#clotilda

What happened to slave ships?

After the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed, most slave ships were either scrapped or deliberately sunk to hide evidence of their illegal activity, with some notable examples like the "Clotilda" being scuttled and burned upon reaching the United States to avoid prosecution; today, researchers are working to locate and study the wrecks of these ships to understand the history of the slave trade further

Key points about slave ships after the trade was banned:

Legal repercussions:Once the slave trade was outlawed, any ship caught transporting enslaved people was considered a pirate vessel and subject to capture by naval forces like the British Royal Navy or the U.S. Navy. 

Hiding evidence:To avoid legal consequences, many slave ship captains would deliberately sink their vessels after unloading their human cargo, often burning them to destroy evidence of their illegal activity. 

The "Clotilda" example:The most famous example of a slave ship that was deliberately sunk is the "Clotilda," which was the last known slave ship to enter the United States and was later discovered submerged in the Mobile River in Alabama. 

Modern efforts to study shipwrecks:Today, maritime archaeologists are actively searching for and studying the wreckage of slave ships to learn more about the history of the transatlantic slave trade. 

On July 8, 1860, more than 50 years after Congress banned the trafficking of enslaved Africans into the U.S., the ship Clotilda arrived in Mobile, Alabama, carrying more than 100 enslaved people from West Africa. Captain William Foster commanded the boat and was later said to be working for Timothy Meaher, a white Mobile shipyard owner who built the Clotilda.

Captain Foster evaded capture by federal authorities by transferring the enslaved Africans to a riverboat and burning and then sinking the Clotilda. The smuggled Africans were subsequently distributed as enslaved property amongst the group of white men who had financed the voyage. Mr. Meaher kept more than 30 of the Africans on Magazine Point, his property north of Mobile. One of those Africans was a man who came to be known as Cudjo Lewis.

In 1861, Mr. Meaher and his partners were prosecuted for illegally trafficking the Africans into the country, but a federal court dismissed the case as the Civil War began. No investigation or remedy ever involved the actual African men and women central to the case. While the federal case was pending, the Africans Mr. Meaher had claimed remained on his property left to fend for themselves and were offered no means of returning to Ghana.

In 1865, after the Civil War ended and slavery was widely abolished, the Clotilda survivors once enslaved by Mr. Meaher were free—but still trapped in a foreign land far from their home. They settled along the outskirts of Mr. Meaher’s property, at a site that came to be known as “Africatown,” and developed a community modeled after the traditions and government they had been forced to leave behind. Unlike the vast majority of newly freed Black people in the country, who had either been born in the U.S. or seized from Africa many decades before, the people of Africatown had a direct, recent connection to their African roots and vivid memories of their culture, language, and customs. Well into the 1950s, descendants of the Clotilda passengers living in Africatown maintained a distinct language and unique community of survival.

Researchers studying the wreckage of the last U.S. slave ship, buried in mud on the Alabama coast since it was scuttled in 1860, have made the surprising discovery that most of the wooden schooner remains intact, including the pen that was used to imprison African captives during the brutal journey across the Atlantic Ocean.

While the upper portion of the two-masted Clotilda is gone, the section below deck where the captured Africans and stockpiles were held is still largely in one piece after being buried for decades in a section of river that hasn't been dredged, said maritime archaeologist James Delgado of the Florida-based SEARCH Inc.

At least two-thirds of the ship remains, and the existence of the unlit and unventilated slave pen, built during the voyage by the addition of a bulkhead where people were held as cargo below the main deck for weeks, raises questions about whether food and water containers, chains and even human DNA could remain in the hull, said Delgado.

Today I reupped my Netflix subscription so I could watch Descendant directed by Margaret Brown. Visit the film's official website to find out more about the making of Descendant and to learn about actions you can take to preserve "Africatown’s story and fighting for its future."

"History exists beyond what is written. The Africatown residents in Mobile, Alabama, have shared stories about their origins for generations. Their community was founded by enslaved ancestors who were transported in 1860 aboard the last known and illegal slave ship, Clotilda. Though the ship was intentionally destroyed upon arrival, its memory and legacy weren’t. Now, the long-awaited discovery of the Clotilda’s remains offers this community a tangible link to their ancestors and validation of a history so many tried to bury.

Director Margaret Brown’s layered contemplation explores the interplay between memory and evidence and the question of how history passes and is preserved. Brown also reveals the enduring power imbalance that persists between the descendants of Timothy Meaher, the man who chartered the illegal expedition, and the descendants of those who were enslaved aboard it. The Meaher family owns much of the heavily industrialized area that surrounds Africatown. Elevated cases of cancer and illness are prevalent there, but the Africatown community persists. Residents celebrate their heritage and take command of their legacy by bringing their history to the surface."

