♪ [SAM] The ocean floor still holds traces of the transatlantic slave trade, but it also tells another story.

♪ There were hundreds of slave rebellions.

Stories of uprising and uplifting.

Everybody didn't just hang their head and come over.

[dogs barking] [SALADIN] You're talking about stories of resilience and it wasn't possible for people to make these journeys unless you had a network of people who were striving to ensure the freedom of others.

[all shouting] [NATALIE] The Africans managed to kill most of them and they commanded to sail the ship back to Africa and return them to their homes.

[FALLON] The African-Americans who were on the edges of the river banks realized what was happening, that this was their moment, that they should run, that they should take that one chance at freedom.

[PAUL] The slaves had songs with hidden meanings, with double meanings, coded songs.

♪ [KRAMER] I know that people on that wreck made it to freedom.

♪ It's not just a story of victims, it's a story of heroes.

♪ [chain grinding] ♪ ♪ ♪ [AFUA] We're in the shadow of Fort Amsterdam which is the first fort where prisoners were held enslaved in this country.

♪ When we talk about what became the slave trade, it couldn't have all transpired in peace.

There had to be moments of uprising and people resisting.

Think about the people who trafficked Africans, they were so few of them compared to the number of people they were carrying.

The audacity to think that a few men could subdue hundreds, and when they got to plantations, thousands of enslaved people.

That required so much violence and fear.

[grunting] [SIMCHA] It's amazing that they rise at all.

You've got your wife, your children, your husband.

The other guys have the guns and the police and the system.

It's very hard to resist.

You can either be whipped into complacency or fear or you can be mad as hell when they open that hole and you come out of there it's like, "Argh."

[all screaming and grunting] [blade cutting flesh] [scattered gunshots] People were rising up.

People were fighting back.

People were making plans.

[scattered gunshots] Africans were not accepting this state of affairs.

And I want to know how much resistance was going on, what forms did it take and where?

♪ In the United States, for many, resistance took the form of the Underground Railroad.

♪ On this mission, we're not looking for a slave ship.

We're diving to find something that's pretty much the exact opposite, ships of freedom.

These were ships that took runaway slaves from America into Canada, from slavery to freedom.

♪ So all of you are going to be diving in an area that is significant in terms of the Underground Railroad.

There was a network, a network of people and places that were significant in helping freedom seekers that were traveling along routes in order to escape plantations.

[distant dogs barking] You're talking about stories of resilience.

People being able to make this journey from the south to the north, and it wasn't possible unless you had that network that was in place.

The way that people communicated was mouth to ear.

♪ People would be able to describe a person in terms of where they lived at, what area they were going to, what name that they responded to.

A network of people who were striving to ensure the freedom of others.

So they may know that there is a house or shelter three or four miles up the road, and then once they get there, they figure the rest of it out.

"I have no idea where I'm going or how I'm going to get there, but I'm going."

[distant dogs barking] At the same time, there were bounty hunters tracking people based upon descriptions.

And if you were caught aiding and abetting the freedom seeker then you can risk up to six months in jail and $1,000 fine at that time.

[ALLANAH] How do you even go about figuring out who to ask, or where to go to?

When you're growing up on a plantation and you're not allowed to read, you learn how to read people.

It would be an unspoken form of communication, where they understood that sense of trust in one another.

So my third great grandfather, Josiah Henson, he was a slave for 41 years of his life and he took his four children and made this journey from Kentucky over 600 miles to Western New York.

Two of his children were so small, he had to carry them in a knapsack on his back, the entire journey.

[gentle waves lapping] And he was able to cross over into Canada in October of 1830.

Here's the waters.

Here's the terrain that your ancestors cross, so you can be here, so a lot of us can be here.

We'll try and do you and your ancestor justice.

♪ There's so much about the slave trade that makes Africans sound like passive captives, but was there resistance?

Did they ever take matters into their own hands?

[NATALIE] Yes, on a lot of occasions, and actually historians estimate that as many as one in 10 of the slaving voyages had at least one episode of rebellion from the captives.

[all shouting] Was it hard to stage a mutiny on a ship like this?

