Reparations Now: The Clotilda and Africatown As Symbols of Deferred Justice - YouTube Dr. Paul Pogue, president of the Clotilda Legacy Foundation, connects the discovery of the Clotilda. Arizona in Pearl Harbormight be an option. If you purchase an item through these links, we receive a commission. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Even though the U.S. banned the importation of the enslaved from Africa in 1808, the high demand for slave labor from the booming cotton trade encouraged Alabama plantation owners like Timothy Meaher to risk illegal slave runs to Africa. In the years to come, the displaced Africans survived enslavement and established a community as free . After the war, people who had been held captive aboard the ship helped found the community of Africatown, a community that exists to this day. What the discovery of the last American slave ship means to descendants. Mobile County Commissioner Merceria Ludgood said this week that the plan remains the same despite a shift in the timetable. In the meantime, all signs seem to point to the planned Africatown Heritage House as a key display site. In our uncertain times, Ben Raines's perceptive new book, The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning, is a welcome and . The ship was scuttled and burned on arrival to hide evidence of the crime, allowing the wealthy perpetrators to escape prosecution. Work performed this month will help answer a question residents of the area called Africatown USA are anxious to resolve: Can remnants of the slave ship Clotilda be retrieved from the water to both fill out details about their heritage and to serve as an attraction that might revitalize the place their ancestors built after emancipation? Were in a good position to move forward with things like finding out the real deal as to what happens to the remnants of the ship, he said. A Note to our Readers Clotilda, the last American slave ship that illegally smuggled 110 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic in 1860 has been discovered in Mobile Bay. Allison Keyes is an award-winning correspondent, host and author. Can their descendants save the town they built? Justice can involve things like hard, truthful talk about repair and reconciliation.. Some of the transported enslaved were divided between Foster and the Meahers, and others were sold. Theres a similar void in businesses to serve local residents. The Clotilda set sail from Alabama in March 1860 on an expedition headed by Timothy Meaher and the ship's builder, Capt. Bunch says this feels powerful and emotional to him in a similar way to when he was able to lay his hands upon the iron ballast from the So Jos, which brought him to tears. Plans are also in the works for a National Park Service Blueway here, rather like a water-based heritage trail. Charity Organization I havent seen anything of that sort anywhere else.". As many of 30 African Americans were taken to Meahers plantation, many of whom remained in the area after they were freed. May 12, 2022 / 11:55 AM Personally, she's most interested in the people who endured a tortuous journey across the Atlantic Ocean and what their legacy could mean to descendants today in terms of improving their lives. Among those factors were the comparison of the schooners unique size. Not in a day, and not by twins. exists to ensure that the Africatown community, in Mobile, Alabama is Clean, Healthy, Educated, Safe, & Sustainable. But a national slave ship memorialakin to the watery grave of the U.S.S. The ships arrival on the cusp of the Civil War is a testament to slaverys legal presence in America until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. The Clotilda, the last known American slave ship, made its illegal voyage 52 years after the international slave trade was outlawed. The enslaved Africans that arrived on the Clotilda and were later liberated by the Emancipation Proclamation founded their own community, Africatown, just a few miles north of Mobile. Among those most active in promoting the preservation of the Clotilda, and of the legacy of the unique community founded by its survivors, there seems to be a sense that the efforts are complimentary and will bear fruit in due time. Whats powerful about it is the culture. Divers were dispatched to collect debris fragments like iron fasteners and wooden planks that were compared against construction details in Clotildas registration documents. labama Historical Commission announced that the Clotilda had indeed been found. We say dat cause we want to go back in de Affica soil and we see we cain go. Sadiki was also part of the dive team that worked the South African site of the slave ship So Jos Paquete de Africa, one of the first historically documented ships carrying enslaved Africans when it sank. Schedule: 2:00 - 2:05 Welcome 2:05 - 2:15 Panelist Introductions 2:20 - 2:35 A Brief History of the Clotilda 2:40 - 2:55 The Archaeology of the Clotilda Please visit our partners. Kay Iveys office, law enforcement and the Department of Conservation to protect the area. Some envision a major historical attraction focused on the trans-Atlantic slave trade, others a memorial akin to the monument to lynching victims that opened in 2018 in Montgomery, about 170 miles to the northeast. Betty was born Raines and researchers found other vessels in the same area. With the recent discovery of the Clotilda in the Mobile River Pogue hopes this become a place where people can learn more about its history. So many people along the way didnt think that happened because we didnt have proof. 