 --> 00:04:58,861 And then I learned that the banjo 92 00:04:58,994 --> 00:05:01,134 was an African American instrument. 93 00:05:01,257 --> 00:05:03,907 So it looked more like this. 94 00:05:04,042 --> 00:05:06,522 It was known by everybody as a Black instrument. 95 00:05:06,654 --> 00:05:08,874 The emblem of being Black was the banjo. 96 00:05:13,922 --> 00:05:17,102 Then you have a change in the 1820s, and 30s, 97 00:05:17,229 --> 00:05:20,149 and that's when white folk started going. 98 00:05:20,276 --> 00:05:22,966 "That's really cool. I would like to play that." 99 00:05:23,105 --> 00:05:26,755 So you have white entertainers picking up the banjo. 100 00:05:26,891 --> 00:05:28,811 The reason why we don't talk about this shift 101 00:05:28,937 --> 00:05:30,767 is because the white folks playing this banjo 102 00:05:30,895 --> 00:05:32,675 would have been doing it in blackface. 103 00:05:32,810 --> 00:05:35,810 This entire industry becomes the blackface minstrel show, 104 00:05:35,944 --> 00:05:37,554 is the most popular form of entertainment 105 00:05:37,685 --> 00:05:39,985 for, like, over 60 years. 106 00:05:40,122 --> 00:05:42,782 Are you saying that what we know as bluegrass today 107 00:05:42,907 --> 00:05:46,037 actually began with African Americans? 108 00:05:46,171 --> 00:05:48,001 - 100% - Wow. 109 00:05:48,130 --> 00:05:49,390 That's exactly what we're saying. 110 00:05:49,523 --> 00:05:50,793 Wow. 111 00:05:50,915 --> 00:05:52,525 So are you saying the original do-si-do 112 00:05:52,656 --> 00:05:54,176 was an African American thing? 113 00:05:54,310 --> 00:05:57,570 So, way back when you have nothing but dances 114 00:05:57,705 --> 00:05:59,965 as entertainment, and you have plantations, 115 00:06:00,098 --> 00:06:02,538 the musicians for these balls are African American. 116 00:06:02,666 --> 00:06:04,146 Almost always. 117 00:06:04,276 --> 00:06:06,706 And so they are forced to learn European dances, 118 00:06:06,844 --> 00:06:08,634 European music, 119 00:06:08,759 --> 00:06:12,019 and then they are themselves mixing it. 120 00:06:12,154 --> 00:06:14,334 The thing that sets apart American square dancing, 121 00:06:14,461 --> 00:06:17,251 and country dances from Europe is the calling. 122 00:06:17,377 --> 00:06:18,807 You don't have callers. 123 00:06:18,943 --> 00:06:20,343 And that's the thing that you think. 124 00:06:24,122 --> 00:06:25,692 That stuff. 125 00:06:25,820 --> 00:06:27,170 These are the innovations that make this music 126 00:06:27,299 --> 00:06:30,129 uniquely American are African American. 127 00:06:56,938 --> 00:06:58,158 Do it again now, come on! 128 00:07:11,169 --> 00:07:11,999 Yeah! 129 00:07:23,355 --> 00:07:25,835 We're here in Costa Rica, 130 00:07:25,967 --> 00:07:28,137 because of a local group of young divers 131 00:07:28,273 --> 00:07:30,803 believes that Africans contributed 132 00:07:30,928 --> 00:07:33,058 to their history and culture. 133 00:07:33,191 --> 00:07:36,151 This time we're not diving to investigate the deaths 134 00:07:36,281 --> 00:07:38,241 of those that never made it. 135 00:07:38,370 --> 00:07:40,760 This time, we're investigating one group 136 00:07:40,895 --> 00:07:42,025 that may have survived. 137 00:07:47,423 --> 00:07:50,303 Before we do any diving, Alannah, Kinga and I 138 00:07:50,426 --> 00:07:52,646 are traveling through Southern Costa Rica 139 00:07:52,776 --> 00:07:54,686 on our way to a remote village, 140 00:07:54,822 --> 00:07:56,212 several hours from the ocean 141 00:07:56,345 --> 00:07:58,775 into the rainforest of the Highlands. 142 00:08:04,614 --> 00:08:05,924 We're meeting members of an indigenous group 143 00:08:06,050 --> 00:08:07,970 called the Bribri. 144 00:08:08,096 --> 00:08:10,266 They're considered to be descendants of the Mayans, 145 00:08:10,402 --> 00:08:12,142 but there might be another side to that story. 146 00:08:17,235 --> 00:08:19,975 Their folklore tells of slave ships 147 00:08:20,108 --> 00:08:21,938 that were wrecked on the Costa Rican shoreline, 148 00:08:22,066 --> 00:08:23,326 and of Africans who came ashore 149 00:08:23,459 --> 00:08:25,939 to make a new life for themselves in the forests. 150 00:08:28,246 --> 00:08:29,676 But their African ancestry 151 00:08:29,813 --> 00:08:32,823 has always been considered to be a mere tribal legend. 152 00:08:36,516 --> 00:08:39,946 Maria Suarez Toro has invited us here to a Bribri feast 153 00:08:40,084 --> 00:08:41,354 to see if we can help this community 154 00:08:41,477 --> 00:08:44,127 reclaim its lost history. 155 00:09:11,028 --> 00:09:13,728 I would like to thank everyone for inviting us here 156 00:09:13,857 --> 00:09:15,947 to hear your story. 157 00:09:16,077 --> 00:09:18,297 On some level I'm jealous 158 00:09:18,427 --> 00:09:22,207 because my question is always where do you come from? 159 00:09:22,344 --> 00:09:25,174 And the answer to that for me is always, 160 00:09:25,303 --> 00:09:26,653 I don't know. 161 00:09:26,783 --> 00:09:31,793 I don't have a connection to my home or my people 162 00:09:31,919 --> 00:09:34,749 so to be able to assist 163 00:09:34,878 --> 00:09:37,358 in answering those questions 164 00:09:37,489 --> 00:09:40,839 is a connection for me. 165 00:09:47,282 --> 00:09:50,242 I want to hear the local story. 166 00:09:50,372 --> 00:09:52,072 What do locals say about what happened 167 00:09:52,200 --> 00:09:53,030 or those shipwrecks? 168 00:10:13,308 --> 00:10:15,138 I can't really imagine. 169 00:10:15,266 --> 00:10:17,486 You've just wrecked up in the middle of nowhere. 170 00:10:17,617 --> 00:10:19,227 You have no idea where you are. 171 00:10:19,357 --> 00:10:21,187 You look to your left, and it's just ocean. 172 00:10:21,316 --> 00:10:24,096 And then you look to your right, and you see dark forest. 173 00:10:26,147 --> 00:10:27,277 You have to make a choice. 174 00:10:27,409 --> 00:10:29,239 Do you try and go back to the wreck 175 00:10:29,367 --> 00:10:30,927 or do you go into the rainforest? 176 00:10:31,065 --> 00:10:45,905 That must've been absolutely terrifying. 177 00:10:46,036 --> 00:10:54,216 That must've been absolutely terrifying. 178 00:10:54,349 --> 00:10:56,179 - The Bribri adopted them. - Yeah. 179 00:10:56,307 --> 00:10:57,437 And they went into the rainforest, 180 00:10:57,569 --> 00:10:59,089 and the Bribri adopted them. 181 00:10:59,223 --> 00:11:03,403 That's an amazing, an amazing story. 182 00:11:05,316 --> 00:11:07,056 From time to time, these teenage divers 183 00:11:07,188 --> 00:11:10,148 have seen artifacts off shore. 184 00:11:10,278 --> 00:11:12,538 If we can connect them to slave ships, 185 00:11:12,672 --> 00:11:14,942 we'll be able to back up the legends with hard evidence. 186 00:11:24,292 --> 00:11:27,302 When enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas, 187 00:11:27,425 --> 00:11:29,075 it wasn't just their bodies that came here. 188 00:11:31,212 --> 00:11:34,002 They brought their memories and ideas with them. 189 00:11:34,128 --> 00:11:36,128 And there's evidence for this transfer of culture 190 00:11:36,260 --> 00:11:38,090 wherever Africans were taken. 