Slave ships were constructed in a very particular way to minimize the likelihood of rebellion.

[chain rattling] Captives would be below several decks, they would be quite far away from where the crew might be sleeping.

They would be in such cramped quarters, it would be hard for them to physically organize themselves.

And there would be armed crew members on duty around the clock.

The cannons could be turned inwards and used to shoot at the captives if there was a rebellion.

The people who were designing ships to use in the slave trade, tried to make the ships resistance proof.

It's incredible that people held under such oppressive conditions could launch rebellions.

Were any of them actually successful?

Yes.

One we know most about was that of the Amistad.

This was an attempt to transport some captives from Havana to another part of Cuba.

[all shouting] The crew was very small, so this large number of Africans managed to kill most of them.

[all shouting] But they kept a couple of them, including the helmsmen alive and they commanded him to sail the ship back to Africa and return them to their homes.

And in the end, they were set free, and a number of them did return to their homes in Africa.

How successful were these rebellions when they happened?

Well, in most cases, they weren't really very successful at all.

And I suspect many of the captives were aware that they were not likely to succeed... [all shouting and grunting] But some of them preferred to die fighting, particularly if they had been warriors in their earlier lives.

And even those who were aware that they were not likely to succeed, preferred suicide.

♪ So that yearning for freedom could manifest in a rebellion, or it could manifest in suicide with the hope that in death you would be free?

We know of one case which happened at a place called Igbo Landing in Georgia in 1803.

And this was a mass suicide.

The Igbo people are known to be fiercely independent.

Yes.

[all screaming] The entire group of captives from the ship were unloaded.

They looked over the ocean, they realized how far they were from Africa, that they would probably never see their loved ones or homes again, that whatever was going to happen to them in America was not likely to be anything they would want to endure.

So they turned around and walked one after the other, into the water, and then they drowned.

♪ ♪ So my third great-grandfather, he was Josiah Henson.

Saladin told us that ferry boats on the Great Lakes often operated secretly as freedom boats.

So he introduced us to historian John Polacsek, an expert on sunken ships in the Great Lakes.

John took us out to a very specific spot on Lake Michigan, where a steamer called "The Niagara" sank.

[gulls squawk] [JOHN] We're out here on the site.

This is where "The Niagara" is, about 50 feet down below.

"The Niagara" was part of the Reed fleet which is out of Erie, Pennsylvania.

The Reed family were major abolitionists, and anytime you wanted to forward a fugitive slave, you could contact one of the Reed boats.

Once they got on the boat, the fugitives would blend in as crew members until they had the opportunity to get to Detroit, get out into ferry, go across the mile to Windsor, Canada, and then they would be free.

♪ [KINGA] Was the Niagara a fancy high-end boat?

Yes, it was.

♪ There were as many as 300 people who were bringing their livelihood, their whole families with them And we know that the fugitive slaves worked in the galley?

That's right, as waiters and other crew members.

In 1856, when the Niagara was coming back to Chicago, a fire broke out and it sank.

Was there a loss of life on the Niagara?

Yes.

More than 100 people.

Over the years, a number of divers have been down on the boat and they were able to salvage several artifacts which I've collected.

So what we have is a spoon which was recovered back in the 1960s.

At that time, it was legal to pick up artifacts off of shipwrecks.

One of the other items found was a fork.

It has a wooden handle.

It's in good shape.

It was used to serve the diners.

The fugitive slaves, very likely, they were out there setting out the silverware.

Yes.

It's going to be interesting diving this ship, looking at it as a freedom boat and not a luxury ship.

[all talking over one another] To dive these freezing waters, we're using these special dry suits to keep ourselves warm.

Usually people are looking for fancy items left by passengers, but we're going down to try to recover and find items that the runaway slaves were using to serve those passengers.

[all talking over each other] [MALLORY] What we're going to do today is that we're going to go down and we're going to look for the galley area behind the boiler, because we know that there were fugitive slaves working in the galley.

So we can find items that they may have used, touched, and so it's always a chance we might find something that no one's seen before.

♪ We go down the shot line to the ship's coordinates.

Mallory brought with her diagram of the wreckage so that we have a better chance of identifying the galley.