2022 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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Many of their descendants still live there today and grew up with stories of the famous ship that brought their ancestors to Alabama. Woods is among the descendants who still live there. Samples of wood recovered from Target 5 are white oak and southern yellow pine from the Gulf coast. While the ship bore some of the hallmarks of the Clotilda, by March it was confirmed the vessel Raines found was not the slave ship. Lewis lived until 1935 and was considered the second to last survivor of the Clotilda. Purchased for $9,000 in gold, the human cargo was worth more than 20 times that amount in 1860 Alabama. Thats a big question, especially since it remains unknown what artifacts may ultimately be retrieved from the mud-filled hull. [The ship] wasnt very deep. (A new one, funded by money from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, is planned.). If that holds true, itll be a major step in transforming Africatown from a community to a destination. No matter what you take away from us now, this is proof for the people who lived and died and didnt know it would ever be found.. (See how archaeologists pieced together clues to identify the long-lost slave ship. But the conditions are sort of treacherous. They were joined there by others born in Africa. But whats left of the burned-out wreck is in very poor condition, says Delgado. Maritime archaeologist James Delgado scans a section of the Mobile River during the search for Clotildas final resting place. The ship's arrival on the cusp of the Civil War is a testament to slavery's legal presence in America until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. In June 2018, Raines and researchers found other vessels in the same area. Some want a museum featuring the actual Clotilda, which was hired by a rich, white steamship captain on a bet to violate the U.S. ban on slave importation the year before the Confederacy was founded to preserve slavery and white supremacy in the South. We are excited for these conversations to begin!, A wide range of activities seem to be on the table, including archaeology within Africatown to understand the early foundation of the community; educational engagement through science, technology and the arts; curriculum development that incorporates Africatowns history and the history of the Clotilda; and continued scuba diving training for Africatown community members.. Keyes, a former national desk reporter for NPR, has written extensively on race, culture, politics and the arts. Smithsonian magazine participates in affiliate link advertising programs. But Lorna Gail Woods says she is more than glad that the Clotilda has finally been found because it is a tribute to the strength of her ancestors. Importing slaves into the United States had been illegal since 1808, and southern plantation owners had seen prices in the domestic slave trade skyrocket. Of the millions of men, women and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nations history. Meaher took that risk on a bet that he could bring a shipload of Africans back across the ocean. Fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, the Clotilda became the last ship in history to bring enslaved Africans to the United States. The captain of the ship wrote about it. The Clotilda's original registry. Working from a barge topped with a crane, divers felt their way through murky water to determine the condition of the ship's wreckage, which was an unidentified hazard on navigation charts before being identified as Clotilda in 2019. William Foster, as Foster recorded in a handwritten journal. The St. Mary's Legacy Foundation seeks to assist the needy and vulnerable of East Tennessee by engaging in general charitable undertakings and endeavors, including but not limited to providing and supporting health care and health care education initiatives, counseling, shelter, nourishment, parochial and secondary education, spiritual . "Sometimes you need something tangible to spur those memories.". Answering those questions will take a more thorough and invasive examination, precisely the expertise of Search, Inc.". MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - A man living in Montgomery hopes to inspire people about the history of the Clotilda through an organization located in Montgomery. She can currently be heard on CBS Radio News, among other outlets. One hundred and nine African captives survived the brutal, six-week passage from West Africa to Alabama in Clotildas cramped hold. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Whats powerful about it is the heritage stewardship, that so many people have held onto this history, and tried to maintain it within the landscape as best they could, Elliott says. Pogue Foundation, Dallas, Texas. Here's what we really know.
Patricia Frazier carries the flag of Benin, the modern nation once ruled by the kingdom of Dahomey, who sold more than a hundred captives to the captain of the Clotilda. "If they find that ship, I think it will make people more aware of our history," says Frazier. In 2015, SWP helped recover remnants from the slave ship So Jos off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, providing the first archaeological documentation of a vessel lost at sea while transporting slaves. Daniel . On November 28th the first of several episodes of a new short series entitled, premiered on social media platforms. "I just imagined myself being on that ship just listening to the waves and the water, and just not knowing where you were going," Davis told "60 Minutes" in 2020. / CBS/AP. Mary Elliott, a curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, agrees. Art: Thom Tenery. In 1927 Cudjo Lewis, then one of the last living Clotilda survivors, shared his life story with anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. One hundred and fifty-nine years ago, slave traders stole Lorna Gail Woods great-great grandfather from what is now Benin in West Africa. ), "We are still living in the wake of slavery," says Paul Gardullo, director of the Center for the Study of Global Slavery at the National Museum of African American History and Culture and a member of the Slave Wrecks Project that was involved in the search for Clotilda. This history museum is working with the Alabama Historical Commission on an exhibit that will include some artifacts from the Clotilda, she said. Are these boots made from endangered elephants? 568 Middlesex Avenue Metuchen, NJ CLOTILDA DRYSDALE OBITUARY Clotilda F. Drysdale AGE: 87 Metuchen Clotilda Drysdale, 87, of Metuchen, died Thursday, August 6, 2015 at Green Knoll Care and. 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