Clotilda (slave ship) facts for kids

Wreck of the slave ship, Clotilda, photograph from Historic Sketches of the South by Emma Langdon Roche, 1914
Quick facts for kids History
United States
Name	Clotilda
Owner	Timothy Meaher
Launched	c.1855-56
Fate	Scuttled in July 1860
Notes	Last known U.S. slave ship to bring captives from Africa to the United States
General characteristics
Class and type	lumber trade
Length	86 ft (26 m)
Beam	23 ft (7.0 m)
Sail plan	Schooner

The Clotilda was a two-masted schooner ship. It is known as the last U.S. slave ship to secretly bring people from Africa to the United States. This happened even though bringing enslaved people into the U.S. had been made illegal.

The Clotilda arrived in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in the autumn of 1859 or on July 9, 1860. It carried about 110 African men, women, and children. The ship was about 86 feet (26 m) long and 23 ft (7.0 m) wide. After its secret voyage, the ship was burned and sunk in Mobile Bay. This was an attempt to hide the evidence.

After the American Civil War, some of the people brought on the Clotilda created a community. They called it Africatown. It was located north of Mobile, Alabama. Here, they kept many of their West African traditions and spoke the Yoruba language for many years.

Cudjoe Lewis, one of the survivors from the Clotilda, lived until 1935. He was a spokesperson for the Africatown community. Another survivor, Redoshi, lived until 1937. She was known as Sally Smith. In 2020, new research showed that Matilda McCrear, another survivor, lived until 1940.

Today, many descendants of the people from the Clotilda still live in Africatown. Others live around the country. In 2012, the Africatown historic area was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2019, parts of a ship found in the Mobile River were confirmed to be the Clotilda. The wreck site was also added to the National Register in 2021.

The Clotilda's Secret Journey

The Clotilda was a schooner ship. It was built around 1855 or 1856 by Timothy Meaher. He was a rich shipyard owner and steamboat captain from Mobile, Alabama. The ship was made for carrying lumber.

In 1807, the U.S. Congress passed a law called the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves. This law made it illegal to bring enslaved people from Africa into the United States. However, some people continued this practice illegally.

Timothy Meaher heard that tribes in West Africa were at war. He learned that the King of Dahomey (now Benin) would sell war prisoners as slaves. Meaher reportedly made a bet that he could secretly bring Africans into the U.S. even though it was against the law.

The Voyage to Africa

Captain William Foster was in charge of the Clotilda. He worked for Timothy Meaher. On March 4, 1860, Foster left Mobile with a crew of 12. He carried $9,000 in gold to buy Africans.

He arrived in Whydah, Dahomey, on May 15, 1860. There, he prepared the ship to carry people. He offered to buy 125 Africans for $100 each. These people were mostly from the Takpa group, a part of the Yoruba people from what is now Nigeria. They had been captured in a raid.

Captain Foster wrote in his journal about meeting an African prince. He saw thousands of captives. He was allowed to choose 125 people. However, he only managed to get 110 people on board. He had to leave quickly because he saw two other ships that might catch him.

Returning to the U.S.

During the trip back across the ocean, they saw a warship. But a storm helped them escape. They reached the Bahama banks by June 30. As they got closer to the U.S., they changed the ship's sails. They hoped to look like a regular ship carrying goods within the U.S.

Captain Foster's journal says he anchored the Clotilda on July 9. This was near Point of Pines in Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Alabama. He then traveled to Mobile to meet Meaher.

To avoid getting caught, Captain Foster brought the ship into Mobile at night. He had it pulled up the Spanish River to the Alabama River. There, he moved the African captives to a river steamboat. Then, he burned the Clotilda until it was destroyed and sank it. He paid his crew and told them to go back North.

Life After the Voyage

The African people brought on the Clotilda were mostly given to the people who helped pay for the trip. Timothy Meaher kept 30 of them on his land. This included Cudjoe Lewis, also known as Kossoula or Kazoola. Even though they were treated as property, they could not be legally registered as slaves because they were brought in illegally.

Some of the captives were sold to other places. Redoshi (Sally Smith) and a man named William were sold to a farmer in Dallas County, Alabama. They had been forced to marry on the ship.

In 1861, the government tried to charge Meaher and Foster for illegally bringing in enslaved people. But the case was dropped because there was not enough evidence. This might also have been because the American Civil War started.

Africatown: A New Home

After the American Civil War, the people from the Clotilda became free. Many of Meaher's former captives returned to land he owned north of Mobile. They started their own community called Africatown. Other Africans joined them there.

In Africatown, they followed rules based on their traditional customs. They chose leaders and continued to speak their Yoruba language. They also kept their cultural traditions alive, some even into the 1950s.

Children born in Africatown learned English, first at church and then in schools. Cudjoe Lewis lived until 1935. For a long time, he was thought to be the last survivor of the Clotilda. But later, it was found that Redoshi lived until 1937. Then, in 2020, it was announced that Matilda McCrear lived until 1940.

Africatown grew as new industries brought workers to the area. But when industries closed, the population went down. In 2012, the Africatown Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Their cemetery is also listed.

Finding the Clotilda Wreck

For many years, people searched for the wreck of the Clotilda. Captain Foster had said he burned and sank it in the delta north of Mobile Bay.

On January 24, 2018, a reporter named Ben Raines said he found the wreck. Very low tides had made parts of a ship visible above the mud. At first, experts thought it might be the Clotilda. People in Africatown began to talk about what to do if it was indeed their ancestors' ship.

However, on March 5, 2018, Raines reported that the wreck he found was probably not the Clotilda. It seemed too big.

A few weeks later, Raines and a team from the University of Southern Mississippi explored other wrecks. On April 13, Ben Raines found the first piece of the Clotilda to be seen in 160 years. The information was shared with the Alabama Historical Commission. They hired a company to check the discovery. The news was kept secret for a year while they confirmed it.

Finally, on May 22, 2019, the Alabama Historical Commission announced that the wreckage of the Clotilda had been found!

The Clotilda in Media

The story of the Clotilda and Africatown has been shared in many ways:

• A 2008 documentary film called The Order of Myths by Margaret Brown showed a surprising connection. The ancestors of two important Mardi Gras queens in Mobile were linked by the Clotilda.
• Margaret Brown made another documentary in 2022 called Descendant. This film looks at the Africatown community today. It explores the challenges they still face and how finding the Clotilda wreck affected them. This film was released on Netflix.
• A local Mobile TV news team made a program called AfricaTown, USA about the community's history.
• The TV show Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. featured the Clotilda. In one episode, it showed that the great-great-great-grandparents of musician Questlove were among the people brought on the Clotilda.
• In 2018, Zora Neale Hurston's book Barracoon was published. She wrote it in 1931. It tells the life story of Cudjo Lewis and Hurston's experiences talking with him.
• The song "Clotilda's on fire" by Shemekia Copeland on her 2020 album Uncivil War is about the ship and the people it carried.

See also

• List of slave ships
• Wanderer, another slave ship that arrived in 1858