♪ And there's the wreck.

♪ It's torn to shreds, probably from the fire that brought it down.

♪ After 160 years we could still see everything, ♪ the giant paddle wheel, ♪ the boiler that powered the engine.

♪ This was a ship that ferried runaways to freedom, but where's the galley where the fugitives worked?

♪ And then we saw something bright, something bright in the rubble.

♪ Woo!

That was awesome.

♪ [ALLANAH] So now, that plate, that's a direct connection to these lawfully employed fugitive slaves on board in the galley, right?

Yes.

It's like, that's an item that connects you straight to these people who were working and living on these boats.

It was cold, it was dark and a little eerie- Welcome back.

... but not sad.

It wasn't sad.

I know that in previous journeys, people on that wreck made it to freedom somewhere out there.

Their descendants are still alive.

[gentle waves crashing] ♪ So John, the Niagara didn't take the fugitives all the way to Canada.

Close, but not all the way.

Can we find a ship that went all the way, smuggling fugitives, trying to get away to freedom, to Canada?

Not something that was... That was going along the lakes, and were moving people closer to Canada.

You want to find something that was actually taking people to like freedom.

- Exactly.

- Okay.

Yeah.

You're talking about boats which are down on the bottom of the lake.

Right.

You have to verify the fact that they actually did carry fugitives.

I have been collecting material for at least 25 years, so what I'm planning on doing now is to come up with something out of the file drawer in the basement, which will give us the name of a captain and the history of the vessel.

Just to say that, "Look, here we have something that's unusual."

And that's what we want.

The struggle for freedom in the United States eventually led to The Civil War.

More than 150 years ago, on this river, a daring military operation took place where African-Americans fought for their freedom.

[JEFF] The Combahee River Raid was the largest freeing of enslaved people during The Civil War.

And it's a story that particularly here in South Carolina, that's not told very often.

♪ June the second, 1863, here you had rice fields on both sides of the river.

You would have the enslaved people out working in pre-dawn hours.

♪ They had lived the years of their lives.

Some of them, 70, 65 years of their lives, praying and waking up every day, and I believe praying for freedom.

♪ And the day came.

It's really something to be on this river where this historic battle took place.

I remember seeing a newspaper from the time where they focused on a former slave who came back as a union soldier on one of the boats that took part in the raid.

[cannon firing] What exactly happened here?

Imagine two gunboats came up this very river.

♪ This federal army raid had been carefully planned in advance.

300 union soldiers sent out to liberate their brothers and sisters who were enslaved here.

♪ The liberators would have been a very unique sight, including escaped slaves from this area that became union soldiers.

♪ There are lots of heroes in that regiment and they don't get their due at all.

It took a lot of will to decide to cross that red line.

♪ They didn't have a military background.

They were field hands.

They worked these rice fields.

Some of them had only been in the army for a few weeks.

So these are brave people?

These are brave people.

♪ The all black regiment disembarked from the gun boats.

And when it was time to strike, began torching the plantations and helping the slaves make their break for freedom.

You have plumes of smoke that could be seen from the railroad.

And they didn't know what was going on.

People are streaming to the gun boat.

♪ The African-Americans who were on the edges of the river banks realize what was happening, that this was their moment, that they should run, that they should take that one chance at freedom and go for it.

♪ In the midst of the chaos, escape slaves would be greeted by another shocking sight, the small but powerful African-American woman, Harriet Tubman.

♪ Harriet had escaped from slavery and became a famed conductor on the Underground Railroad.

She risked her life numerous times to lead escaped slaves on a dangerous journey to freedom, as far north as Canada.

As the people were coming to get onto the boat, here she was calming them down, guiding them, helping them in all the confusion.

Now, your great-great-grandfather, he was one of those soldiers on this river fighting to liberate other African-Americans.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's an amazing feeling.

His name is Private Shedrick Mango.

He was in company E. I'm super proud of him.

He made the decision to follow through and be a soldier and drill and work hard and be a liberator.

♪ In this raid, in one fell swoop, they freed over 700 people.

♪ ♪ If we want to find the freedom ship that ferried runaway slaves on the final leg of the Underground Railroad all the way to Canada, first, we have to go to the archives.

