Background: The Clotilda was the last known slave ship to bring stolen Africans to the United States. The ship arrived illegally in 1860 with 110 captive Africans aboard, after the importation of slaves had been outlawed in the United States in 1808, and to be caught was a crime that could be punishable by death. 

After the Transatlantic Slave Trade was abolished, Timothy Meaher, a local businessman in Mobile, Alabama, made a bet that he could still smuggle Africans into the country for cheaper than buying slaves in the domestic market, and do it without getting caught. Meaher hired Captain William Foster, who built the Clotilda and then set sail for Africa in April of 1860. Foster went into Dahomey, now Benin in West Africa, and brought captured Africans back to Mobile. To hide evidence of their crime, the ship was burned and sunk.

Material Culture

From the site itself, marine archaeologists have recovered “nails, spikes, and bolts used to secure the ship’s beams and planking. Made of hand-forged iron, such fasteners were common in schooners built in Mobile in the mid-19th century.”^[1] Sylviane Diouf, historian of the African diaspora and author of Dreams of Africa in Alabama, discusses the significance of rare firsthand records and the insight they provide about the slave trade. Recovered historical records and documentation show perspectives from Timothy Meaher, who organized the illegal trip, and Captain William Foster, who conducted it. Some of the captive Africans who survived into the 20th century have also been sketched, interviewed and filmed, providing rich primary sources about their lives and experiences prior to and after being taken from Africa.^[2]

Cudjo Lewis, one of the last living Clotilda survivors, shared his life story with Zora Neale Hurston in 1927. Although the book was supposed to be released within years of being written, Cudjo’s story wasn’t published until 2018, in Zora Neale Hurston’s book Barracoon.

Interdisciplinary Involvement

In January 2018, local investigative reporter Ben Raines reported that he had found the Clotilda. Although this ship proved not to be the Clotilda, it prompted renewed interest and national attention in finding the ship’s real resting site, and many local, state, and national organizations participated. In July 2018, the Alabama Historical Commission partnered with National Geographic Society and private marine archaeology firm Search, Inc., on a first-of-its-kind search for the wreckage of the Clotilda.

After finding discrepancies in the Mobile Archives about the ship’s location and brining in researchers from University of Southern Mississippi to survey and map the site, journalist Ben Raines and Joe Turner, Owner of East Bay Automotive, went out on their own to search for the wreck site, finding it on May 22, 2019. Although professional archaeologists, divers, and historians were also searching the Mobile River, Raines seemed determined to discover the wreck on his own, choosing not to follow proper protocol and disturbing the site to bring up a piece of the ship, one of the biggest problems facing the preservation and documentation of these historical wreck sites today.

Many have contributed to the search for the Clotilda and historical confirmation of Africatown’s descendants, including Kamau Sadiki, a lead instructor with Diving With a Purpose; Dr. Kern Jackson, folklorist Director of the African American Studies Program at the University of South Alabama who conducted many filmed interviews with Africatown residents; Mary Elliott, Curator of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture who helped residents decide how to tell their stories and curate them for a museum; and the descendants themselves, who have kept their stories and histories alive and held on to the land.

Involvement continues today with preserving Africatown and fighting zoning issues that have created loss of land and community, with much of the surrounding land, formerly Africatown, now rented or sold for harmful factories that surround the neighborhood and pollute the air with cancer-causing chemicals. Most of the surrounding factories have been built on land still owned by the Meaher family, as discovered by environmental organizer Ramsey Sprague. ^[3]
The Africatown Heritage House Museum is maintained and run by Africatown community members and Clotilda descendants.

Museology

The Africatown Heritage House Museum officially opened on July 8, 2023. The process for opening the historic museum began in March 2020 with a partnership between the History Museum of Mobile, the Alabama Historical Commission, Mobile County Commission, and the City of Mobile. Clotilda: The Exhibition traces the history of the Clotilda ship “with a special focus on the people of the story – their individuality, their perseverance, and the extraordinary community they established.

The exhibition tells the story of the 110 remarkable men, women, and children, from their West African beginnings to their enslavement, to their settlement of Africatown, and finally the discovery of the sunken schooner, all through a combination of interpretive text panels, documents, and artifacts.” ^[4] Parts of the ship that have been recovered from the wreck site are on display at the Africatown Heritage House Museum.

Historical Significance

Without physical evidence of the Clotilda, the story of the ship’s illegal arrival and its 110 captives was maintained largely by word of mouth. For nearly 100 years, from 1860 to the 1960s, descendants of the Clotilda were unable to share their stories or history outside of their own community for fear of violence. ^[5]

For generations, the Meaher family has concealed evidence of Timothy Meaher’s 1860 crime, continuing to benefit from slavery while being directly responsible for perpetuating environmental racism through the dismantling of Africatown and polluting of its land, air, and water. After working with forensic fire and crime investigators who confirmed evidence of burning, Jim Delgado, Marine Archaeologist and Vice President of SEARCH, Inc. was certain the wreck had never been truly lost, at least to some. The signs of “deliberate disturbance and blasting” confirmed by investigators helped Delgado prove someone had attempted to blow up and dynamite the Clotilda decades before, once again trying to hide evidence of a family crime and deny claim, credibility, and closure to the Clotilda’s descendants.

1. Joel K. Bourne, “Last American Slave Ship Is Discovered in Alabama,” National Geographic, May 22, 2019, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/clotilda-the-last-american-slave-ship-found-in-alabama.

2. Joel K. Bourne, “Last American Slave Ship Is Discovered in Alabama.”

3. Descendant (Participant Media), accessed 2024, https://www.netflix.com/.

4. “About the Exhibition,” Clotilda, June 5, 2024, https://clotilda.com/about/.

5. Descendant (Participant Media), accessed 2024, https://www.netflix.com/.