Enslaved: The Lost History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

SAM: Out on the ocean, looking for sunken slave ships.

[crowd screaming, chain rattling, whipping noise] When I began this journey, I couldn't imagine that I would be going back to my roots... [crowd chanting] ...or that I would be telling the story of the transatlantic slave trade.

AFUA: In the governor's bedroom, there's a trap door in the floor and it leads into the women's dungeon, and he would just have free access to these women and girls.

SAM: The case of the slaves was the same as if horses had been thrown overboard.

SIMCHA: Let me get this straight.

This is currency created to buy a human being.

TERRY: One human being.

KRAMER: Hey, Sam, how you doing, buddy?

- Morning!

- Morning!

I've teamed up with DWP, Diving With a Purpose.

What a morning, out here in the high seas.

Ready to get wet, man?

Some of the best underwater investigators in the world.

MAN: Chris, you ready?

JOSH: All right, thanks for being here, friend.

- I appreciate it.

- All right, bro.

More than two million of our ancestors died at sea.

These divers are dedicated to bring to light their forgotten story.

KRAMER: England was involved in it.

Portugal was involved in it.

The Africans were involved in it.

It's a burial ground and a crime scene.

ALANNAH: We are raising the voices of people who didn't have a voice, whose voices were also enslaved.

MELODY: We have to teach our young people where they came from.

If we don't do it, no one will, ever.

We only talk about the ships that made it.

We never talk about the ones that didn't.

Bring another part of the history of this world into focus, because people just don't talk about it.

What was really going on with the slave trade?

[sound effect - metal chain clicking] For me, it all started at my cousin Hilda's.

[song by Nina Simone plays] I wish I knew how It would feel to be free I wish I could break all the chains holding me Hilda's been able to do something uncommon for most African Americans... ...that I should say.

Say 'em loud... trace our lineage back to the days of slavery.

For the whole round world to hear... Hey!

Come on.

What you got in here?

HILDA: Who is that young man there?

That's me.

All right.

Beautiful picture.

Sam, I want you to look at some of your history that you have never seen, and we want you to know it.

When did you have time to do all this?

Do you know that most of the information in here is by word of mouth?

We followed our ancestry back from Zoe, LaTanya and Sam.

Then we have Elizabeth and Roy.

Yup.

And we have Aunt Pearl and Uncle Edgar, who is Sam's grandfather.

And then we go to Lillie, who is the mother to Edgar.

And this is Lillie.

Mm-hmm.

That's a picture of Lillie.

And Miles is the father to Edgar, Uncle Edgar's daddy.

So this is Miles.

Miles Montgomery.

That's him.

- Wow.

- Mm-hmm.

And then parents here, Arthur Branham.

- Arthur was born into slavery.

- Mm-hmm.

So he was three when slavery ended.

Three years old when slavery ended.

Three.

That's right.

And this is his mother, Matilda.

- Who was a slave.

- Yes, that's right.

Mm-hmm.

- Owned by the Branhams?

- Yes.

So they just took their last name.

ARTHUR: Yes.

They owned a lot of slaves.

They were wealthy.

A Judge Branham is the one who fathered Arthur.

You can see his name up there, Joel Branham.

Mm-hmm.

So as far as we know, we're able to trace our ancestry back to when our relatives were enslaved.

I did my DNA ancestry.

And my ancestors came from Gabon.

And they were from the Benga tribe and I want to see what that means in terms of who I am and where I came from.

So I would like to know more about how my people lived, how that played into the kind of person that I am.

Just trying to connect to my roots.

And the best place to do that is here, my ancestral home.

MINISTER NGUMA: Hi Sam!

How are you doing?

I am fine, how are you?

Let's go.

[crowd singing in native language, drums] Oh, my God.

This is great.

[singing and music continues] [indistinct crowd chatter] [Benga people singing] A lot of energy!

Let's go!

[singing and music continues] Okay, thank you.

[singing and music continues] [speaks with a French accent] MINISTER WHITE: They will initiate you.

It's not like being jumped into a gang, is it?

ENENGE: No.

A brotherhood.

- It's going to be all right?

- You'll be all right.