I just hope we can find something that actually locks in.

Yeah.

♪ For the past few weeks, John has been searching for records of 19th century commercial ships that would sail across the Great Lakes while secretly ferrying enslaved Africans.

♪ - Hi, John.

- You made it?

- It's so good to see you.

- Yes indeed.

Good to see you again.

Yeah.

So what do you have?

I had a whole bunch of files and I was going through.

The problem ends up being when you look at a Underground Railroad boat or a freedom boat, you got to figure out what happened to the boat.

Some of them were abandoned, some of them burned, and what I'm just trying to do is narrow it down so that what we come up with is a boat that's still out there.

And then I came across this schooner which is a possibility.

What's it called?

It's called "The Schooner Home."

It was a vessel coming from Buffalo, to Sandusky.

However it ran for a number of months unaccounted for.

♪ What does that mean?

Well, when we look at the papers here from the port of Buffalo, they have arrivals and clearances to the custom house.

Right now, there's kind of a gap in its history.

If it doesn't show up in the port for say six months, where was it going?

Do you suspect that because it was missing that maybe it was smuggling fugitive Africans?

That's a good possibility.

I mean, knowing that Sandusky was full of abolitionists.

So are you saying there's a possibility "The Home" was going to Canada?

You would say that, yes.

♪ What do we know about the captain of "The Home?"

♪ Well, it was James Nugent who was the captain.

He was an immigrant from Ireland.

He lived in Sandusky.

And it's a good possibility that he was an abolitionist, simply because of the people he was running around with in Sandusky.

So we needed to find out more about the captain then.

So why don't you check out Captain Nugent, and I'll check out the missing months of "The Home's" routes.

Sounds like a plan.

♪ Let's take it from the top.

[all singing] Founded 150 years ago, the Jubilee Singers were among the first to introduce African-American music to a general audience.

[all singing] We're here to find out the use of song in resistance, the use of song in liberation and what it meant and how it worked.

[PAUL] Then we are referring to songs that people like Harriet Tubman used during the Underground Railroad system.

They had different meanings to the songs, songs with hidden meanings or songs with double meanings or coordinate song.

For example, the song Wade in the Water.

♪ Wade in the water ♪ God's gonna trouble the water ♪ Who would think that just saying wade in the water did not mean anything more than go to the water.

But there was a reason they would use that song to give direction to the slaves as they travel to the north.

Because most times as they were running away, they were being chased by dogs.

So the message was go through the water and then the dogs would not be able to follow you.

♪ God's gonna trouble the water ♪ Harriet Tubman used these songs to communicate with the slaves.

For example, the song Go Down, Moses.

♪ Let my people go ♪ Oppressed so hard they could not stand ♪ ♪ Let my people go Moses of course, was the one who was sent to lead the Israelites out of captivity.

So Harriet Tubman, whenever she sang this song was saying to the people, "If you want to go into freedom, you can go with me."

♪ Oh, Pharoah The church played a key role when enslaved African-Americans struggled for freedom.

They had figured out ways to sing songs that are actually very revolutionary in their meanings.

Right.

So are we able to identify where these songs came from?

We know that while the slaves were on the plantations, they would also go to church sometimes with their slave masters.

Really?

And I'm sure that's where they learned much of the stories from the Bible, but were able to relate the stories to their own situations, and therefore created the songs.

Well, you know, the Old Testament in a way is a playbook for liberation, trying to bring an explanation to living in an absurd situation.

Because you got to admit the last 400 years here had been quite absurd if your skin is brown.

So you've always been trying to make sense out of it in your own way.

We're Jim Crow, babies.

So when we grew up in Chattanooga during the Civil Rights Movement, we began to hear the protest songs, the freedom singers.

There was a black folk singing tradition also that we were exposed to.

Yeah, because we were musicians and we had different kinds of experiences that a lot of our contemporaries didn't have.

A lot of those protest songs that we used then were basically spirituals.

I ain't gonna let nobody turn me around.

Can you sing that for me?

♪ I ain't gonna let nobody turn me around.