191 00:11:43,354 --> 00:11:46,014 In Brazil, tens of thousands of artifacts 192 00:11:46,140 --> 00:11:48,100 have been discovered at a site in Rio de Janeiro, 193 00:11:48,229 --> 00:11:50,189 that once processed 194 00:11:50,318 --> 00:11:52,148 up to 1,000,000 newly enslaved Africans. 195 00:11:54,409 --> 00:11:56,019 Archeologists here have unearthed 196 00:11:56,150 --> 00:11:57,630 some of the most intimate objects 197 00:11:57,760 --> 00:12:11,380 associated with the slave trade. 198 00:12:11,513 --> 00:12:13,343 This is a cowrie shell. 199 00:12:13,471 --> 00:12:14,471 You see these in the Gulf of Guinea 200 00:12:14,603 --> 00:12:22,223 on the coast of West and Central Africa. 201 00:12:22,350 --> 00:12:23,440 So an enslaved African would have brought this 202 00:12:23,568 --> 00:12:26,178 with them right up to Brazil? 203 00:12:26,310 --> 00:12:27,090 Yes. 204 00:12:39,497 --> 00:12:41,237 - It's incredible. - Yeah. 205 00:12:41,369 --> 00:12:43,589 So this is a pipe that an African 206 00:12:43,719 --> 00:12:45,459 would have actually brought with them and smoked. 207 00:12:45,590 --> 00:12:47,110 Yeah. 208 00:12:47,244 --> 00:12:48,294 There's something quite intimate about that. 209 00:12:48,419 --> 00:12:51,989 It's a very personal thing that you carry with you 210 00:12:52,119 --> 00:12:56,429 that you use for comfort. 211 00:12:56,558 --> 00:12:57,818 Oh wow. 212 00:12:57,951 --> 00:13:00,041 These are the kinds of beads that African women wear- 213 00:13:00,170 --> 00:13:01,480 Yes. 214 00:13:01,606 --> 00:13:03,256 Right up till today, you see them in countries 215 00:13:03,391 --> 00:13:04,571 in West Africa. 216 00:13:04,696 --> 00:13:09,476 I'm just imagining a woman who was enslaved 217 00:13:09,614 --> 00:13:13,054 clinging on to this vestige of her dignity, 218 00:13:13,183 --> 00:13:18,453 of her style, of her culture. 219 00:13:18,580 --> 00:13:20,280 Is it a spiritual thing? 220 00:13:20,408 --> 00:13:21,578 Does it bring good luck or protection? 221 00:13:21,713 --> 00:13:23,113 Protection, mostly perfections. 222 00:13:26,893 --> 00:13:29,333 So that culture of wearing these survives till today 223 00:13:29,460 --> 00:13:31,900 in areas where there's a lot of African heritage in Brazil? 224 00:13:32,028 --> 00:13:32,548 Yes. 225 00:13:39,340 --> 00:13:41,210 - It is a ring. - Yep. 226 00:13:41,342 --> 00:13:44,262 As a woman, I know that a ring is a very precious thing, 227 00:13:44,388 --> 00:13:45,998 no matter what it's made out of. 228 00:13:46,129 --> 00:13:48,389 It's a very personal object. 229 00:13:48,523 --> 00:13:50,313 Now looking at all of these things, 230 00:13:50,438 --> 00:13:53,178 I feel that when we talk about the Africans 231 00:13:53,310 --> 00:13:55,270 involved in the slave trade, 232 00:13:55,399 --> 00:13:57,269 they're often these nameless faceless victims, 233 00:13:57,401 --> 00:13:59,271 we don't have photos of them. 234 00:13:59,403 --> 00:14:02,283 Their names were changed or forgotten, 235 00:14:02,406 --> 00:14:05,016 but these things are so personal and intimate, 236 00:14:05,148 --> 00:14:07,628 it really gives them a face. 237 00:14:07,759 --> 00:14:10,329 Really brings them to life as living people 238 00:14:10,458 --> 00:14:16,248 who had their own style, their habits and their culture. 239 00:14:21,512 --> 00:14:23,692 Most people in Costa Rica don't take the folklore 240 00:14:23,819 --> 00:14:26,299 about the Bribri's ancestry very seriously, 241 00:14:26,430 --> 00:14:30,520 but marine archeologist Andreas Bloch does. 242 00:14:30,652 --> 00:14:34,312 He thinks he might even have identified 243 00:14:34,438 --> 00:14:37,178 the exact ships the legends are talking about. 244 00:14:37,311 --> 00:14:39,271 He found the clues in the archives 245 00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:40,270 back home in Denmark. 246 00:14:42,446 --> 00:14:44,576 I didn't know Denmark was involved in the slave trade. 247 00:14:44,709 --> 00:14:47,229 I didn't know how large scale we were involved 248 00:14:47,364 --> 00:14:48,544 in slave trade. 249 00:14:48,670 --> 00:14:50,720 I couldn't believe when I started looking 250 00:14:50,846 --> 00:14:52,666 at what had been written. 251 00:14:52,804 --> 00:14:55,684 Scholars suspect that two specific slave ships 252 00:14:55,807 --> 00:14:57,027 made it to this coast. 253 00:14:57,157 --> 00:14:58,377 I think they're right. 254 00:14:58,506 --> 00:15:00,196 Looking at the material, it's the first time 255 00:15:00,334 --> 00:15:02,124 that Denmark ever sends two ships 256 00:15:02,249 --> 00:15:04,769 on the same sort of voyage. 257 00:15:04,904 --> 00:15:08,124 They left Copenhagen and 1708, 258 00:15:08,255 --> 00:15:10,385 "Christianus Quintus" 259 00:15:10,518 --> 00:15:12,348 and "Fredericus Quartus." 260 00:15:12,476 --> 00:15:14,776 They're going to go to West Africa, 261 00:15:14,914 --> 00:15:18,134 get slaves and then transport them to the West Indies. 262 00:15:18,265 --> 00:15:20,745 When they leave West Africa, 263 00:15:20,876 --> 00:15:22,436 they are in bad weather conditions, 264 00:15:22,573 --> 00:15:24,793 but they're completely lost. 265 00:15:24,924 --> 00:15:29,194 They're in open waters for days and days and days. 266 00:15:29,319 --> 00:15:31,099 And they end up about here. 267 00:15:31,234 --> 00:15:33,374 - Ola. - Hi, guys. 268 00:15:33,497 --> 00:15:36,107 One of the reasons that we know that the two ships could be here 269 00:15:36,239 --> 00:15:37,629 is because in the archives, 270 00:15:37,762 --> 00:15:40,942 the name Caretto is mentioned. 271 00:15:41,070 --> 00:15:43,680 That was where they ended up, but that doesn't exist. 272 00:15:43,812 --> 00:15:46,862 So Caretto sounds a lot like Cahuita. 273 00:15:46,989 --> 00:15:49,509 And that is one of the reasons that it could be here. 274 00:15:52,125 --> 00:15:54,645 From the historical records, we know that the crew 275 00:15:54,779 --> 00:15:56,739 of "The Fredericus" and "The Christianus" 276 00:15:56,868 --> 00:15:58,908 anchored the ships close to shore 277 00:15:59,045 --> 00:16:01,125 and then mutinied against their captains. 278 00:16:02,874 --> 00:16:05,184 The conditions on board were horrendous. 279 00:16:05,312 --> 00:16:07,182 There was no food, no water, 280 00:16:07,314 --> 00:16:08,534 and they were afraid to die. 281 00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:12,190 "The Fredericus" was set on fire 282 00:16:12,319 --> 00:16:13,279 and the crew on "The Christianus" 283 00:16:13,407 --> 00:16:15,667 cut the anchor and the ship ran aground. 284 00:16:19,413 --> 00:16:21,423 The objects on board sank with the ships 285 00:16:21,545 --> 00:16:23,715 and scattered across the ocean floor. 286 00:16:31,555 --> 00:16:33,555 Most of the Africans were set ashore. 287 00:16:35,124 --> 00:16:37,474 So these might be some of the first Africans 288 00:16:37,605 --> 00:16:39,905 coming to this area and populating it. 289 00:16:40,042 --> 00:16:44,352 So we have seen a lot of artifacts out there. 