- All right, fine.

You will be a real Benga.

(laughing) Anticipation builds... [laughter] [speaks French] More than 12 million Africans were enslaved and trafficked from dozens of outposts established along the coast of Africa.

The transatlantic slave trade existed for well over 300 years and involved more than 45,000 voyages.

Most ships made it.

Many didn't.

In the early 1800s, even after most countries banned the trade, illegal trafficking was continuing.

My ancestors could have easily ended up on the illegal Spanish slaver, "The Guerrero."

COREY: "The Guerrero" was sailing to Cuba with almost 600 African people on board.

They sailed past the Bahamas.

Stationed there was a British navy ship, "The Nimble."

"The Nimble" was there to intercept illegal slave ships.

They tried to stop "Guerrero".

"Guerrero" took off.

They got into a chase, they got into a gun battle.

Eventually, night fell.

Both ships slammed into the Florida reef somewhere off Key Largo.

So beneath these waters now are the puzzle pieces that are gonna help us reconstruct the story of these two shipwrecks.

And that's really become my passion.

I've invited the DWP team to join me in the search for "The Guerrero".

KINGA: Hi, Corey!

Hey, guys.

How are you?

You guys ready to do a little bit of research?

We are!

JOSH: So what is this story about "The Guerrero" and why do you think it's "The Guerrero"?

You know, the story of "Guerrero" is really the story of two ships: "Guerrero", the slave ship, and then the British navy schooner that was chasing it.

And they got into a gun battle and they both smashed into the reef.

"The Nimble" ran aground and was able to float itself off the reef by jettisoning iron ballasts and cannonballs.

But the slave ship "Guerrero" crashed into the reef with such force that it sank.

41 of the captive Africans on board died.

"The Nimble's" crew said they could hear the screams crossing two miles of ocean.

It had been their duty to save the people on "The Guerrero", but instead they had accidentally chased them to their doom.

We're going to find "The Guerrero".

There could be all kinds of artifacts out there that are specific to a slave ship.

So here I have some things to show you guys.

(all) Oh!

These are all pieces recovered from other wrecks.

So what's this guy?

A tooth extractor.

I remember in school, we were taught some slaves wouldn't eat in protest.

They would remove the teeth so that they could shove food... - Right.

- ...in their mouth.

Just visualizing that is absolutely chilling.

That my ancestor could've had their teeth pulled to make them eat because they needed to be strong in order to be bought.

[gag reflex sound] And here is the real telltale artifact.

The essence of the slave trade: a set of shackles.

These were the iron restraints designed to hold people two by two.

Wrists?

Wrists and generally ankles.

You slid this 'U' onto somebody's ankle.

You took this other 'U', put it on another person's ankle, and then those people were joined together.

It was shackled to two people cause it makes it way more effective to keep people from running.

Right.

If you're, you know, hobbled to somebody else, you can't swim.

You can't run.

- Right.

- You can't move.

It was horrible.

So, I know how I'm feeling holding something like this, but this is, um, it's just a different feeling.

It's hard to articulate.

To just have these in my hand it just, it just hits a different note.

I guess you could just see in my face maybe... it's just... No, absolutely.

And there's no denying the cruelty of it when you look at those things... - Yeah.

- ...and you know what they did.

This initiation ceremony you were telling me about today, what does it actually really mean?

For you, specifically, it means a reintegration into Benga society.

Your ancestor was taken from this area, and you have been separated from your Benga people for at least 250 years.

Your coming back, having identified yourself as a Benga, through DNA, was something that was a shock to the Benga community because of all the millions of Africans that left Africa, to have a person in America be identified as Benga was phenomenal.

So to be integrated into Benga society, you need to acquire certain materials.

One is the indigenous torch, [speaks Benga], a flyswatter, [speaks Benga], a cane, and a white cloth.

Okay.

So, I gotta go out and get those things.

Yes, you do.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

So we're going to the fabric store first.

What's the fabric for?

The white cloth when we're communing with the ancestors, white is the colour of the ancestors because they have white bones.

And white is the colour of sperm.

Oh, Okay.

I'm trying to figure that out.

