Dive into history with an underwater archaeologist Sept. 17

A diver who explores and documents the physical remains of ships that carried millions of people into slavery will discuss the impact of his work Sept. 17 at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

Kamau Sadiki is a board member and lead instructor at Diving With a Purpose, an organization that researches shipwrecks connected to the transatlantic era of African enslavement. He also serves on the international leadership team of the Slave Wreck Project. He has worked on five wrecks of slave ships, including the Guerrero in southern Florida and the Clotilda in Alabama, the last ship known to have brought enslaved people to the United States.

Sadiki will speak at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17. The event is free, but reservations are required. Register here.

About 35,000 ships brought nearly 12.5 million kidnapped Africans to the Americas. Hundreds of these ships sank, but only a handful of the wrecks have been found and properly documented.

Investigations of the wrecks can shed light on details of the slave trade and the horrid conditions endured by the victims. They also establish specific locations that serve as reminders of death and violence that took place across thousands of miles of ocean.

“Each one of these vessels has a very powerful and tremendous story to tell. The only way that you can tell that is to interrogate it, to investigate it, feel it, sense it,” Sadiki told Scuba Diving magazine.

Perhaps the best-known recent site is the wreck of the Clotilda, just north of Mobile, Ala. The ship arrived in America in 1860 carrying 110 men, women and children kidnapped from their home in modern-day Benin, in west Africa. The ship’s owners burned the vessel to hide evidence of their illegal activity. The location of the wreck was forgotten until divers and divers found it in 2018. Descendants of the people carried into slavery by the Clotilda still live nearby in a settlement known as Africatown.

Sadiki and Diving With a Purpose helped the Alabama Historical Condition map the Clotilda wreckage.

A side-scan sonar image of the Clotilda wreckage (Alabama Historical Commission)

“His vital work helps uncover and bear witness to our global past. I’m excited to welcome an internationally renowned underwater archaeologist to central Illinois to share more about his discoveries,” said Christina Shutt, executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

The mission of the ALPLM is to inspire civic engagement through the diverse lens of Illinois history and share with the world the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln. We pursue this mission through a combination of rigorous scholarship and high-tech showmanship built on the bedrock of the ALPLM’s unparalleled collection of historical materials – roughly 13 million items from all eras of Illinois history.

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