290 00:16:44,481 --> 00:16:48,831 How can we link all these objects to that time period 291 00:16:48,964 --> 00:16:51,664 in which the ship actually shipwrecked here? 292 00:16:51,793 --> 00:16:54,713 Hopefully we'll find these clues that point to 293 00:16:54,839 --> 00:16:58,319 these two wrecks being "Christianus Quintus" 294 00:16:58,452 --> 00:17:00,412 and "Fredericus Quartus." 295 00:17:00,541 --> 00:17:04,151 This looks like a cargo list. Is that correct? 296 00:17:04,284 --> 00:17:05,464 Yeah, it is. 297 00:17:05,589 --> 00:17:07,329 We can see there's loads of different stuff here. 298 00:17:07,461 --> 00:17:09,331 These are canvas and there's clothes 299 00:17:09,463 --> 00:17:11,993 and there's handguns and there's timbers 300 00:17:12,118 --> 00:17:14,898 and there's bottles of wine and brandy. 301 00:17:15,034 --> 00:17:18,394 What key pieces of information and evidence 302 00:17:18,515 --> 00:17:19,855 do you have in these records that would connect them 303 00:17:19,995 --> 00:17:22,035 to these two wrecks? 304 00:17:22,171 --> 00:17:24,391 There's a lot of artifacts that would survive. 305 00:17:24,521 --> 00:17:27,391 The ceramics would survive, the glass bottles 306 00:17:27,524 --> 00:17:29,874 that are very specific in this period would survive. 307 00:17:30,005 --> 00:17:31,265 That's what we focus on. 308 00:17:31,398 --> 00:17:33,098 Sounds like we need to go diving. 309 00:17:38,492 --> 00:17:40,282 Africa's contribution to world culture 310 00:17:40,407 --> 00:17:42,577 has been pretty much ignored. 311 00:17:47,762 --> 00:17:49,502 I'm traveling to Lalibela 312 00:17:49,633 --> 00:17:51,463 to see one of the wonders of the world. 313 00:17:59,643 --> 00:18:02,733 It's an 800-year-old Orthodox church 314 00:18:02,864 --> 00:18:08,874 carved into the ground out of a single piece of rock. 315 00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:11,180 - It's quite magical. - Absolutely. 316 00:18:13,222 --> 00:18:16,752 I'm meeting the world's leading expert on African fractals. 317 00:18:16,878 --> 00:18:20,398 So tell me about fractals. What are fractals? 318 00:18:20,534 --> 00:18:22,754 Fractals are just the simplest thing in the world. 319 00:18:22,884 --> 00:18:25,764 So it's simply a pattern that repeats itself 320 00:18:25,887 --> 00:18:28,407 at different scales. 321 00:18:28,542 --> 00:18:30,632 So when you were looking at a building like this, 322 00:18:30,761 --> 00:18:34,811 you're saying the crosses on top big, medium, small. 323 00:18:34,939 --> 00:18:36,899 Right. You've got the cross within cross within crosses 324 00:18:37,028 --> 00:18:38,808 on the roof. 325 00:18:38,943 --> 00:18:41,773 At the very center there's a sort of X form. 326 00:18:41,903 --> 00:18:44,083 You can think of that as the self-reproducing heart 327 00:18:44,210 --> 00:18:46,910 of the fractal, where the thing emanates from. 328 00:18:47,038 --> 00:18:49,818 If you look down into the interior here, 329 00:18:49,954 --> 00:18:53,094 you can see that the ripples of that cross 330 00:18:53,219 --> 00:18:56,919 continue from the base of the church. 331 00:18:57,048 --> 00:18:59,528 This is really a geometric theme 332 00:18:59,660 --> 00:19:01,310 that occurs again and again and again 333 00:19:01,444 --> 00:19:02,974 in these African structures. 334 00:19:03,098 --> 00:19:04,968 This is a different way of looking at the world 335 00:19:05,100 --> 00:19:06,970 than Westerners are used to. 336 00:19:07,102 --> 00:19:08,932 Yes, that's right. 337 00:19:09,060 --> 00:19:12,410 Nature has this fractal geometry. 338 00:19:12,542 --> 00:19:15,462 It has this self similar geometry to it. 339 00:19:15,589 --> 00:19:18,589 A tree for example, you could have a branch 340 00:19:18,722 --> 00:19:20,552 and then that branch can have branches, 341 00:19:20,681 --> 00:19:22,731 and those branches can have branches. 342 00:19:22,857 --> 00:19:26,467 Clouds, the clouds are puffs of puffs. 343 00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:29,780 You see that in mountains, peaks of peaks of peaks. 344 00:19:29,907 --> 00:19:31,737 - Snowflakes. - Yes, exactly. 345 00:19:31,866 --> 00:19:35,566 So you have this fractal scaling in nature. 346 00:19:35,696 --> 00:19:39,476 But I was looking at these aerial photographs 347 00:19:39,613 --> 00:19:42,403 of African villages, thinking to myself, 348 00:19:42,529 --> 00:19:44,709 dang, those look like fractals. 349 00:19:44,835 --> 00:19:47,965 And that's when I realized there must be something 350 00:19:48,099 --> 00:19:50,449 culturally specific. 351 00:19:50,580 --> 00:19:53,190 Some form of knowledge that's going into these. 352 00:19:55,150 --> 00:19:58,020 Once you understand fractals, and you can sort of read them, 353 00:19:58,153 --> 00:20:01,553 that whole African indigenous knowledge system opens up. 354 00:20:01,678 --> 00:20:03,718 It's all over Africa. 355 00:20:03,854 --> 00:20:06,814 You see them in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso. 356 00:20:06,944 --> 00:20:08,644 I've seen them in Ghana, and Cameroon, 357 00:20:08,772 --> 00:20:11,732 South Africa, East Tanzania, 358 00:20:11,862 --> 00:20:14,472 just beautiful arrays of these fractal algorithms. 359 00:20:14,604 --> 00:20:17,044 In Addis, there's a whole building 360 00:20:17,172 --> 00:20:18,832 that's a fractal building. 361 00:20:18,956 --> 00:20:19,956 It breathes. 362 00:20:20,088 --> 00:20:22,258 It has a fractal perforation on the skin. 363 00:20:22,395 --> 00:20:26,655 And so they've massively cut the need for air conditioning. 364 00:20:26,790 --> 00:20:28,530 And it took the West a long time 365 00:20:28,662 --> 00:20:31,062 to recognize these patterns. 366 00:20:31,186 --> 00:20:33,836 It wasn't until 1977 367 00:20:33,971 --> 00:20:36,541 that the first book on fractals was published. 368 00:20:36,670 --> 00:20:39,540 Africans have been using it for centuries before then. 369 00:20:42,153 --> 00:20:44,293 Did African fractals have an impact on the world? 370 00:20:44,417 --> 00:20:46,287 Yes. 371 00:20:46,419 --> 00:20:49,159 Through a mathematically related fortune telling system. 372 00:20:49,291 --> 00:20:51,771 You're doing these random lines, you're counting them off. 373 00:20:51,902 --> 00:20:54,082 Drawing all these lines in sand. 374 00:20:54,209 --> 00:20:57,079 If there's an even number, you put down two strokes, 375 00:20:57,212 --> 00:20:59,612 there's an odd number, you put down one stroke. 376 00:20:59,736 --> 00:21:01,126 And when I went to these folks and asked them 377 00:21:01,260 --> 00:21:02,650 if they could tell me more about it they said, 378 00:21:02,783 --> 00:21:04,443 "nah, this is a secret." 379 00:21:04,567 --> 00:21:05,917 "I can't tell." 380 00:21:06,047 --> 00:21:07,827 So I had to go through the initiation ritual 381 00:21:07,962 --> 00:21:10,572 to become an Abonnema divination priest. 382 00:21:10,704 --> 00:21:14,534 So what I found was that back in the 12th century, 383 00:21:14,664 --> 00:21:17,194 the system went up into Europe 384 00:21:17,319 --> 00:21:19,709 and it was taken up by the Alchemist. 385 00:21:19,843 --> 00:21:22,503 Now, Leibniz, the German mathematician, 386 00:21:22,629 --> 00:21:24,849 when he invented the binary code, 387 00:21:24,979 --> 00:21:27,239 he was actually studying the system. 