Listen to filmmaker Margaret Brown talk about her filmmaking process in this IndieWire interview... "So the whole time I was making the film, I was always very cognizant of how do I translate the experience of how I feel — the smells, the sounds, the sort of lushness of this place alongside this gray blight — into a movie? Because I come from a poetry background, but film is this visceral thing you can almost enter into, and I just felt like the world of Africatown was that visceral and I wanted to offer that up to the audience to know what the community was a part of, or what their life was like."

(by Jeroslyn Johnson, December 28, 2021)

Researchers have found that the wreckage from the last known African slave ship to dock in the U.S. is still largely intact and could contain traces of human DNA.

The Clotilda has been buried in the mud along the Alabama coast since it was scuttled in 1860, NPR reported. Most of the wooden schooner remains intact, including the pen that was used to imprison African captives during the Atlantic Slave trade.

The upper portion of the ship has eroded, but the section below the deck where the enslaved Africans and stockpiles were held is still primarily in one piece after decades of being buried in a section of the river that wasn’t dredged.

At least two-thirds of the ship remains intact. With the lower deck where Africans were held as cargo still in place, researchers question if food and water containers, chains, and even human DNA could remain in the hull, Maritime Executive reported.

“It’s the most intact (slave ship) wreck ever discovered,” he said. “It’s because it’s sitting in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta with fresh water and in mud that protected it that it’s still there.”

The Clotilda took aboard 110 individuals in West Africa and set sail for Mobile, AL, in 1860, decades after the U.S. banned the transatlantic slave trade. On arrival,the ship illegally sold about two dozen of the enslaved Africans, gave five to eight more to the captain as payment for his services, and divided the ownership of those who remained.

After the captured Africans were transferred to a steamboat for further transport, the Clotilda was burned in shallow water outside of the port. The start of the Civil War ended any investigation into the crime and the perpetrators ended up getting away without any penalties.

William Foster, a wealthy businessman, was behind the secret slave trading of Africans to Alabama nearly half a century after the slave trade was outlawed. Among the Africans sold from the ship were Charlie Lewis and Maggie Lewis, ancestors of Joycelyn Davis, who lives in Africatown and is vice president of the Clotilda Descendants Association.

In November, the ship was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

What the Discovery of the Last American Slave Ship Means to Descendants?

Each week, I send new information to all the buying teams at my work (you know, kids, womenswear, menswear, home and interiors, beauty, tech, etc.), and this month I decided that I HAD to send them something about Black History Month related to their area, because I feel that people here do not know, learn, nor think about Black history (actually, I think I should share with you all those link too!). So, I was reading about black architects and a link sent me to another link to another link and to another link, and I ended reading about the Clotilda, the last slave ship (or so is thought to be) to arrive to America in 1860. Yep, 1860, at the brink of the Civil War and 50 years AFTER importing slaves was outlawed, of course the captain and the owner did perfectly know that they did something illegal and lit the ship on fire to get rid of evidence. After emancipation, some of the survivors of the Clotilda founded Africatown in Alabama, and they managed to preserve some of their traditions and languages. The shipwreck was found in 2019, and this video by National Geographic, lets us know about the descendants and inhabitants of Africatown, and what this find means to them.

Further reading:

Read more about Africatown and the Clotilda shipwreck at the National Museum of African American History.

Lesson 65: "My name is not Cudjo Lewis. It Kossola." --from Zora Neale Hurston’s “Barracoon”

Cudjo Lewis (née Oluale Kossola) is named as one of the very last recorded slaves to have been brought over to the United States ...in 1860, literally less than a year before the Civil War broke out. While slavery itself had not yet been outlawed, the slave trade most certainly had been (abolished 1808) --however this did not deter slave smugglers. At some point in the spring of 1860, Lewis was rounded up along with 114 other Africans from the Bante region of what is now the Republic of Benin (Dahomey). After a 3-month voyage from Ouidah to Mississippi in the schooner Clotilda, Lewis and his fellow captives were offloaded in secret by employees of the Irish slave trader Timothy Meaher and his brother Burns. Lewis eventually became the property of another Meaher sibling, James, who owned a mill and a shipyard just north of Mobile, AL.

After emancipation Lewis and 32 of his fellow freedmen established a small independent community called Africatown (a uniquely fascinating sociological study in its own right). The community not only thrived but managed to preserve many of the African traditions of its founders, including the Yoruba language. In 1931 Lewis recounted his amazing tale to author Zora Neale Hurston (see Lesson #25 in this series), but, due in no small part to Hurston's deft method of spelling Lewis's words in a manner that conveyed his uniquely African dialect, the memoir found no willing publisher. Hurston's manuscript languished ...until 2018.

As for the Clotilda itself, it had been sent upriver and burned by the Meahers in an attempt to destroy evidence, however the scuttled hulk was only partially destroyed and sank in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, where it remained undiscovered ...until 2018.

Check out Lewis's compelling account and Hurston's personal observations at: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/barracoon-zora-neale-hurston