Narrator: Clues to what might remain of Fort Albion come from an original British plan discovered in the Cochrane Archives at the National Library of Scotland.

Graham Nickerson: Okay, so let's take a look at what was here.

Russell Burke: Officer's barracks.

And now we've got the-- -The regular barracks.

-Regular barracks, right.

Graham: What else do we have there?

Are these graveyards?

-Or burial-- burial grounds?

-Yeah, #13, burial grounds.

So I mean that, that really changes the-- I mean, this is not just a place where black people lived and then left.

Our black brothers and sisters are buried there, and it would be great to commemorate not only their presence in the ground, but their contribution to-- to the freedoms that we all enjoy today.

The presence of the cemetery at Fort Albion demonstrates to us that freedom has a cost, and that even once people reached Tangier Island, the story and the risks weren't over.

It goes beyond, like, "the British gave these people freedom."

These people freed themselves.

They earn their freedom by fighting for the British.

And that came with risks.

In that time, medicine was not as advanced.

Those people who suffered wounds, got carried back to the fort.

Sometimes they survive.

Other times they perish from their wounds and their bodies are left in the graveyard on Tangier Island.

Matthew Taylor: To lose Tangier Island to the forces of nature would probably be a kind of final erasure of what Tangier Island should probably always have meant in American history.

Narrator: Nickerson and Dr.

Burke's next task?

Determining if the waters around the sunken fort are safe for underwater exploration.

Russell: Hey, you think this wind's going to let up?

Graham: I hope it does.

It's gonna make it bumpy out there.

Russell: [laughing] Narrator: They head out on the same waters the British Navy once commanded more than two centuries ago.

Graham: Somewhere hidden away, there is this piece of history that ties to me.

It's literally being swallowed up by the sea.

If we don't do the work now, the site is going to disappear.

And then with the site disappearing, the story disappears.

Black people who essentially rowed out to, uh, this island from the mainland-- not only the Colonial Marines or the recruits, but their families also came out.

And so these boats were loaded down with-- you can imagine, like, a whaler or even canoes with ten, 12 people stuffed on them.

I think about the freedom struggle all the time.

These black people, they knew what they wanted.

They were willing to brave the challenges.

Boat Captain: We've got... 25-30 mile Winds from the west, northwest.

So it's going to be pretty rough.

Pretty sloppy.

Graham: It makes you appreciate just how much they were driven to be free.