I wanna grab that.

Oh, yeah... which is the future generations.

Because to procreate, sperm and the ovum come together.

Mm-hmm.

And the white waves, in traditional Benga, the land of the living and the land of the dead is separated by a great river.

Mm-hmm.

And so, when you see the white waves breaking, it's some of the ancestors crossing the great river... - Mm-hmm.

- ...from the land of the dead to the land of the living.

Okay.

So, does this white cloth have to be a specific size or... Well, it has to be able to wrap around your body.

Wrap around the body.

Yeah, yeah.

So plain white or fancy white?

What are we talking about?

Plain white, plain white, about... Plain as in how plain?

A pure white, because you're going to be joining the ancestors.

I know.

See, this would be my preference.

But I gotta get something for a purpose.

- Great.

- About 4 metres.

Show you this.

- I think that's it.

- Ah.

Yeah, that's--That's better.

That--That-- that's gonna be kickin' it.

Looks good.

Looks good to me.

You just know how much that is by looking at it?

You don't have to measure anything... You just start cutting.

Yes, she says she's been doing it a long time.

Yeah, I believe it.

This is cool.

- Yeah, cool.

– WOMAN: Very nice.

- Trs bien!

- Trs bien!

- Right.

- In Benga, "Bwamo."

Bwamo.

My aunt noticed that you walk like a Benga man, because walking in the sand... - Mm-hmm.

...have a certain gait that, you know, like you follow.

She said "it's a typical Benga man walking on the sand," which is a good thing.

- Is that what she said?

- Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Well, there you have it.

Stuff we don't know that we have, but we got it.

Okay, so what else do I need?

A flyswatter, a torch and a cane.

These guys should have all three.

They're instrument makers, sculptors, real craftsmen.

They're the experts in traditional ceremonies, when the living and the ancestors come together.

All right okay... might find what I'm looking for in here.

- Bonjour.

– FISTON: Bonjour.

[speaks French] That's something I need, right?

Yes.

That's the ehaha, the fly swatter.

Ah.

[speaks French] Merci.

(in Benga) You're welcome.

[laughter] Okay.

So is that the torch?

(in French) This is a torch.

So he's going to perform a little ceremony here.

[speaks French] Been blessed.

Blessed.

That's right.

[speaks French] Merci.

Beautiful!

Okay thank you very much.

Okay, so I've got the fly swatter... a torch.

What else do I need?

A cane, right?

A cane... [speaks French] Now... I saw the canes out there.

Didn't touch me.

But when I came in here, sitting here watching you play, and I went, "Aw!

Ahhh."

[speaks French] Okay.

Stayed like that from the get-go.

I love it the way it is.

Yeah, okay.

And when you came in, boom, it got to you.

Mm-hmm.

Sittin' here waiting for me then.

It sure is.

[laughter] [Fiston playing music] I feel a kinship.

[Fiston playing and singing] Listening to the music, I couldn't help thinking that when millions of Africans went down with the slave ships, our rich culture also went down with them.

[music continues] And what was lost at sea has been forgotten for centuries.

ALANNAH V/O: We're eager to head out and find a sunken slave ship called "The Guerrero".

- Hello!

- Kramer!

- Kramer!

Senior diver, Kramer Wimberley joins the team.

Now you get to come play with us!

Yes.

I missed you guys.

Corey fills us in on his plan... I think really in order to find "The Guerrero", we're going to have to find evidence of "The Nimble".

"Nimble" essentially left a trail.

"Nimble" had run up onto the reef.

They needed to lighten their load.

They were able to free themselves by throwing over iron ballast blocks and cannonballs.

They got anchored up, and then their anchor line parted.

They drifted onto the reef again and they threw over more cannonballs, ballasts, more shot, and a small cannon.

So we're looking for things that the Nimble threw off Exactly.

Those are our clues.

So the biggest clue we have in the historical record in all of this is the position of "The Nimble" the morning after the ships hit the reef.

"The Nimble" was towed to safety off the reef, and the captain took his bearings.

And we know where that spot was.

That was right here.

So we know that "The Nimble" was anchored here after, but we don't actually know where it hit the reef, right?