♪ ♪ Turn me around, turn me around.

♪ ♪ I ain't gonna let nobody turn me around.

♪ ♪ I'm gonna keep on walkin ♪ Keep on talkin ♪ Walking out to Freedom Lane.

♪ ♪ ♪ We're headed to Sandusky, which was a major centre of abolition, to find out if James Nugent, captain of "The Home" was involved in ferrying runaway slaves to freedom.

♪ On the way, we're stopping in Cleveland to see firsthand one of the shelters that was used by freedom seekers in the Underground Railroad.

♪ [KELLY] The building that we're standing in was built in 1838.

And from its beginning, it's kind of had this social justice lean.

St.

John's was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

In that time, the Underground Railroad had code names to describe the people and the places that they were traveling to keep secret, but also so that they would know where they were going next.

And Cleveland was known as Station Hope.

That was because if you made it to Station Hope, you most likely would make it to freedom.

And where we think people hid, is actually the bell tower.

And that at the time was the tallest structure in the city, and so people who were fleeing slavery would hide in the bell tower and they could look out to two places, the Cuyahoga River, and to Lake Erie, bodies of water.

People could catch onto boats and then be taken to Lake Erie, where they would then hop on ships.

♪ So now where we're going to go is up to the tower where people hid.

And it's really dusty and rickety, so just be careful.

Just make sure one person on the stairs at a time.

♪ So as you enter, this space, this is the main frame of the tower.

And as you can see, it's structurally being held up by some of these metal pieces, but also it weaves its way up.

Ladders, a landing, and another ladder, and it just keeps going up.

Can we go up there and take a look?

Yes.

How about Kinga and I go up and then Kramer, since you're just a bit taller and stronger than us maybe hanging out here and we'll come back down.

- Is that okay?

- That's fine.

But I prefer for you to stay around the edges.

More solid?

Okay.

♪ Often when people traveled the Underground Railroad it was at dawn or dusk.

You didn't travel during the day because people would see you.

Step on the outside of the stairs, not in the centre.

It's nice to have a friend who's a former firefighter.

Oh, watch your head.

There was a system in place to help these people make it to safety.

And so with light signals from the river or the lake, people would know when it was safe to come down from the tower and either run or walk to get on a boat, or they would sometimes be put in the back of horse-drawn carriages and then covered up.

♪ So those are the rooms.

Kramer, there are these two rooms right here on either side and they just go deep in and it's really dark, you actually can't see inside.

But this is probably where people would have hidden.

- Yes.

- Is that right?

There's another one just in front of us, and another one up above.

I would love to go around and take a look in that room.

Yeah.

Let's at least take a very safe and quick peek.

I think this is a no step.

Be careful.

Hold on to the rails, not the stairs.

We're just going to go around here and take a look.

♪ [distant birds chirping] Oh my gosh, that's amazing.

Kramer, can you hear me?

Yeah.

So one of these rooms with a little bit of light is where you can imagine one, two, three people could have stayed.

This is your last leg of the journey, and you're in this church steeple.

And at night you would probably come out and look through these windows here because the signal would have been a lantern, so you would have been able to see it at night.

People who were staying here waiting for that signal, that signal might've come from "The Home."

♪ We've made it to Sandusky, a small town on Lake Erie where 170 years ago, James Nugent, captain of "The Home" would regularly load his boat with cargo and head out to other destinations on the Great Lakes.

But did he also ferry runaway slaves all the way to freedom?

We're here to find out.

[gulls squawking] [boat toots] [YVETTE] Sandusky was the great northern depot and was also named the Station Hope, because of the strong possibility of reaching Canada from here without being captured.

For a lot of people, this was the final location before they went to Canada.

Right.

♪ There are several houses that are still standing where active abolitionists would provide a shelter, food, clothing, a place to rest before it was time to come down to the waterfront and board the ships.

The whole area, and maybe even the whole state, there were active abolitionists.

There were a number of attorneys and judges that were in cahoots as abolitionists.

[JUDGE] All rise.

♪ There was the honorable Rush R. Sloane.

♪ One time, there were seven runaways in a group together.

