Clotilda – Last Slave Ship in America – Founders of Africa Town, Alabama
By
John C Abercrombie
Africatown or Africa Town is a historic community near the city of Mobile, Alabama. It is three miles North of downtown Mobile. The community was formed by West Africans who were aboard the last known ship to bring Africans to America to serve as slaves. They were brought 50 years after the legal end of the importation of slaves into America. The importation of slaves was prohibited by the 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, although the domestic slave trade continued to flourish.
The importation of approximately 110 slaves was the result of a $1,000.00 bet by some wealthy slaveholders located in Mobile and their friends to evade the federal law. The slave traders bet each other and a group of men from New England that they could evade federal authorities. Timothy Meaher, a shipbuilder, and landowner; his brother Byrnes (also spelled Burns) Meaher; John Dabey; and others invested money to hire a crew and captain for one of Meaher’s ships to go to Africa and buy enslaved Africans.
The captain actually bought 125 slaves but became agitated at the prospect that they may be discovered loading them onto the Clotilda and departed before they had loaded the entirety of the human cargo.
110 slaves held by the Kingdom of Dahomey were smuggled into Mobile on the Clotilda, which was burned and scuttled to try to conceal its illicit cargo. More than thirty of these people, believed to be ethnic Yoruba, Ewe, and Fon, founded, and created their own community in what became Africatown. They retained their West African customs and language into the 1950s, while their children and some elders also learned English. Cudjo Kazoola Lewis, a founder of Africatown, lived until 1935 and was long thought to be the last survivor of the slaves from the Clotilda.
The Yoruba people are a West African ethnic group that inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yorubas are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yorubas constitute more than forty-eight million people in Africa, are a few hundred thousand outside the continent, and bear further representation among members of the African diaspora. The vast majority of the Yoruba population is today within the country of Nigeria, where they make up 21% of the country’s population according to CIA estimations, making them one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa. Most Yoruba people speak the Yoruba language, which is the Niger-Congo language with the largest number of native or speakers.
Given its location along waterways, this area was developed for mills and other industrial uses, especially in the early 20th century. A paper plant was built in 1928 and operated for decades on land first owned by A. Meaher Jr. on the edge of Africatown. Residents say they have a serious industrial pollution and public health problem, which has caused a high rate of cancer since the late 20th century.
In 2017, a group of about 1,200 residents launched a lawsuit against International Paper (IP), as this company had owned the now-shuttered paper plant. The environmental group claim that IP’s improper handling of waste through the decades contaminated the land and water, and the company did not clean up the site as required after closing the plant. Again, an all too often repeated scenario.
In 2019, scholar Hannah Durkin from Newcastle University documented Redoshi, a West African woman who was believed at the time to be the last survivor of slaves from the Clotilda. Also known as Sally Smith, she lived to 1937. She had been sold to a planter who lived in Dallas County, Alabama. Redoshi and her family continued to live there after emancipation, working on the same plantation. Durkin later published research indicating that another slave, Matilda McCrear, in fact outlived Smith, dying in 1940.
It is important to know this story because the people smuggled into America did not speak English and even this fact is often used to falsely label the people from the continent of Africa as being unintelligent. These people also destroy another myth, which being that they were incapable of forming any type of government or to take care of themselves and that it was incumbent on Whites to take care of them. The fact that they could do so, and that the government had to encroach on their community with dangerous industries, split the community with a road and deny them access to all resources to maintain or upgrade their property in order to kill the dream of independence.
Outside Africa, the Yoruba diaspora consists of two main groupings; the first being that of the Yorubas taken as slaves to the New World between the 16th to 19th centuries, notably to the Caribbean (especially in Cuba) and Brazil, and the second consisting of a wave of relatively recent migrants, the majority of whom began to migrate to the United Kingdom and the United States following some of the major economic and political changes encountered in Africa in the 1960s to 1980s
The population of Africatown has declined markedly from a peak population of 12,000 in the 20th century, when paper mills operated there. In the early 21st century, the community has about 2,000 residents. It is estimated one hundred of them are descendants of the people from the Clotilda. Other descendants live across the country. In 2009, the neighborhood was designated as a site on Mobile’s African American Heritage Trail. The Africatown Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. Its related Old Plateau Cemetery, also known as Africatown Graveyard, was founded in 1876. It has been given a large historical plaque telling its history.
Africa Town was a self-contained community until the government started allowing heavy industry to invade the area, bring pollution, noise, and toxicity to the formerly all-Black community. This is by no stretch of the imagination the only incident where the government has trampled on the rights of Blacks. The community was also split by a road and being Red Lined, the property owners were denied the opportunity to upgrade the property, resulting in a rundown neighborhood. This can be seen in every Black community in America.
The ship used for this dastardly task was Meaher’s Clotilda. A ship designed for the lumber trade, commanded by Captain William Foster. It was modifieds in the port of Whydah in Dahomey. In present speak, that area is known as Quidah in Benin with the modifications to conceal and transport enslaved people. The ship sailed in May 1860 from Dahomey for its final destination, Mobile, with 110 persons held as slaves. Foster had paid for 125 slaves, but as he was preparing for departure, he saw steamers offshore and rapidly departed to evade them.
The captives were said to be mostly of the “Tarkbar” ethnic group, but research in the 21st century suggests that they were Takpa people, a band of Yoruba people from the interior of present-day Nigeria.[9] They had been taken captive by forces of the King of Dahomey. He sold them into slavery at the market of Whydah. The captured people were sold for $100 each to Foster, captain of the Clotilda
US v. Byrnes Meaher, Timothy Meaher and John Dabey
Federal authorities prosecuted Meaher and his partners, including Foster. Lacking the ship and related evidence, such as its manifest, the 1861 federal court case of US v. Byrnes Meaher, Timothy Meaher and John Dabey did not find sufficient grounds to convict Meaher. The case was dismissed. Historians believe the start of the American Civil War contributed to the federal government’s dropping the case.
