Last slave ship may offer test case for reparations
MOBILE, Ala. — Alabama steamship owner Timothy Meaher financed the last slave vessel that brought African captives to the United States, and he came out of the Civil War a wealthy man.
His descendants, with land worth millions, are still part of Mobile society’s upper crust.
The people whom Meaher enslaved, however, emerged from the war with freedom but little else. Census forms that documented Meaher’s postwar riches list them as laborers, housewives and farmers with nothing of value. Many of their descendants today hold working-class jobs.
Now, the history of Meaher and the slave ship Clotilda may offer one of the more clear-cut cases for slavery reparations, with identifiable perpetrators and victims.
While no formal push for reparations has begun, the subject has been bubbling up quietly among community members since earlier this year, when experts said they found the wreckage of the Clotilda in muddy waters near Mobile. Some say too many years have passed for reparations; others say the discovery of the ship makes the timing perfect.
Many Clotilda descendants say reconciliation with the Meahers would suffice, perhaps a chance to discuss an intertwined history. Others hope the family helps with ambitious plans to transform a downtrodden community into a tourist attraction. Some want cash; some want nothing.
Reparations debates usually involve redress for the multitude of descendants from about 4 million black people who were enslaved in the United States. But with Congress considering whether to create a reparations study commission, what might a single instance of reparations look like in the city where this nation’s Atlantic slave trade finally ended?
Pat Frazier, a descendant of Meaher slave James Dennison, isn’t sure. But she’s unhappy about the lack of justice and what many consider the deafening silence of the Meaher family.
“I’ve never known them to just own up to what happened,” said Frazier, 68.
There’s no consensus on what reparations might include for Clotilda descendants.
Joycelyn Davis, who helped organize the Clotilda Descendants Association, said conversation would be a good start. “If we could just sit down at the table and just talk, that would be a powerful thing,” she said.
Bill Green, a descendant of Clotilda captive Ossa Keeby, said people are due more than talk. He called reparations an “excellent idea.” If not personal payments to Clotilda descendants, they could include contributions to some group to help descendants, perhaps to revitalize Africatown parks, a memorial, a Clotilda replica, housing and businesses.
“I think it would be equitable for them to make some payment to the descendants of the Clotilda cargo. What is right? I think we’re in a prime position to have our court system decide something,” said Green, of Texas.