Right.

Exactly.

So what we have to do is account for things like the wind and the weather at that time and which direction the ships were sailing when they hit.

When you take in all the historical evidence, it makes it pretty clear that those two ships hit at either here at Area "A", Area "B" or Area "C".

If we can find evidence of "The Nimble" in these areas, I think that's gonna help us pinpoint the location of "The Guerrero", and of the captive Africans who perished there.

Today these areas are separated.

You have the park and the sanctuary.

Yeah, Kramer, if you want to go up to Area "A", the northernmost spot.

Up in Biscayne National Park and do some exploring with the folks from the Biscayne team, and the rest of us, we'll go down to Areas "B" and "C" and take a look around and see what's there.

- All right.

- Okay.

JOSHUA MORANO: Time in the water will be now.

Time out will be noon.

Out.

Copy.

To the untrained eye, a shipwreck may look like nothing more than a coral reef.

And so there are tiny little puzzle pieces on these wrecks that we as archaeologists look for specifically that help us date wrecks and help us identify maybe nationality, who made them, how large they are, what they were utilized for.

So, any artifact we find of British design could be from "The Nimble".

And any artifact of Spanish design, from the slave ship, "Guerrero".

If "The Nimble's" crew tossed over any large metal objects in this area, our detector should pick it up.

[sound detector crackling] [sound detector pinging] It looks like we've found something big.

Gabon's Minister of Environment, Lee White, is taking me to Loango National Park.

A pla to my ancestry.levant to my ancestry.

Where the rainforest comes right smack down to the ocean.

What percentage of Gabon is rainforest?

– LEE: Gabon is 88%.

- 88?

- ...forest.

- Wow.

So, it's the second most forested country on the planet.

[helicopter noise over voice] [helicopter flying] [helicopter noise over voice] - Wow!

- Yeah.

Gabon is about 10% of the African rainforest, but we have over sixty percent of the forest elephants today, which shows how Gabon has been so well preserved.

[helicopter noise over voices] [laughs] Today we have what we call "eco-guards"... what you'd call "rangers", trained to go out and patrol the forests and fight against the poachers.

- Literally?

- Literally.

We're having gun battles about once a month.

Wow.

And what are they after?

- Ivory.

- Wow.

Just like in the slave days, people came here for slaves, for ivory, and for ebony.

It's still the same thing.

The elephant ivory is worth $2000 a kilo on the black market.

[helicopter noise over voice] In this beautiful, now protected park, there hides a terrible history.

Lee says there's an area we can prove was once used to confine close to a million enslaved Africans before they were shipped across the Atlantic.

[helicopter noise over voices] Lee's arranged to put down here, then he says we'll head toward the river mouth to uncover evidence showing just how massive the slave trade was.

- Okay.

- Merci!

Wow.

There we go, welcome to Loango National Park.

Loango National Park.

The ocean's there, right?

The ocean's that way.

So, end of the road for whoever walked or rowed down the river over here right?

- Or walked.

For three months to get here from- Three months of walking or?

- Carrying a big 40-kilo tusk... - Yeah.

...or a chunk of ebony.

Right.

And then getting chained into a boat somewhere over there.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

So 200, 250 years ago, what was this area called?

Well, this was the Kingdom of Loango and by the late 18th century, it was responsible for roughly half of all the slave transports from West Africa.

Trade routes were opened up from here deep into the interior to exploit the riches of the rainforest.

Most importantly, sadly, African men, women and children.

We don't bring tourists this way... not much.

This is Ntchorongove Village.

Yup, I used to be barefoot on roads like this.

You know it kind of feels like when I was a kid, in Georgia, walking in dirt like this and hanging out.

You know, there were shacks, stuff like this in the area where I lived, so it's kind of, it feels very familiar.

When I looked at the clothesline, which is actually what attracted me down here, when I saw those clothes hanging on the line.

I was like "Oh, that looks familiar."

I just walked down.

It just felt like, you know, it felt like a piece of my childhood.

So, doesn't feel, doesn't feel strange at all.

Yeah, familiar.

It touches something inside me.

LEE V/O: We're headed to Iguela.

