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.
REVIEWS
“A fast-paced, gripping account of the lives of the African survivors of the Guerrero, an outlaw slave ship which sank off the Florida Keys in 1827, and a predominantly Black group of divers hunting for the wreck’s location today… Readers of maritime adventures will be engrossed.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“In this deeply researched book, Kushner skillfully weaves three profoundly connected narratives, one more compelling than the next: the deadly shipwreck of the pirate slaver Guerrero, the determined search by Black divers for the ancestors’ burial ground, and a reckoning in Liberia for descendants of the survivors. Ocean of Bones makes wake across centuries and continents, from West Africa to the Florida Keys, and reminds us of the history of an American slave trade that prospered long past its abolition.”
—KEVIN SACK, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church
“An epic tale of loss and recovery, bondage and freedom, a drowned history dredged up from the depths and brought into the light. Spanning Key West and West Africa—and so much water in between—this is a special book by one of our best storytellers.”
—VINSON CUNNINGHAM, author of Great Expectations and staff writer at The New Yorker
“An overlooked sea story, dredged up in vivid detail.”
—KIRKUS