388 00:21:27,373 --> 00:21:30,113 And then it goes from Leibniz to George Boole 389 00:21:30,245 --> 00:21:32,115 creating Boolean algebra. 390 00:21:32,247 --> 00:21:33,937 Boolean algebra gets turned into hardware 391 00:21:34,075 --> 00:21:35,555 by John von Neumann, 392 00:21:35,685 --> 00:21:37,985 that's the birth of the digital computer. 393 00:21:38,122 --> 00:21:39,862 So all those little ones and zeroes running around 394 00:21:39,994 --> 00:21:41,264 in all of our digital circuits 395 00:21:41,387 --> 00:21:43,777 really start with that African origin. 396 00:21:43,911 --> 00:21:46,041 There are two different paths that you can take 397 00:21:46,174 --> 00:21:48,054 in mathematics. 398 00:21:48,176 --> 00:21:51,046 One is to think about how to impose order from the top down. 399 00:21:51,179 --> 00:21:54,529 One is think how to allow order to emerge from the bottom up. 400 00:21:55,923 --> 00:21:58,193 One of my hopes is that we can now recover 401 00:21:58,317 --> 00:22:00,707 that process that was interrupted by the slave trade. 402 00:22:11,808 --> 00:22:14,198 We're going to a dive site where young Costa Ricans 403 00:22:14,333 --> 00:22:16,253 have noticed many different artifacts 404 00:22:16,378 --> 00:22:19,028 that might shed light on their history. 405 00:22:42,230 --> 00:22:43,100 Okay. 406 00:22:48,541 --> 00:22:50,801 It's finally time to get in the water and start hunting. 407 00:22:53,284 --> 00:22:54,554 We're going to snorkel around first, 408 00:22:54,677 --> 00:22:55,847 and do a survey of the area. 409 00:23:04,383 --> 00:23:08,003 I hope that it might help to actually put together 410 00:23:08,125 --> 00:23:11,605 like all the pieces of the puzzle 411 00:23:11,738 --> 00:23:16,738 to give the voice to all those people. 412 00:23:16,873 --> 00:23:19,663 It seems easy, but it's not. 413 00:23:19,789 --> 00:23:21,839 This is a huge area to cover. 414 00:23:21,965 --> 00:23:25,005 And over 300 years, tides and storms 415 00:23:25,142 --> 00:23:26,972 would have moved the artifacts around. 416 00:23:35,196 --> 00:23:36,976 We can barely see anything down here. 417 00:23:37,111 --> 00:23:38,981 The visibility is so bad. 418 00:23:43,378 --> 00:23:46,248 Our job is to discover if there are any remains 419 00:23:46,381 --> 00:23:48,171 of the two Danish slave ships left behind. 420 00:24:19,370 --> 00:24:21,940 Woo! I found something. 421 00:24:36,039 --> 00:24:38,089 It's actually kind of hard to see down here, 422 00:24:38,215 --> 00:24:40,295 so I really didn't expect to find anything at all. 423 00:24:40,435 --> 00:24:43,345 What we found here could be significant. 424 00:24:43,482 --> 00:24:45,882 It looks like a period bottle. 425 00:24:46,006 --> 00:24:48,226 It's brown in color. 426 00:24:48,356 --> 00:24:49,706 It seems like it might have some 427 00:24:49,836 --> 00:24:52,266 manufacturing defects on it, 428 00:24:52,403 --> 00:24:55,153 but it's definitely not a modern bottle. 429 00:24:55,276 --> 00:24:58,016 And one discovery leads to another. 430 00:25:10,204 --> 00:25:11,384 Woo! 431 00:25:11,510 --> 00:25:13,080 - You got something? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. 432 00:25:19,430 --> 00:25:21,820 I've never really seen so many artifacts 433 00:25:21,955 --> 00:25:24,165 scattered around in the same place. 434 00:25:43,585 --> 00:25:47,145 Archeologically speaking, this is a treasure trove, right. 435 00:25:47,284 --> 00:25:49,204 There are items all over the place. 436 00:25:49,330 --> 00:25:51,200 So now's the time where we need to get back in, 437 00:25:51,332 --> 00:25:53,902 and start to document and record these things. 438 00:25:54,030 --> 00:25:55,080 Great job, guys. 439 00:25:57,338 --> 00:25:59,508 We don't yet know whether these artifacts 440 00:25:59,645 --> 00:26:02,125 are from the slave ships we're trying to identify. 441 00:26:02,256 --> 00:26:05,086 But finding so many so close together 442 00:26:05,215 --> 00:26:06,295 is a giant step forward. 443 00:26:35,419 --> 00:26:37,199 I've done a lot of research about time of slavery. 444 00:26:37,334 --> 00:26:39,294 And I was looking at advertisements 445 00:26:39,423 --> 00:26:42,303 where people were putting ads in the paper to sell people. 446 00:26:42,426 --> 00:26:44,856 And I saw one in particular, 447 00:26:44,994 --> 00:26:48,004 it was for a young woman who was for sale. 448 00:26:48,128 --> 00:26:50,608 And at the end of the ad, 449 00:26:50,739 --> 00:26:54,049 it said that she has with her a nine-month-old baby 450 00:26:54,177 --> 00:26:56,177 who was at the purchaser's option. 451 00:26:56,310 --> 00:26:59,970 And I don't know, those words just really... 452 00:27:00,096 --> 00:27:02,226 Stuck with me 453 00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:04,619 and thinking about her in particular. 454 00:27:52,018 --> 00:27:53,578 You have this lineage here. 455 00:27:53,715 --> 00:27:57,495 You have this connection historically to that last ship 456 00:27:57,632 --> 00:27:59,072 that was sent over here. 457 00:27:59,199 --> 00:28:01,329 You know where you come from. 458 00:28:01,462 --> 00:28:04,202 I don't know necessarily where my family comes from 459 00:28:04,334 --> 00:28:07,034 in the same way, but musically, 460 00:28:07,163 --> 00:28:09,253 I know my lineage. 461 00:28:09,383 --> 00:28:11,473 There's more than one way to be connected 462 00:28:11,602 --> 00:28:13,212 to who we are as a community. 463 00:28:13,343 --> 00:28:14,913 And it's not just blood. 464 00:28:17,826 --> 00:28:20,176 In the gathering place right behind Kazoola, 465 00:28:20,307 --> 00:28:21,917 the Africatown community has symbols 466 00:28:22,048 --> 00:28:23,308 to commemorate their ancestors. 467 00:28:26,487 --> 00:28:28,267 Family and friends, in the presence of God, 468 00:28:28,402 --> 00:28:30,272 we come to pour our libation 469 00:28:30,404 --> 00:28:33,104 in memory of our faith and blood. 470 00:28:33,233 --> 00:28:35,763 Growing up not far from here, 471 00:28:35,888 --> 00:28:39,538 I would never have imagined the traditional African ceremony 472 00:28:39,674 --> 00:28:41,554 survived in Alabama. 473 00:28:41,676 --> 00:28:44,846 When we pour libation, we awaken the ancestors. 474 00:28:44,984 --> 00:28:47,124 We talk to them. 475 00:28:47,247 --> 00:28:49,337 We're going to pour forth water to symbolize 476 00:28:49,466 --> 00:28:52,116 the richness of our inheritance, 477 00:28:52,252 --> 00:28:55,212 to symbolize how nourishing is the earth 478 00:28:55,342 --> 00:28:56,342 which has fed our lives 479 00:28:56,473 --> 00:28:58,133 and all our previous generations. 480 00:28:58,258 --> 00:29:00,388 In response to each pouring, 481 00:29:00,521 --> 00:29:04,571 I would like for you to respond "ashe", 482 00:29:04,699 --> 00:29:06,139 which means, "so be it." 483 00:29:06,266 --> 00:29:08,086 Repeat after me, ashe. 484 00:29:08,224 --> 00:29:09,314 Ashe. 485 00:29:11,227 --> 00:29:14,227 For many years, those Africans from "The Clotilda" 486 00:29:14,361 --> 00:29:17,101 held rituals and rites and buried their kin 487 00:29:17,233 --> 00:29:20,023 in this sacred space. 