It's a massive lagoon over 85 square miles with lots of little islands.

Over a million slaves were shipped from this region and trafficked directly to the Americas.

[speaks French] Most of the slaves from here went to Brazil.

Mm-hmm.

But theyve found the record of the first known slave from Gabon who went to South Carolina.

It was 1720.

No kidding.

He could have been on the same boat as my ancestors.

[animal grunting] There's an elephant right there.

Where?

Isn't that an elephant in there, right there?

- Yeah, that... - Amazing.

It looks like it's on its own.

It's probably a lone male.

[elephant trumpeting] So in terms of the amount of ivory being transported on this river, what was the number of elephants lost at that time?

Probably hundreds of thousands of elephants.

The whole coastal Gabon and Congo was basically devoid of elephants by the time they finished.

By the time they finished.

And they severely depleted the human population as well.

They were just another commodity.

Moved down these rivers all the way to the coast where they would be sold off.

Shackled and shipped.

Yeah.

There were hundreds of slave boats coming down here.

[speaks French] And so, literally, there are millions of oysters, and they've built up the level of these islands 4 metres.

So what just looks like earth, is actually millions and millions of oyster shells piled upon each other.

That was the only food that the captive peoples had to eat when they were here.

That's right, your last meal before you get on a boat to be sailed off to Brazil.

So that really is an oyster bank.

They're razor-sharp.

Until Richard came, nobody thought that's a relic of the slave trade.

And then you start to think about how many people... it's acres worth.

Covering how much space?

That's two and a half thousand acres.

Two and a half thousand acres?

Okay that's a--that's ridiculous.

- Of--Of oysters.

- Of oysters, like that?

That deep.

It's just thousands and thousands and thousands of poor people.

[boat motor rumbling] So this is where they would first see the big ships, right?

So right out there?

Theyd likely see the ships offshore For those who were taken from the interior, it would've been the first time they'd ever seen the ocean.

It must've been terrifying.

The first place you would've seen the big ships waiting to be filled with people.

Once again, we look at the disparate reality of the slave trade.

I mean, the beauty of what this is, just looking at it, this turns to like a real gateway to hell for the people who were seeing it for the last time.

Yeah, today it's tropical paradise but 200 years ago, hell on earth.

From here, the next stop could've been places like Brazil, Cuba, the U.S... or the bottom of the ocean.

So we're diving and we're looking for what Corey believes could be a trail of evidence tossed overboard by the British crew of the ship, "The Nimble", which was in hot pursuit of the Spanish slave ship, "The Guerrero".

[men grunting] So we're looking for cannons, cannonballs, anchors, pretty much anything that could be indicative of a 19th century British Navy ship.

So this is a protected area, and we're not allowed to recover anything from the bottom.

So by taking high-resolution imagery, Corey can bring that back to his lab and render 3D images so we can all study and observe it safely.

(filtered voice) Yeah, look at that.

What do you think?

Oh, wow.

This is a big block of iron balast It's about 3 feet long.

The 3D will really allow us to get some wonderful details.

So here is a ballast.

It was used in the bottom of the ship to make the ship bottom heavy, so when the sails filled with wind, the ship didn't tip over.

It fits exactly with what we know "The Nimble" threw overboard.

But all ships have ballasts onboard, so we can't say for sure that this is from "The Nimble".

We're going to have to keep looking for a needle in a 200-year-old haystack.

[boat motor rumbling] We had a big hit on the metal detector in this area.

There's only one way to figure out what it is--dredging.

(filtered voice) Water entering that tube at such a high velocity will create suction.

It's the equivalent of a giant vacuum.

When we first saw it, I didn't know what it was.

But as we kept on working, it just kept on getting bigger and bigger.

And I knew at that point it was going to be something good.

(filtered voice) It's a gun, which is a very exciting find.

What it is, is a carronade-- a small cannon used by the British.

Now right here you see a very fine taper.

This is called the nozzle, and it's particularly dateable.

They didn't have these on most carronades before 1815.

So this particular gun probably dates from about the 1815 to 1830.

It's a single piece of a puzzle.

But this is a very big piece to that puzzle.