They were hounded by slave catchers and Rush Sloane asked for documentation of these dark skinned people.

Documentation meaning that the slave catchers could prove that these were escaped slaves.

Right.

The slave catchers didn't have documentation.

So Rush Sloane said, "There's no reason for you to be held here."

So a group of citizens rushed the runaways to the waterfront for transport to Canada.

While the slave catchers are still in the courtroom, they rushed them out.

- Yes.

- Wow.

So what happened to Sloane because of that?

Well, later on he was charged with aiding and abetting the runaways to get away.

He was found guilty, was charged $3,000.

That was so much money back in the day.

$3,000.

There were court costs that were $1,000, and then the rest of it was equal the value of the runaways.

So he had to pay for the property that he let escape.

Yes.

And he was able to pay that?

The other abolitionists in town contributed towards the amount that he was charged.

Rush R. Sloane was a prominent figure in the Underground Railroad Movement in Sandusky.

Our research speaks of a captain Nugent who was involved here in Sandusky.

Do you have any records or any knowledge about a captain Nugent?

Yes.

What are we looking at here?

This is the testimony of the type of person that Nugent was.

Whose testimony is this?

The mayor of Clyde.

Clyde is a small town near Sandusky?

Yes.

The mayor of Clyde witnessed this liberation of the seven slaves by Rush Sloane.

That party of fugitive slaves was carried to Canada, concealed in a hold of a sailing vessel by a lake captain then, and now a robust Democrat in politics, a man with a conscience and a heart, resident of one of the lake cities.

So he was there, he witnessed their release and he knows that there was a captain that took him away on a boat.

Yes.

But my lips are sealed for the lifetime of my informant.

He was sworn to secrecy not to tell the name of the captain that took the seven slaves to Canada.

I'm sorry.

Could you look at this?

Here they list the names of the slaves that were- Liberated.

The seven.

Liberated and their escape.

Yeah.

George Bracken, Emily Bracken, Elena Bracken- Family.

Robert Pritt, Matilda Pritt and Eliza Pritt and Thomas Pritt.

So two families.

So we have the names of the people who were freed.

Oh my gosh.

The mayor says his lips are sealed about the identity of the captain who took them to Canada.

So how do you know it's Nugent.

Look what Rush R. Sloane had to say about Captain Nugent.

These fugitives were at the same night received from the small boat the next day by Captain James Nugent, a noble man now dead, then living at Sandusky and secreted on board the vessel he commanded these seven, and on the second day after were safely landed in Canada.

♪ We have documented proof now that he was involved as an abolitionist, that he ferried these seven Africans away to Canada.

So not only did he ferry these seven slaves in 1854 when this happened, it's safe to assume then that in 1848, when those missing months happened on "The Home", he was also ferrying fugitives.

- That's perfect sense.

- Makes sense.

Yvette you did it.

You did it.

Ghana, the Gold Coast was at the centre of the slave trade for hundreds of years.

In this exact spot, over a century ago, an Ashanti warrior queen engaged in a mystical ceremony to prepare herself for battle.

♪ ♪ The Ashanti leader known as Queen Mother, came here to strengthen herself and her fighters before the last rebellion against the British occupiers.

You need spiritual armor.

Precisely.

♪ So a European would have come and just seen dance.

Africans were looking at this and getting life lessons.

Yes.

♪ ♪ [all shouting] Queen Mother and her warriors managed to fend off the might of the British for a whole year before the rebellion was crushed.

♪ Queen Mother wasn't alone.

Practically all revolutionaries in places such as Haiti, Jamaica and Grenada turned to the religion of their ancestors to find the courage to fight, to endure, to struggle for freedom.

♪ ♪ - It's beautiful here.

- Yeah.

How are you?

Glad to see you here on the shores of Lake Ontario.

- Hi guys.

- So good to see you.

Good to see you again.

The reason why we're here is actually out in the slip.

That beautiful ship.

Yeah.

More or less a recreation of "The Home."

That's amazing.

We actually found out that Captain Nugent was an abolitionist.

100%.

We even have the names of seven people that he brought to Canada.

So "The Empire Sandy" is similar to "The Home."

It's a schooner sailing the Great Lakes.