488 00:29:20,149 --> 00:29:22,589 If you would, call out the names 489 00:29:22,717 --> 00:29:25,107 of those who you have buried. 490 00:29:25,241 --> 00:29:26,201 Kazoola. 491 00:29:26,329 --> 00:29:27,979 Ashe. 492 00:29:28,114 --> 00:29:30,994 - Ashe. 493 00:29:31,117 --> 00:29:33,027 - Ashe. 494 00:29:36,513 --> 00:29:38,213 Ashe. 495 00:29:43,651 --> 00:29:46,391 We found many different artifacts on our last dive, 496 00:29:46,523 --> 00:29:48,573 but only Andreas can tell us if they match 497 00:29:48,699 --> 00:29:50,609 the two Danish slave ships 498 00:29:50,745 --> 00:29:53,355 that may have brought the enslaved Africans over here. 499 00:29:56,751 --> 00:29:58,321 What do you think? 500 00:29:58,448 --> 00:30:02,538 This plate, I'm quite sure that that is after 1850. 501 00:30:02,670 --> 00:30:07,070 So if it's from after 1710, it's not related to the wrecks. 502 00:30:07,196 --> 00:30:09,366 This is a broken piece of ceramic. 503 00:30:09,503 --> 00:30:11,203 What do you think about that? 504 00:30:11,331 --> 00:30:13,251 Could be from this period? 505 00:30:13,376 --> 00:30:19,206 It could also be 150, 180 years more recent. 506 00:30:19,339 --> 00:30:21,299 Also, this is an interesting bottle. 507 00:30:23,386 --> 00:30:24,736 It's difficult to see in this photo, 508 00:30:24,866 --> 00:30:27,866 but it looks like it has the shape of this onion bottle. 509 00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:30,310 That's one of the things that we know from the cargo list 510 00:30:30,437 --> 00:30:33,267 is that we have 66 bottles of wine. 511 00:30:33,396 --> 00:30:36,306 And we also know that we have French brandy. 512 00:30:36,443 --> 00:30:39,143 So this particular piece is quite promising then? 513 00:30:39,272 --> 00:30:41,622 This is definitely an interesting object. 514 00:30:41,752 --> 00:30:45,322 There are artifacts here from so many time periods 515 00:30:45,452 --> 00:30:47,542 that we can't fully identify any of them 516 00:30:47,671 --> 00:30:49,371 with the Danish ships. 517 00:30:49,499 --> 00:30:52,289 So Andreas wants to focus on a kind of object 518 00:30:52,415 --> 00:30:54,585 that could have only come from Denmark. 519 00:30:54,722 --> 00:30:57,902 So we know that there are all these different types of cargo. 520 00:30:58,030 --> 00:31:02,250 Handguns, and there's bottles of wine and brandy. 521 00:31:02,382 --> 00:31:04,172 But one thing that is very specifically Danish 522 00:31:04,297 --> 00:31:06,077 is the yellow brick. 523 00:31:06,212 --> 00:31:07,522 The yellow brick? 524 00:31:07,648 --> 00:31:09,608 We know from the archives that they usually carried 525 00:31:09,737 --> 00:31:12,257 sort of around 40,000 bricks. 526 00:31:12,392 --> 00:31:14,702 What would make these bricks Danish? 527 00:31:14,829 --> 00:31:18,179 The size of the brick is specifically very, very Danish. 528 00:31:18,311 --> 00:31:21,361 - I did bring one. - Can we see? 529 00:31:21,488 --> 00:31:23,618 - Can we handle it? - You can handle it. 530 00:31:23,751 --> 00:31:26,321 This is a brick found in Denmark, 531 00:31:26,449 --> 00:31:28,709 and this size is specifically Danish. 532 00:31:28,843 --> 00:31:31,763 And it's very often that they're yellow. 533 00:31:31,890 --> 00:31:35,070 If you were to find bricks of this size, this color, 534 00:31:35,197 --> 00:31:36,627 could be more reddish, 535 00:31:36,764 --> 00:31:39,424 then it would definitely be a smoking gun. 536 00:31:39,549 --> 00:31:41,549 So there would be a lot of bricks? 537 00:31:41,682 --> 00:31:43,512 Probably not going to look like a gigantic pile 538 00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:45,080 of 40,000 bricks, 539 00:31:45,207 --> 00:31:49,387 but it will be sort of a substantial area of bricks. 540 00:31:49,516 --> 00:31:52,166 So this is what we're looking for, huh? 541 00:31:52,301 --> 00:31:53,221 This will be our smoking gun. 542 00:31:57,045 --> 00:32:00,735 Jamaica was a plantation economy, 543 00:32:00,875 --> 00:32:03,045 completely dependent on hundreds of thousands 544 00:32:03,182 --> 00:32:04,622 of enslaved Africans. 545 00:32:04,748 --> 00:32:09,488 Remarkably, some of them helped plant the first seeds 546 00:32:09,623 --> 00:32:11,453 of democracy in the Americas. 547 00:32:13,366 --> 00:32:14,666 - Dorrick. - Hey. 548 00:32:14,802 --> 00:32:15,632 -Hi. - Hello 549 00:32:15,759 --> 00:32:16,669 So good to meet you. 550 00:32:16,804 --> 00:32:19,334 Yes. Welcome. Welcome to Port Royal. 551 00:32:19,459 --> 00:32:20,419 Thank you. 552 00:32:20,547 --> 00:32:22,157 And it all connects 553 00:32:22,288 --> 00:32:25,728 to the original Pirates of the Caribbean. 554 00:32:25,856 --> 00:32:28,946 What kind of city was here in the 1600s? 555 00:32:40,045 --> 00:32:42,915 Port Royal was also full of brothels. 556 00:32:43,048 --> 00:32:46,918 It was known as the wickedest city on earth. 557 00:32:47,052 --> 00:32:49,402 But along with all that drinking and debauchery, 558 00:32:49,532 --> 00:32:52,192 came freedom and the form of democracy 559 00:32:52,318 --> 00:32:54,358 in which Africans would play a part. 560 00:33:02,110 --> 00:33:04,370 I heard there were records showing pirate ships 561 00:33:04,504 --> 00:33:08,074 whose crews were made up of as much as 30% escaped Africans. 562 00:33:08,203 --> 00:33:09,733 Yes. 563 00:33:09,857 --> 00:33:12,117 The plantations were complaining that they had 564 00:33:12,251 --> 00:33:14,251 2,500 enslaved Africans 565 00:33:14,383 --> 00:33:18,173 that ran away to join the pirates. 566 00:33:20,433 --> 00:33:22,303 When you're on board these vessels, 567 00:33:22,435 --> 00:33:24,605 every man was equal. 568 00:33:24,741 --> 00:33:28,271 It was not question of the color of your skin, 569 00:33:28,397 --> 00:33:30,787 but it was the skills you have. 570 00:33:30,921 --> 00:33:32,531 Pirates actually gave opportunities? 571 00:33:32,662 --> 00:33:33,842 Yes. 572 00:33:33,968 --> 00:33:37,578 Because on board, it was one man, one vote. 573 00:33:42,150 --> 00:33:44,330 It is remarkable that at a time when Africans 574 00:33:44,457 --> 00:33:46,327 had been classified as subhuman, 575 00:33:46,459 --> 00:33:48,899 here was a world where they had an equal vote, 576 00:33:49,027 --> 00:33:52,027 and an equal say alongside their white counterparts. 577 00:34:01,082 --> 00:34:03,432 So here is the remains of Port Royal 578 00:34:03,563 --> 00:34:05,483 that is now completely submerged. 579 00:34:05,608 --> 00:34:07,608 - Submerged underwater. - Underwater. 580 00:34:07,741 --> 00:34:11,351 I'm not a diver, but I can snorkel. 581 00:34:11,484 --> 00:34:13,574 So I joined the pros to see what remains 582 00:34:13,703 --> 00:34:15,183 of this underwater city. 583 00:34:15,314 --> 00:34:16,454 Woo! 584 00:34:22,843 --> 00:34:25,063 You can still see the foundations of buildings 585 00:34:25,193 --> 00:34:29,593 and sometimes 17th century artifacts 586 00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:31,199 like this onion bottle. 