A HISTORY OF BLACK DIVERS

Black divers in history from 1590 in coastal waters played prominent roles in salvaging lost treasures. People plying, fishing for shell/fish or whales found thousands of ships sank in the western Atlantic waters.¹ Salvagers fished wrecks of shallow coral shipping in Caribbean and Bahamian islands. It was risky, dangerous job.² Shipwrecked vessels struck the reefs in waters, thirty to seventy feet deep near ports. Diving deeper than twenty-five feet was greater challenge descending water pressure hurts divers’ ears. At sixty feet air in divers’ lungs compress, creates negative buoyancy, cause body to sink not to float.³ Aquanauts freedivers dive with air in lungs, for years their minds, bodies underwater begins in youth. Medical research shows the physiology of enslaved freediver adapt to repeated prolonged submersion. Water pressure and oxygen apnea help slow their metabolism. And more efficiently consume oxygen with their underwater vision twice a normal range.⁴ Pieter de Marees, a Dutch merchant adventurer traveled to Africa’s Gold Coast and Caribbean in 1590s said Africans “see underwater.”⁵ The freedivers pressurized ears and breathe, inhaled and exhaled deeply many times to expand lung capacity, oxygenated blood before taking one deep breath. In descending, equalized middle and inner ear with water pressure let air in eustachian tubes. Eardrum rupture disorientate and drown if not experienced.⁶ Released oxygen in depleting adrenalin helps the freedivers cope with the water pressures, temperatures and visibility. Surges of the underwater current forces pushed water to thrust divers and pulls them. Wind patterns and storm flows helped to move in diverse directions of depth. Divers feel movements of body, motion of boats, fish, submarine vegetation. ⁷ They remain calm on entering wrecks saw sharks knew didn’t pose risk to humans. A traveler wrote Bahamians “have little dread of sharks.”⁸ They dive every five to ten minutes, salvage from morning until noon. Most hold their breathe two or three minutes a few four minutes. A Bahamian in 1824 said “slave divers go to depth of sixty feet underwater 2-3 minutes”⁹ A Spanish policy of shipwrecks found by Amerindians or enslaved Africans mines took precious metals, commodities, Asian goods from Havana. The annual treasure of fleets from Europe in late summer to fall sails shallow reef Bahamas and Florida Straits during the hurricane seasons.¹⁰ The shipwrecks located included Mary Rose, the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, the “Bahama Wrecks,” Hartwell. The Arguin Island divers salvaged Mary Rose. Merchants, sailors or fishermen saw masts protruding in depths or dark hulks in silhouet white sand in clear Caribbean waters. Verbal accounts of the shipwreck survivors passed down in years disclose location to others. Inspired treasure hunters cruise rumoured waters across seafloors send in divers to investigate the objects spotted. Salvagers worked on wrecks before the ocean forces broke them up or scatter them. Older hulks salvaged from spring through fall as seas were calmer and underwater visibility good so operations safer and easier. In wills and estate inventories, runaway slaves saw the advertised auction notices and documents travel English seaports from Barbados to Virginia. And divers owned by slaveholder mariners waterside planters of 500 experts working as salvage divers. Owned by their different slaveholders who brought them together in teams of two to six aquanauts, few enslaved apprentices.¹¹ The salvagers operated in ill-defined border separating legal activities from piracy. The maritime law said the shipwrecked owners’ property required diver salvagers to get permission to work. Turn over salvage to ship owners, government officials, they received twenty-five per cent of value of items recovered. Salvagers cannot work hulks without the permission. English officials enforced the salvage law ally vessels salvagers paid the crown royal tenth proceeds for permission to plunder Spanish wrecks. Late eighteenth century Spanish treasure salvagers worked on wreckages of English vessels.¹² Diving skills applied in the modern diving training originated from black slaves experiences gained from them. Its a myth black people can’t swim. Some don’t want to ruin perfect hairstyles, manicured, pedicured perfect looks in swimming. Most blacks, Africans living in coastal areas excellent swimmers and divers. Finds wrecks, treasures, pearls, do spear fishing including black women for centuries.