So it gives us a visual of what it was that was actually taking place.

That's right.

And you've done your research on Captain Nugent, and I also got my part of the story.

This is one of the areas that "The Home" would have sailed through.

And the reason for that is something that we found in the Sandusky newspaper.

♪ This is a 1848 copy of the Sandusky Clarion, which is the year that Captain Nugent was on "The Home."

Down here, it says- - Port of Sandusky.

- Port of Sandusky, right.

Arrived June 8th, "Schooner Home," Nugent.

So it went to Sandusky.

You need to read a little bit more.

Nugent, Oswego.

So what does this mean, John?

It was coming back from Oswego, New York.

Okay.

So it's coming from New York to Sandusky, Ohio.

That's right.

But in order to get to Oswego, it had to go through the Welland Canal, which is in Canada.

The Welland Canal had been enlarged and it allowed "The Home" to go through it.

This is the period of time "The Home" was missing.

"The Home" was missing.

The four-month gap, everyone assumed it was just going back and forth to Buffalo.

I'd like to show you now how captain Nugent most probably took the runaways to freedom.

We're just coming off of Lake Ontario.

- So we're in Canada?

- Yes.

Both sides are Canada.

One of the oldest sections lock 27.

In one month, they'll put about 140 boats through it.

So when you come here, you're 200 feet above Lake Ontario, and you have to drop down 27 locks.

So it's time intensive.

And this must have been the moment of truth for the fugitives.

The boat is tied there.

It comes to a certain level.

You could walk off without too much of a problem.

♪ At what point during the course of this journey, do I finally get a chance to exhale and say, "I've made it."

Just down the ways is the village of St.

Catherines, and it had a number of fugitives who were there and had made a settlement.

There were also a number of people there who were involved with their welfare.

One of the men was Mr.

Merritt, who's the one who actually designed the Welland Canal.

- Really?

- Oh wow.

So these are all people who were part of the fugitive aid society.

That's incredible.

So you ended up in St.

Catherines, you built your life there.

There are a number of people who settled there also.

One of them was Harriet Tubman.

She brought a number of people from the south to St.

Catherines to live.

So "The Home" went through this lock?

I would say so.

All the evidence points to "The Home" being a freedom boat.

Let's dive in and pay our respects.

♪ As it turns out in 1858, several years after Captain Nugent ferried runaways to Canada, "The Home" sunk during a collision on Lake Michigan.

♪ In 1981, "The Home" was discovered and catalogged among the hundreds of wrecks in Lake Michigan.

This dive will be the first time that a Great Lake's wreck can be said with certainty to be a freedom boat.

[all talking over each other] On this foggy and windy day, it's going to be hard to make a dive to 175 feet to a shipwreck.

Go on and have a drop line.

The deeper you go, you're committed to the water for a longer period of time.

So we have to watch top side conditions more carefully on deeper dives.

So as the deep divers will be going down with tri mix gases and special gear, Josh and I will be free diving from above to watch out for any signals of distress.

Red bag comes up, red bag means something has kind of changed, but we're in control of the situation.

If the yellow bag comes up, that means we actually need your assistance.

♪ ♪ After we surfaced, I tried to envision this space and this time, trying to figure out what somebody would be feeling having traveled three, four, 500 miles on foot to get to this final point.

♪ People carrying their kids for hundreds of miles to make it to a point like Sandusky in hiding, waiting for an opportunity to get on a boat, to get this far.

♪ And still the possibility that somebody can come and snatch me and drag me all the way back into slavery.

♪ And then the rare instance of numbers of them who decided I'm going back to help others get free, and doing it a number of times.

♪ Some of them going back and getting caught and killed.

♪ But the drive for freedom is universal.

♪ Their sacrifice, their drive is what made it possible for me to be here.

♪ Our team tracked down this poem by a gentleman by the name of Joshua Simpson.

He was at the forefront of gathering the slaves here and ferrying them over to Canada for freedom.

I'm on my way to Canada, that cold and distant land.

The dire effects of slavery, I can no longer stand.

Farewell old master, don't come after me.

I'm on my way to Canada, where coloured men are free.