Matilda McCrear facts for kids

Matilda McCrear (born around 1857 – died January 1940) was the last known person in the United States who survived the transatlantic slave trade. This was the forced journey of millions of Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to be enslaved. She arrived in America on the ship Clotilda.

Matilda was a member of the Yoruba group from West Africa. She was captured when she was about two years old. She was brought to Mobile, Alabama, with her mother and older sister. Sadly, the girls were sold away from their mother and never saw her again.

Matilda and other enslaved people in the South gained freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. However, they were not truly free until slavery officially ended in 1865. As an adult, Matilda worked as a farmer, sharing her crops with the landowner. She had 14 children with a man who was born in Germany. Matilda McCrear passed away in Selma, Alabama.

Her story became widely known in 2020. This was thanks to research by Hannah Durkin from Newcastle University.

Matilda's Early Life

Matilda McCrear was a very young child when she was captured in West Africa. Soldiers from the kingdom of Dahomey attacked her home. They took her, her mother, and her sister as prisoners. The soldiers then took their captives to a port city called Ouidah.

Captain William Foster arrived in Ouidah on his ship, the Clotilda. This ship was the last known slave ship to bring enslaved people from Africa to the United States. It was illegal to bring enslaved people to the U.S. after 1808. But Captain Foster secretly brought 110 enslaved Africans, including Matilda, to America in 1860.

Matilda was part of the Yoruba group. She had traditional facial scars, which she carried her whole life. When she was two, she, her mother Gracie, and her sister Sallie were captured. They were bought by a planter named Memorable Creagh. They were among the more than 100 Africans brought on the Clotilda. Matilda also had two other sisters whose names are not known, and a stepfather named Guy. Her sisters were later sold away from their mother, and they never reunited.

Life After Slavery

After slavery ended in 1865, Matilda (who first used the last name Creagh) continued to work. She became a sharecropper in Alabama. This meant she farmed land owned by someone else and gave a part of her crops to the owner. She worked with her mother and sister.

Matilda never officially married. However, her grandson said she had 14 children with a man from Germany. She later changed her last name from Creagh to McCrear.

When she was in her seventies, Matilda tried to get money for being enslaved. But her request was turned down. According to researcher Hannah Durkin, Matilda kept her hair in a traditional Yoruba style throughout her life. She died in Selma, Dallas County, Alabama, when she was 83 years old.

Before the research by Durkin in 2020, another woman named Redoshi (who lived from about 1848 to 1937) was thought to be the last survivor. Redoshi was also on the Clotilda and was believed to be the last person to survive the transatlantic slave trade.

See also

• List of the last surviving American slaves