587 00:34:36,639 --> 00:34:40,859 For about 20 years, this submerged city 588 00:34:40,991 --> 00:34:43,041 was a place where Black pirates 589 00:34:43,168 --> 00:34:46,428 got to vote at sea and on land, 590 00:34:46,562 --> 00:34:49,872 helping to plant democratic ideas 591 00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:51,440 in the new world. 592 00:34:58,444 --> 00:34:59,974 After talking with the locals, 593 00:35:00,098 --> 00:35:02,668 we learned that there are a few more locations further out 594 00:35:02,796 --> 00:35:04,706 that could have what we're looking for: 595 00:35:04,841 --> 00:35:08,671 Evidence of Danish slave ships. 596 00:35:08,802 --> 00:35:10,152 In addition to those yellow bricks, 597 00:35:10,282 --> 00:35:13,762 we're also looking for bigger things like cannons, 598 00:35:13,894 --> 00:35:16,984 cannon balls, gold, and even ivory: 599 00:35:17,115 --> 00:35:20,155 things which would have been on the slave ships from Africa. 600 00:35:20,292 --> 00:35:23,772 Since we're headed further out and going into deeper water, 601 00:35:23,904 --> 00:35:25,344 snorkeling won't cut it. 602 00:35:25,471 --> 00:35:28,001 We're going to dive. 603 00:35:28,126 --> 00:35:32,346 So we need to talk dive plan and a bit more about safety. 604 00:35:32,478 --> 00:35:35,958 Salvador is going to be the lead youth diver 605 00:35:36,090 --> 00:35:38,610 in terms of safety. 606 00:35:38,745 --> 00:35:40,525 I know it's not very deep, we've had instructors 607 00:35:40,660 --> 00:35:42,620 drown in 10 feet of water. 608 00:35:42,749 --> 00:35:44,839 So be aware of how much air you got 609 00:35:44,968 --> 00:35:45,928 remaining in your tank. 610 00:35:46,056 --> 00:35:48,356 Don't take no dive for granted, okay? 611 00:35:48,494 --> 00:35:50,894 Your life depends on your skills, 612 00:35:51,018 --> 00:35:53,668 your equipment and your attitude. 613 00:35:53,803 --> 00:35:55,893 Everybody comprende? - I do. 614 00:35:56,023 --> 00:35:57,373 Si. 615 00:35:57,503 --> 00:35:58,853 All right, let's do it. Pool's open, let's go. 616 00:36:41,155 --> 00:36:43,715 Very soon, we start to come across shards of pottery 617 00:36:43,853 --> 00:36:45,553 and a broken bottle, 618 00:36:45,681 --> 00:36:47,031 little clues that we hope will lead us 619 00:36:47,161 --> 00:36:48,511 to something much bigger. 620 00:37:03,264 --> 00:37:06,664 Amazingly, Anderson swims right into a cluster of cannons. 621 00:37:06,789 --> 00:37:08,789 It's exactly the kind of evidence 622 00:37:08,922 --> 00:37:10,972 we've been searching for. 623 00:37:11,098 --> 00:37:13,578 The more I saw, the more there were. 624 00:37:13,709 --> 00:37:15,279 So that was amazing. 625 00:37:15,407 --> 00:37:17,797 They're beside each other, they're across each other. 626 00:37:20,673 --> 00:37:23,113 There are some cannons that just looked like coral. 627 00:37:23,241 --> 00:37:25,591 They were so heavily encrusted, the ocean's taking it back. 628 00:37:27,636 --> 00:37:29,546 But we know distinctively that they're cannons. 629 00:37:29,682 --> 00:37:31,552 You can see the bore on some of them. 630 00:37:31,684 --> 00:37:32,994 Some of the bores are covered up. 631 00:37:35,862 --> 00:37:38,212 Cannons can give us a lot of information. 632 00:37:38,343 --> 00:37:40,613 We saw about eight, 10, maybe 12. 633 00:37:40,736 --> 00:37:42,646 But if there's more, it could tell us 634 00:37:42,782 --> 00:37:44,522 the size of the vessel. 635 00:37:44,653 --> 00:37:46,093 We know the size of "The Fredericus" 636 00:37:46,220 --> 00:37:47,870 and "The Christianus" 637 00:37:48,004 --> 00:37:49,664 so, that would be very insightful. 638 00:37:49,789 --> 00:37:52,269 The cannons were amazing, 639 00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:54,710 but there were still more surprises to come. 640 00:37:56,404 --> 00:37:59,194 Even with 300 years of coral growth, 641 00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:02,060 there was no mistaking the shape of our next discovery: 642 00:38:02,192 --> 00:38:06,072 A fully intact anchor. 643 00:38:06,196 --> 00:38:09,636 The shape of the anchor, it's about three, four meters. 644 00:38:09,765 --> 00:38:11,065 Come from a very large ship 645 00:38:11,201 --> 00:38:13,071 just based on the size of that anchor. 646 00:38:13,203 --> 00:38:15,513 Two floats are there. 647 00:38:15,641 --> 00:38:17,731 Each one is about a foot wide 648 00:38:17,860 --> 00:38:20,470 and maybe another foot and a half long. 649 00:38:20,602 --> 00:38:22,042 So in beautiful shape. 650 00:38:22,169 --> 00:38:24,169 There's some incredible stuff. 651 00:38:24,302 --> 00:38:26,172 Some more evidence that we can put in the mix 652 00:38:26,304 --> 00:38:28,924 and try to figure out what's going on at the site. 653 00:38:31,657 --> 00:38:33,137 The first time I saw the anchor, 654 00:38:33,267 --> 00:38:34,957 for me is amazing. 655 00:38:35,095 --> 00:38:37,355 I asked my grandfather and my grandmother 656 00:38:37,489 --> 00:38:41,139 and they both say yes, I had an African ancestors, 657 00:38:41,275 --> 00:38:43,925 and they both had like connecting histories 658 00:38:44,060 --> 00:38:46,110 with slaves. 659 00:38:46,236 --> 00:38:48,756 To know that makes me feel that 660 00:38:48,891 --> 00:38:49,981 I'm more connected to my history. 661 00:38:52,721 --> 00:38:54,031 It's not in the history books. 662 00:38:54,157 --> 00:38:56,067 It's not in the documents. 663 00:38:56,203 --> 00:38:58,293 And if they find it themselves, 664 00:38:58,423 --> 00:39:00,343 they begin asking the right questions. 665 00:39:00,468 --> 00:39:04,988 And the right question is, where do I come from? 666 00:39:05,125 --> 00:39:08,905 What has that meant in the life of me and my community? 667 00:39:13,655 --> 00:39:14,565 Clearly the pieces of the puzzle 668 00:39:14,700 --> 00:39:16,790 are falling into place. 669 00:39:16,919 --> 00:39:19,839 But going off of what Andreas has said, 670 00:39:19,966 --> 00:39:21,966 we're continuing to follow the yellow brick road. 671 00:39:33,936 --> 00:39:36,236 Jekyll Island, Georgia, like Africatown, 672 00:39:36,374 --> 00:39:39,034 is where one of the very last slave ships arrived, 673 00:39:39,159 --> 00:39:42,209 bringing 409 people here 674 00:39:42,336 --> 00:39:44,856 just seven years before the end of the Civil War. 675 00:39:46,949 --> 00:39:49,079 Matthew Raiford studied at some of the finest 676 00:39:49,212 --> 00:39:51,082 international schools of cuisine, 677 00:39:51,214 --> 00:39:55,184 but he's returned here to honor the cuisine and culture 678 00:39:55,305 --> 00:39:58,175 that was created by his ancestors. 679 00:39:58,308 --> 00:40:00,268 Going to school, I would say things like, 680 00:40:00,398 --> 00:40:03,308 "Well, there's another way to do that right there." 681 00:40:03,444 --> 00:40:04,794 And folks would look at me like, 682 00:40:04,924 --> 00:40:05,974 "what do you mean it's another way?" 683 00:40:06,099 --> 00:40:07,059 " We're learning French cuisine." 684 00:40:07,187 --> 00:40:08,487 And I was like, 685 00:40:08,623 --> 00:40:09,103 "Well, my grandmother would do it like this." 686 00:40:09,232 --> 00:40:10,892 Grandma's food tasted better. 687 00:40:11,017 --> 00:40:12,147 And my grandma food tasted better, right? 