Most of the community now lies within Mobile’s city limits. Its people passed down the story of its founders and how they were brought to the United States, preserving their history through families, the church, and schools.
Part of the community’s land was appropriated by the government for the development of the western approach of the Cochrane-Africatown USA Bridge, completed in 1992. In 1997, descendants and friends formed the Africatown Community Mobilization Project to seek recognition of an Africatown Historic District and encourage the restoration and development of the town site. In 2000 it submitted documentation as a Local Legacy Project to the Library of Congress, through Representative Sonny Callahan from Alabama’s 1st congressional district. “Materials include sixteen pages of text, eleven color photographs, a map of the Africa Town district, newspaper articles, information on the Africa Town Mobilization Project, and a videotape, “Africa Town, USA,” made by a local news station.”
Defined as roughly bounded by Jakes Lane, Paper Mill and Warren roads, and Chin and Railroad streets, the historic district was designated in 2009 as a site on Mobile’s African American Heritage Trail. The Africatown Historic District was subsequently affirmed as significant by the state and the National Park Service, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 4, 2012.
While the descendants of these slaveowners continue to benefit from the slave trade today, the Meaher family has remained silent on the matter. However, after discussions with Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson and discussions of the escalation of plans on revitalization of the Africa Town Community, there have been revelations.
Family members agreed to sell a former credit union building to the city for a steeply discounted price of $50,000. The building will be renovated and turned into a food bank serving the low-to-moderate income neighborhood. It will also serve as an office building for the newly established Africa Town Redevelopment Corporation (ARC).
The family, in their first public first statement since the hull of the Clotilda was discovered more than two years ago, said the future of the credit union building will have a “lasting positive impact.”
“When Mayor Stimpson contacted the Meaher family regarding the sale and/or donation of this property to the city of Mobile for this project, we could not think of a better way to give back to the community,” the Meaher family wrote in a statement provided by the city in a press release.
“We all look forward to watching this endeavor become a reality with a lasting impact on the community for years to come,” the statement reads.
Stimpson and other elected officials disclosed the building’s sale during a news conference outside the former Scott Credit Union, which had been shuttered for the past 15 years.
“This is a historic day,” Stimpson said. “We’re sincerely appreciative of what they’ve done. It’s a huge step. I think everyone realizes that.”
While there is much to be done to recognize the contributions of citizens of African descent ants, it is a step in the right direction. Many city, county and federal laws, practices and positions have been detrimental to the Black community, it is time to acknowledge these unfair practices and work to incorporate them to their rightful place in history.
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The Slave Ship Flotilla
Life Aboard a Slave Ship | History
From approximately 1525 to 1866, 12.5 million Africans were forcibly transported across the Middle Passage to serve as slaves in the New World. Life aboard slave ships was agonizing and dangerous; nearly 2 million slaves would perish on their journey across the Atlantic. #HistoryChannel
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Drawing on interviews she began in the summer of 1997 with the sons and daughters of slaves, Sana Butler reveals how African Americans emerged from slavery with a deep commitment to the future and a powerful energy to make the most of their opportunities, large and small. Like explorers in a new land, freed slaves faced a new America with enthusiastic hopes and dreams for their children. Impelled by a generation that exercised political power at a rate never since seen in this country, the children of slaves were raised to be independent and often fearless thinkers, laying the groundwork for what would later become the Civil Rights Movement.
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How discovery of the slave ship Clotilda informs U.S. history
The remains of the last slave ship that came to America have been found. In 1860, the schooner Clotilda brought 110 Africans to U.S. shores, decades after it was illegal to import slaves into the country. The wreckage of the boat was discovered in Alabama’s Mobile River. Megan Thompson reports on the search for Clotilda, its history and the significance for the descendants of those slaves.
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The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning
The incredible true story of the last ship to carry enslaved people to America, the remarkable town its survivors founded after emancipation, and the complicated legacy their descendants carry with them to this day—by the journalist who discovered the ship’s remains.
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 ship was scuttled and burned on arrival to hide evidence of the crime, allowing the wealthy perpetrators to escape prosecution. Despite numerous efforts to find the sunken wreck, Clotilda remained hidden for the next 160 years. But in 2019, journalist Ben Raines made international news when he successfully concluded his obsessive quest through the swamps of Alabama to uncover one of our nation’s most important historical artifacts.
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What the Discovery of the Last American Slave Ship Means to Descendants | National Geographic
In this short film, the descendants of Africans on the last known American slave ship, Clotilda, describe what it would mean to discover and document the wreck site of the vessel.
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A major literary event: a never-before-published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God that brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade – abducted from Africa on the last “Black Cargo” ship to arrive in the United States.
In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview 86-year-old Cudjo Lewis. 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 nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage 50 years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.
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Perspectives: Clotilda
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Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the “New World.” Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity?
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The Illegal Arrival of America’s Last Slave Ship
The Clotilda, the final ship to bring slaves to the United States, has been hidden in the swamps of Mobile, Alabama for generations. The search for it is a stark reminder of the past and offers proof of family histories that resonates with the families that still call this small town home.
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This is the story of people making a bet to import Africans to America after the official end of slavery of $1,000.00. The survivors of the experience founded a town despite the widely held belief that Blacks were incapable of such. They suffered as the City of Mobile allowed the encroachment of heavy industry and lack of financing to the residents to maintain their homes. Compelling and a story that all should know.