The carronade is about 200 years old.

And it fits the time of "The Nimble".

So I think we're on the right track to finding "The Guerrero".

[children laughing] The Benga people here in Gabon have called me a "lost son returned."

And so, as part of being welcomed back into the tribe, it's customary that I meet the clan elders.

[speak in native language] Ah, how are you, sir?

The leaders representing 23 Benga clans.

[Benga people singing in native language] And then, the man in charge of it all.

Today, I'm meeting the Benga king.

[singing continues] [speaks in native language] [singing continues] [speaks in native language] "Tell our brother that there is much joy and happiness on this day."

There is much joy and happiness on this day.

KING: [speaks in native language] - To receive him.

- My heart is full.

[speak in native language] [laughs] [speak in native language] [bell ringing] [chant in native language] [crowd cheering] [Benga people singing] We do know that "The Nimble" actually threw a small cannon over, called a carronade, to help lighten its load once it had hit one of the reefs.

So we're adding the discovery of the ballast to the carronade that Kramer and Joshua discovered less than two miles away.

So really we just need to keep compiling that evidence.

(filtered voice) Oh, my God, that's the anchor.

Amongst all this turtle grass, it just really stands out.

You can see this anchor is set into the ground.

One fluke is completely buried, one sticks up.

Somebody was actively using this when they lost it.

Now it's kind of hard to say for sure if this is indeed "The Nimble"'s anchor, but I'll say this, it's the right size for what "The Nimble" would have carried, it's the right design for the time period, and it's in exactly the right location.

- Oh, my God.

- Woah.

[laughter] Isn't that awesome?

And "Nimble" lost two anchors-- one that matches perfectly with this.

(filtered voice) This anchor, I think is an important part of evidence for the story of "The Guerrero" and "Nimble".

Really matches closely with the evidence that we have.

It's really something.

Really wonderful to see this.

This anchor, along with the ballast and the carronade, really shows that the evidence is piling up.

It all points to the hazardous line "The Nimble" took on the high seas chase for the slave ship "Guerrero".

The ship logs from "The Nimble" note that the crew threw over iron shot and cannonballs.

So, uh, pretty specific stuff.

And I think, you know, if we can see that kind of material, we're hot on the trail.

(filtered voice) Look, the copper nail just sitting here.

It's a good find, but not what we're looking for.

(filtered voice) Oh, wow.

Yeah, look at that.

This is a little hard to see with all the growth on it.

But what we have here are two cannonballs.

You can see one here and one here, and they're all fused together, and they look like a miniature reef here.

Oh!

Look at that.

And now we're starting to find them everywhere down here.

(filtred voice) Wow!

Another iron cannonball, sitting on the reef.

It's amazing.

There's just stuff everywhere.

This fits our scenario of "The Nimble" throwing over lots of iron cannonballs.

When you combine all these iron cannonballs with the iron ballast, it just fits the historical record perfectly.

So many cannonballs.

Huge cannonballs.

I bet we saw at least 12 of them.

Productive dive!

Gosh, if this is the actual site of, you know, "The Nimble" and "The Guerrero" is around here somewhere then... I think we can find it.

[birds chirping] [animal screeching] Right on the borders of the sacred village where their kings are enthroned are the forests the Benga believe contain ancestral spirits.

The king has invited me here to witness a ceremony that's incredibly important in their oral tradition.

It takes the better part of a day because members of the tribe re-enact the Benga's entire migration history from their early days in the Sahara, to these tribal battles in the dense interior forests.

[chants in native language] And finally their victorious arrival at the Atlantic coast.

[continues chanting] [speaks in native language] [sing in native language] This is how the Benga pass on their story to the new generations... and now to me, a "lost son returned."

[chant in native language] This is the rich culture that was severed from my ancestors when the European slavers tore them from these coastal forests.

[chanting continues] I guess a lot of people would be very emotional about it, but I absorb it in another way: as validation of being part of a group of hardy people, or warriors that know how to roll with the punches.

So, I count myself as being from, you know, a tribe of survivors.

[singing continues] [birds chirping, animal squawking] We got a good start.