688 00:40:12,279 --> 00:40:14,319 Raiford's come back to his family farm 689 00:40:14,455 --> 00:40:17,275 as an activist, farmer and chef, 690 00:40:17,415 --> 00:40:21,285 celebrating African American culture through food. 691 00:40:21,419 --> 00:40:24,329 We live on our own family farm. 692 00:40:24,465 --> 00:40:28,025 We've had that land since 1874 and we've always farmed it. 693 00:40:28,164 --> 00:40:30,124 We're still farming it now. 694 00:40:30,253 --> 00:40:33,913 And we're still using a lot of the old ways to farm. 695 00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:35,870 So I'm doing a little quick little cooking demo 696 00:40:35,998 --> 00:40:38,308 off of things that we grow on the farm, 697 00:40:38,436 --> 00:40:40,866 and then things that comes from the Gullah Geechee culture. 698 00:40:44,311 --> 00:40:46,881 Gullah Geechee culture is an African culture 699 00:40:47,009 --> 00:40:48,919 that took root on the sea islands, 700 00:40:49,055 --> 00:40:51,185 along the Atlantic coast of Georgia, 701 00:40:51,318 --> 00:40:54,188 Florida, North and South Carolina. 702 00:40:54,321 --> 00:40:57,891 See, during the Civil War, the white plantation owners 703 00:40:58,020 --> 00:41:01,850 fled in fear of former slaves seeking revenge. 704 00:41:01,981 --> 00:41:04,071 I mean, the African population left on its own. 705 00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:05,850 It had to hone its survival skills. 706 00:41:11,860 --> 00:41:13,910 How do you make a living when A, 707 00:41:14,036 --> 00:41:15,116 you don't have an education, 708 00:41:15,255 --> 00:41:17,255 you're stuck on a barrier Island? 709 00:41:17,387 --> 00:41:19,127 A lot of them mined what they learned 710 00:41:19,259 --> 00:41:21,739 and what they saw here 711 00:41:21,870 --> 00:41:23,220 and figured out a way to make it work. 712 00:41:23,350 --> 00:41:25,350 - Did they? - They did. 713 00:41:25,483 --> 00:41:28,093 I'm living proof that they did, 714 00:41:28,224 --> 00:41:30,104 and they did a good job of it too. 715 00:41:30,226 --> 00:41:32,786 So when they were crossing the Atlantic, 716 00:41:32,925 --> 00:41:36,185 when they were shipping their cargo, 717 00:41:36,319 --> 00:41:38,229 people, human beings, 718 00:41:38,365 --> 00:41:40,315 those human beings came with their culture? 719 00:41:40,454 --> 00:41:43,114 Absolutely. We brought our ways with us. 720 00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:44,369 We brought our foods with us. 721 00:41:44,502 --> 00:41:49,722 We bought our use of spices, of salts, of cookery. 722 00:41:49,855 --> 00:41:52,115 So when I think about American food, 723 00:41:52,248 --> 00:41:55,298 I think about the African influences 724 00:41:55,425 --> 00:41:58,205 on what comes to our plate, but also in what we grow. 725 00:41:58,341 --> 00:42:00,301 So a lot of what I thought is Southern cooking 726 00:42:00,430 --> 00:42:02,260 is really Gullah cooking: 727 00:42:02,389 --> 00:42:05,039 A cuisine made up of many ingredients 728 00:42:05,174 --> 00:42:06,654 that Africans brought here, 729 00:42:06,785 --> 00:42:08,125 including rice, 730 00:42:08,264 --> 00:42:11,094 sweet peas and okra. 731 00:42:11,224 --> 00:42:13,144 I just threw in a little bit of red pepper in, 732 00:42:13,269 --> 00:42:14,919 I want that red pepper to still have 733 00:42:15,054 --> 00:42:16,324 a little bit of bite to it. 734 00:42:16,446 --> 00:42:18,796 So that's why I put it in a little bit later. 735 00:42:18,927 --> 00:42:21,357 You've been cooking longer than that. 736 00:42:21,495 --> 00:42:23,795 Well, I'm 76 years old. 737 00:42:23,932 --> 00:42:25,462 I've been cooking since I was eight. 738 00:42:25,586 --> 00:42:26,976 - So. - My mother and father, 739 00:42:27,109 --> 00:42:28,109 they taught us how to cook everything. 740 00:42:28,241 --> 00:42:30,241 Is that where Matthew gets it? 741 00:42:30,373 --> 00:42:32,163 Well, let me tell you that boy right there, 742 00:42:32,288 --> 00:42:33,988 he's a good cook. 743 00:42:34,116 --> 00:42:35,806 I got to give him credit. He is better than me. 744 00:42:35,944 --> 00:42:37,344 I hate to say it. 745 00:42:37,467 --> 00:42:39,507 Do you remember a favorite dish from your mom? 746 00:42:39,644 --> 00:42:41,994 You know, you ever eat fried chicken gizzards? 747 00:42:42,124 --> 00:42:45,004 Not fried chicken gizzards, no. 748 00:42:45,127 --> 00:42:46,867 Yeah, people used to throw them away years ago. 749 00:42:46,999 --> 00:42:48,219 My mother used to go to slaughterhouse, 750 00:42:48,348 --> 00:42:49,958 they'd give them to her. 751 00:42:50,089 --> 00:42:51,439 She bring them home, clean them up. 752 00:42:51,569 --> 00:42:53,179 - Was it good? - Oh, yeah. 753 00:42:53,309 --> 00:42:55,699 Put a little pepper and salt in there. 754 00:42:55,834 --> 00:42:57,104 I do it today. 755 00:43:06,366 --> 00:43:08,406 So this is our vegetarian paella right here. 756 00:43:08,542 --> 00:43:10,202 Have a little bit of sweet potato leaves, 757 00:43:10,326 --> 00:43:12,236 some of the Cherokee purple tomatoes, 758 00:43:12,372 --> 00:43:14,292 some sea island red peas. 759 00:43:14,417 --> 00:43:18,327 Then, for those that aren't completely vegetarian, 760 00:43:18,465 --> 00:43:21,115 we have Sapelo clams. 761 00:43:21,250 --> 00:43:24,470 Charlie Phillips actually harvests 762 00:43:24,602 --> 00:43:25,952 these clams right here. 763 00:43:26,081 --> 00:43:27,651 He's an amazing fisherman. 764 00:43:27,779 --> 00:43:30,039 You can actually name the fisherman who got the clams. 765 00:43:30,172 --> 00:43:31,392 Yes, I can name the fisherman. 766 00:43:31,521 --> 00:43:33,481 I actually can name the fisherman. 767 00:43:33,611 --> 00:43:38,051 Those traditions came with us to bring a piece of home. 768 00:43:38,180 --> 00:43:41,840 We were known to sew, literally braid, 769 00:43:41,967 --> 00:43:43,397 and bring seeds in our hair. 770 00:43:43,533 --> 00:43:46,013 It looked like an ornament. It won't look like a seed. 771 00:43:46,145 --> 00:43:47,315 So when I bring it over, I got seed, 772 00:43:47,450 --> 00:43:49,240 I got something from home. 773 00:43:49,365 --> 00:43:50,975 When I get to my new destination, 774 00:43:51,106 --> 00:43:54,236 I plant in my new home to bring a piece of home with me. 775 00:43:54,370 --> 00:43:56,980 Every time I eat it, I still remember home. 776 00:43:57,112 --> 00:44:00,162 I still remember when my mama used to make it for me 777 00:44:00,289 --> 00:44:03,249 and my mama's mama made it for her. 778 00:44:03,379 --> 00:44:06,119 When I think of your ancestor-- - Mm-hmm. 779 00:44:06,252 --> 00:44:09,732 that was kidnapped, trafficked from Africa, 780 00:44:09,864 --> 00:44:13,874 the odds that his great-great- great-great-great-grandchild-- 781 00:44:13,999 --> 00:44:15,519 - Mm-hmm - would be here 782 00:44:15,653 --> 00:44:18,483 celebrating the culture that came on that ship. 783 00:44:18,612 --> 00:44:19,922 It's a miracle. 784 00:44:20,048 --> 00:44:21,218 It is a miracle. 785 00:44:21,354 --> 00:44:23,974 It's impacted on the world around you. 786 00:44:24,096 --> 00:44:25,266 Definitely. 