Ocean of Bones

In the tradition of Shadow Divers and The Wager, the incredible story of the Guerrero, a pirate ship in the transatlantic slave trade that was shipwrecked in the Florida Keys, and the scuba divers who tracked it down nearly two hundred years later.

In 1827, the brig Guerrero was racing across the Florida Straits with 561 kidnapped Africans in its hold. Though Britain and the United States had banned the Atlantic slave trade, outlaw captains like José Gomez attempted to get around their Navy patrols and make for Cuba, where markets remained open. Gomez was particularly ruthless, not only a trader but also a pirate who stole captives from other vessels.

When a Black diver and Vietnam veteran named Ken Stewart learned in 2004 that the Guerrero might still be in American waters, he marshalled a group he called Diving with a Purpose to go looking for the lost shipwreck. In partnership with Corey Malcom—a marine archeologist whose affiliation with a famous Floridian treasure hunter made some initially wary of his motives—the group began to recover the buried tale of the Guerrero and its survivors. The saga involved President John Quincy Adams, an African princess turned American slaveholder, and the founders of Liberia.

Ocean of Bones is about two connected journeys: one in the 19th century and one in the 21st. It is a powerful and thrilling book, illuminating a forgotten history, connecting ancestors and descendants across centuries and oceans, and reminding us of lessons of the past that must be kept alive in the present.