References

1 Water as cultural space in Hau‘ofa, Epeli, “Our Sea of Islands” in idem, We Are the Ocean: Selected Works  (Honolulu, 2008), pp. 27- 40. Bolster, W. Jeffrey, “Putting Ocean in Atlantic History: Maritime Comm. & Marine Ecology, North west Atlantic 1500-1800” American History Review 113:1 (2008), pp. 19-47 Dawson, K., Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in African Diaspora  Philadelphia PA,  2018) Ingersoll, Karin Amimoto,  Waves of Knowing: A Seascape Epistemology  (Durham, NC, 2016).

2 Jarvis, Michael J., In the Eye of All Trade: Bermuda, Bermudians, and Maritime Atlantic World, 1680-1783 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2010), p. 211; Hau‘ofa, “Our Sea of Islands” Bolster, W. Jeffrey,  Mortal Sea: Fishing, Atlantic in Age of Sail (Cambridge, MA, 2012) Vickers, Daniel,  Farmers & Fishermen: Two Centuries of Work in Essex County, Massachusetts, 1630-1850 (Chapel Hill, NC,  1994) Lipman, Andrew, The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and Contest for American Coast (New Haven, CT,  2015) Niklas Frykman suggested “hinter-seas”

3 Dawson, Kevin, “Enslaved Swimmers and Divers in the Atlantic World” Journal of American History, 92:4 (2006), pp. 1346-1350

4 Idem, Undercurrents of Power, p. 67. training skilled slaves, Follett, Richard, The Sugar Masters: Planters and Slaves in Louisiana’s Cane World, 1820-1860  (Baton Rouge, LA, 2009), pp. 5, 118-150, 124-130,
126 Dawson, “Enslaved Swimmers” pp. 1327-1355.

5 de Marees,  Pieter,  Description and Historical Acc. of Gold Guinea Coasts trans. van Dantzig Albert & Jones, Adam (NY, 1987 [1602], p. 186. De Marees on South American region in Dutch, Portuguese, French discussions. Email with Adam Jones, 3 December 2011, & Ernst van den Boogaart, 5 Dec. 2011.

6 Dawson, Undercurrents of Power, pp. 68-69.

7 Author’s observations of decades of freediving and spearfishing.

8 Scott, Kenneth (ed.), City of Wreckers: Two Key West Letters of 1838”, Florida Historical Quarterly,  25:2  (1946), p. 195 Sullivan,  Edward, Rambles and Scrambles in North and South America  (London,  1852), p. 284.

9 Schoepff, Johann D, Travels in the Confederation 1783-1784, 2 (Philadelphia, PA, 1911), I, pp. 284- 285 Google Scholar; John Hope, “Description of Bermuda”, 1722, CO 37/10, fol. 218, Bermuda Archives. Dive times based on Miller,  William Hubert, Nassau, Bahamas, 1823-4: The Diary of a Physician from United States Visiting the Island of Providence (Nassau, 1960), p. 34 Tanya Streeter,16/5/14 author’s observed.

10 Dawson, Undercurrents of Power, p. 73; Giráldez,  A,  The Age of Trade: Manila Galleons & Dawn of Global Economy (New York, 2015).

11 The South Carolina and American General Gazette, 18 & 27 May 1774; Virginia Gazette, 15 & 25 November 1775;  Ross,  Charlesworth,  Antigua Notebook  (Bridgetown1962) pp.12-14 Thome, Jas.;A & Kimball, J. Horace, Emancipation in the West Indies: A Six Months’ Tour in Antigua, Barbadoes, Jamaica, 1837 (N Y, 1838), p. 324 Schomburgk, Robert H., History of Barbados  (London, 1848), pp. 181,  323-325 Morgan, Kenneth (ed.), Bright-Meyler Papers: Bristol-West India Connection 1732-1837  Ox 2007, p. 327.

12 Dawson, Undercurrents of Power, p. 60.

Short Excerpt of a detailed longer version article by Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 2019. International Review of Social History Vol. 64 Special Issue S27: Un/free Labour in Atlantic and Indian Ocean Port Cities (1700-1850), April 2019, pp. 43 -70.