787 00:44:25,401 --> 00:44:27,271 There's not a city in the United States 788 00:44:27,403 --> 00:44:28,933 that is not trying to have 789 00:44:29,057 --> 00:44:30,357 the best Southern restaurant ever. 790 00:44:30,493 --> 00:44:31,843 And what are they serving? 791 00:44:31,973 --> 00:44:33,583 Rice and peas, you know. 792 00:44:33,714 --> 00:44:35,064 They're making biscuits, cornbread, 793 00:44:35,194 --> 00:44:37,244 they're frying gizzards, right? 794 00:44:37,370 --> 00:44:39,290 So it was like, think about all of those that things 795 00:44:39,415 --> 00:44:41,285 have been considered for so many years 796 00:44:41,417 --> 00:44:44,507 to be poor people or slave food, 797 00:44:44,638 --> 00:44:47,418 right now, everyone wants to celebrate it. 798 00:44:52,820 --> 00:44:55,210 I've come to Kingston, Jamaica's capital city 799 00:44:55,344 --> 00:44:57,224 to explore the connection 800 00:44:57,346 --> 00:44:59,646 between this island's history of enslavement 801 00:44:59,784 --> 00:45:03,444 and one of its greatest exports, reggae. 802 00:45:26,114 --> 00:45:29,124 I was born here in Jamaica. 803 00:45:29,248 --> 00:45:32,558 Right. I have history, ancestry 804 00:45:32,686 --> 00:45:37,336 of a slaved trip, right? 805 00:45:37,473 --> 00:45:41,303 And the ones who survived, came here on this rock 806 00:45:41,434 --> 00:45:45,224 and I am a product of their survival. 807 00:45:45,351 --> 00:45:49,571 There is something that's innate in our people. 808 00:45:49,703 --> 00:45:53,233 When we come together we can defeat any oppression. 809 00:45:56,362 --> 00:45:58,632 It's what left of the culture or the practice, 810 00:45:58,756 --> 00:46:02,276 the traditions that they are coming across. 811 00:46:02,411 --> 00:46:06,501 We as a people, we just have to pass it on to our arts. 812 00:46:12,378 --> 00:46:15,338 Reggae has gone to all parts of the world 813 00:46:15,468 --> 00:46:17,078 inspiring people, 814 00:46:17,209 --> 00:46:19,169 because of the very soul of the music, 815 00:46:19,298 --> 00:46:23,608 and that soul has to do with an entire history of hardship, 816 00:46:23,737 --> 00:46:26,867 of oppression, of rebellion, of enslavement. 817 00:46:29,569 --> 00:46:31,609 Life on the plantation was about this oppression 818 00:46:31,745 --> 00:46:33,175 of Black life. 819 00:46:33,312 --> 00:46:36,182 The culture around the plantation life 820 00:46:36,315 --> 00:46:38,355 gets translated into what became 821 00:46:38,491 --> 00:46:40,361 Jamaica's indigenous musical genres. 822 00:46:42,712 --> 00:46:45,632 By the time we get to the 1930s, 823 00:46:45,759 --> 00:46:50,109 people began listening to Marcus Garvey's philosophy. 824 00:47:03,516 --> 00:47:05,466 Marcus Garvey with his ideas 825 00:47:05,605 --> 00:47:09,345 about returning masses of people to Africa: 826 00:47:09,478 --> 00:47:12,048 That of course gets crystallized 827 00:47:12,177 --> 00:47:13,477 in the Rastafari movement. 828 00:47:13,613 --> 00:47:15,623 And they're the ones that develop reggae? 829 00:47:15,745 --> 00:47:17,355 That's right. 830 00:47:17,486 --> 00:47:19,616 Many of the lyrics in reggae songs still talk about 831 00:47:19,749 --> 00:47:22,579 the history of slavery, about returning to Africa, 832 00:47:22,709 --> 00:47:26,319 about undoing the chains of mental slavery. 833 00:47:26,452 --> 00:47:27,582 Do you think that this is a music form 834 00:47:27,714 --> 00:47:29,154 that's keeping that history alive 835 00:47:29,281 --> 00:47:32,021 in the minds of Jamaicans and the world? 836 00:47:32,153 --> 00:47:35,293 The Rastafari people 837 00:47:35,417 --> 00:47:38,637 are the memory of the Jamaican people. 838 00:47:38,768 --> 00:47:40,638 They have been the ones to consistently 839 00:47:40,770 --> 00:47:43,560 dip into that history to show us who we are, 840 00:47:43,686 --> 00:47:44,816 show us where we're coming from 841 00:47:44,949 --> 00:47:46,599 and also showing us where we're going. 842 00:48:26,729 --> 00:48:28,779 The cannons and the anchor are important clues. 843 00:48:28,906 --> 00:48:31,336 But to identify those Danish ships once and for all, 844 00:48:31,473 --> 00:48:33,613 we need to find yellow bricks, 845 00:48:33,736 --> 00:48:35,346 a lot of them. 846 00:48:35,477 --> 00:48:37,387 So we're heading back out to search again. 847 00:48:39,655 --> 00:48:42,175 We have the opportunity to be with these kids 848 00:48:42,310 --> 00:48:44,310 and to help them find their roots. 849 00:48:44,443 --> 00:48:45,573 And that is absolutely incredible. 850 00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:00,760 It's a huge search area, 851 00:49:00,894 --> 00:49:03,724 but the location of the cannons and the anchor 852 00:49:03,853 --> 00:49:06,333 gives us hope that we're on the right track. 853 00:49:06,465 --> 00:49:10,465 Those bricks have got to be hidden out here somewhere. 854 00:49:27,051 --> 00:49:29,401 Through the sea grass and shifting sands, 855 00:49:29,531 --> 00:49:30,621 Kevin felt sure he spotted something. 856 00:50:00,519 --> 00:50:01,869 At first glance, it was hard to notice 857 00:50:01,999 --> 00:50:03,699 if there was anything different about the spot at all. 858 00:50:06,786 --> 00:50:13,656 But when we looked closer, there was a strange pattern. 859 00:50:13,793 --> 00:50:16,493 In that moment, you realize that this cold case 860 00:50:16,622 --> 00:50:18,752 that has been lying on the bottom of the ocean 861 00:50:18,885 --> 00:50:21,665 for hundreds of years is now right in front 862 00:50:21,801 --> 00:50:23,631 of you about to be solved and you're there. 863 00:50:23,759 --> 00:50:27,149 To see that, to be in that moment, 864 00:50:27,285 --> 00:50:30,195 that's a historical moment. 865 00:50:30,331 --> 00:50:31,681 This huge hill of seabed 866 00:50:31,811 --> 00:50:34,251 is actually a huge pile of bricks. 867 00:50:34,379 --> 00:50:37,029 According to the ship's manifest, 868 00:50:37,164 --> 00:50:39,434 there should be 40,000 of them down here. 869 00:50:49,437 --> 00:50:50,787 Andreas has been able to get permission 870 00:50:50,917 --> 00:50:53,087 to bring up one of the bricks for testing. 871 00:51:07,455 --> 00:51:09,535 I have it. Got it here. 872 00:51:11,633 --> 00:51:12,683 Whoo. 873 00:51:12,808 --> 00:51:14,458 - Oh, my God. - Whoo. 874 00:51:14,593 --> 00:51:16,333 So now they have an opportunity 875 00:51:16,464 --> 00:51:19,294 to rediscover their ties to their past 876 00:51:19,424 --> 00:51:21,734 and rediscover their contact 877 00:51:21,861 --> 00:51:24,211 or the connection to the enslaved Africans 878 00:51:24,342 --> 00:51:25,212 who were here. 879 00:51:32,393 --> 00:51:33,313 This is about Cahuita. 880 00:51:33,438 --> 00:51:34,608 This is about the people of Cahuita. 881 00:51:34,743 --> 00:51:35,883 This is about the bravery. 882 00:51:36,005 --> 00:51:37,615 This is about the people who are here 883 00:51:37,746 --> 00:51:40,226 to find out the truth about exactly who they are as a people 884 00:51:40,358 --> 00:51:42,528 and where they came from 885 00:51:42,664 --> 00:51:44,494 and how Africans were very much a part 886 00:51:44,623 --> 00:51:45,543 of creating this community.