We're on the right track trying to follow the trail of the artifacts of "The Nimble", and it looks like our efforts are paying off.

I think today, uh, we're gonna find some things from "The Guerrero".

The carronade we believe could be "Nimble's" was discovered here.

We found the jettisoned ballast and the cannonballs here.

And the anchor was discovered here.

We're connecting the dots.

These are really looking like the strike points where "Nimble" hit the reef while pursuing the Spanish slave ship, and considering that, we could right now be on top of "Guerrero".

We're looking for any conclusive evidence that will tie this location to the final resting place of the 41 enslaved.

Diving the site, it just brings it closer to reality, closer to those people who were murdered here, who were captured here, who were tortured here.

The 41 who died here.

A ballast stone, a lonely ballast stone.

It's just a rock that was in the bottom of the ship to make the ship bottom-heavy.

To me it looks like a rock, is a rock, is a rock.

Well, yeah-- Well, you dont really have big rocks like that That's exactly right.

Around here in the Keys, it's all limestone.

So if anything is a rock that's not limestone... it was brought in.

- It's, like, way-- And if it's underwater, it probably was brought in on a ship, and that's what we're seeing here-- rocks that just don't fit the natural landscape.

Corey's location mapping might just be on the money.

I can see something.

(filtered voice) This looks like an iron knee or some sort of a brace.

It looks like it's from the right time period.

Iron braces like this could've been used to reinforce the hull structure of ships like "Guerrero".

Oh, the brace you were talking about.

Triangular brace.

Certainly it was part of the ship.

It was used to, you know, reinforce something.

As I move it around, you know, you get a really good sense of the shape of it nestled in a little pocket in the hard bottom.

(filtered voice) And next to that, another piece of iron-- a pin that held some of the ship together.

It's becoming more and more evident that we're over a debris field.

And then, there it is.

Our smoking gun.

[filtered voice] This oddly shaped piece of iron with these two flat heads-- it's a bar shot.

The Spanish use?

- Looks to be Spanish, you know.

- Right.

And fits the time, fits the nationality for "Guerrero", and here it is.

This is exactly what we'd expect to find on a Spanish ship like "The Guerrero".

The evidence is there.

It seems like a wreck definitely was in this area.

It's beautiful and sad altogether, like, to be down there amongst that stuff, amongst the wreckage.

I feel absolutely confident that we have found the wreck of "The Guerrero".

[faint screaming] This is a gravesite.

Anyone who dives a wreck like this has to understand that there's history and people's stories and people's lives and people's deaths associated with that.

[screaming] So it's a "sombering" kind of experience.

It's giving voice to people who don't have a voice anymore, and that's what this entire experience has been all about.

I'm humbled.

Centuries after my ancestors were sold into slavery, I've reunited with their tribe.

I count this as a victory... not just mine, but for all those that never made it back.

[Benga people chanting] From day one, the Benga have welcomed me with open arms, but today they're making it official.

[chanting continues] In a traditional initiation ceremony that is centuries old, the tribal elders are reintegrating me into Benga society.

[chanting continues] [metal instrument clanging rapidly] I was a lost son that returned, and I wanted to connect with them, and they could feel that I wanted that.

[chanting continues] It's like I put a link back in my chain that was broken.

I repaired it.

[chanting continues] I am part of this.

This is where I came from.

This is my beginning.

[Benga people chanting] Given that we already share Benga DNA, it kind of makes sense when the clan leaders tell me that blowing air into my hands symbolizes the "breath of life" that animates my new Benga body.

[chanting continues] These are some powerful blessings.

[speaks in native language] Blessings.

[metal intrument clinging] [translates] [speaks in native language] [people chanting, metal intrument clanging] And this is where the sacred, ritual items that I collected earlier come into play.

[speaks in native language] [indistinct chatter in native language] [laughs] [speaks in native language] [Benga people chanting] [chanting continues] [Benga women ululating] [sing in native language] [Benga people chanting] [speaks in native language] [crowd cheering] I wish I knew how It would feel to be free I wish I could break all the chains holding me I wish I could say all the things that I should say Say 'em loud, say 'em clear For the whole round world to hear