Alabama files federal claim of ownership for last known slave ship
This photo shows the remains of a ship that could be the Clotilda, the last slave ship documented to have delivered captive Africans to the United States. Alabama has filed a federal court claim to ownership of the wreckage of the last ship known to bring enslaved people from Africa to the U.S., a move the archaeologist who helped find the ship says will bolster protection of the site.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama has filed a federal court claim to ownership of the wreckage of the last ship known to bring enslaved people from Africa to the U.S., a move the archaeologist who helped find the ship says will bolster protection of the site.
The so-called admiralty claim presented by Alabama in federal court asks a judge to declare the state the true owner of the Clotilda, which was discovered earlier this year in state waters. The claim, which was filed Friday, also seeks to ensure that the Alabama Historical Commission has the exclusive right to the site.
The historical commission said in a statement that the action is an attempt to prevent salvagers from disturbing the ship or taking artifacts from it.
James Delgado, a maritime archaeologist who helped lead the team that found and verified the wreck as that of the Clotilda, said Monday that the state is taking appropriate action and called the court step “another tool in the historic preservation toolbox.”
“This wreck is nationally important, for the events that took place on it and for its association with the very long and terrible trade in human lives,” Delgado said.
Decades after the United States banned the importation of slaves, an Alabama plantation owner made a wager that he could bring a shipload of people from Africa to the United States. In 1860, the Clotilda smuggled more than 100 enslaved people to the U.S. The ship was then taken into delta waters and burned to avoid detection.
The captives were freed after the Civil War. Unable to return to Africa, they settled a community that’s still called Africatown.
Earlier this year, a research team announced the discovery of the remnants of the Clotilda along the banks of the Mobile River. The Alabama Historical Commission had worked with the National Geographic Society and Search, Inc. to find and identify the wreckage.
“We are charged with ensuring this tremendously important archaeological find is preserved and protected for Africatown and our nation. It carries a story and an obligation to meet every opportunity to plan for its safeguarding,” said a recent statement by Lisa D. Jones, executive director of the Alabama Historical Commission
GILROY, Calif. — Before a 19-year-old gunman opened fire on a famed garlic festival in his California hometown, he urged his Instagram followers to read a 19th century book popular with white supremacists on extremist websites, but his motives for killing two children and another young man were still a mystery Monday.
Santino William Legan posted the caption about the book “Might is Right,” which claims race determines behavior. It appeared with a photo of Smokey the Bear in front of a “fire danger” sign and also complained about overcrowding towns and paving open space to make room for “hordes” of Latinos and Silicon Valley whites.
In his last Instagram post Sunday, Legan sent a photo from the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Minutes later, he shot into the crowd with an AK47 style weapon, killing a 6-year-old boy, a 13-yearold girl and a man in his mid-20s.
Under it, he wrote: “Ayyy garlic festival time” and “Come get wasted on overpriced” items. Legan’s sincedeleted Instagram account says he is Italian and Iranian.
The postings are among the first details that have emerged about Legan since authorities say he appeared to fire at random, sending people running and diving under tables. Police patrolling the event responded within a minute and killed Legan as he turned the weapon on them.
He legally purchased the semi-automatic assault rifle this month in Nevada, where his last address is listed. He would have been barred from buying it in California, which restricts firearms purchases to people over 21. In Nevada, the age limit is 18.
Legan grew up less than a mile from the park where the city known as the “Garlic Capital of the World” has held its three-day festival for four decades, attracting more than 100,000 people with music, food booths and cooking classes.
Authorities were looking for clues, including on social media, as to what caused the son of a prominent local family to go on a rampage. His father was a competitive runner and coach, a brother was an accomplished young boxer and his grandfather had been a supervisor in Santa Clara County.
Police said they don’t know if people were targeted, but at this point, but it appears he shot indiscriminately. Twelve people were injured.
Police searched Legan’s vehicle and the two-story Legan family home, leaving with paper bags. Authorities also searched an apartment they believed Legan used this month in remote northern Nevada. Officials didn’t say what they found.
Big Mikes Gun and Ammo, which appears to be a homebased internet gun shop in Fallon, Nevada, said on its Facebook page that Legan ordered the rifle off its website and “was acting happy and showed no reasons for concern” when the store owner met him. The post said it was “heartbroken this could ever happen.”
In California, police had training in how to respond to an active shooter. While they prepared for the worst, they never expected to use those skills in Gilroy, a city of about 50,000 about 80 miles smell known southeast of its prize for of the flowering San pungent Francisco crop grown in the surrounding fields — garlic.
The city had security in place for one of the largest food fairs in the U.S. It required people to pass through metal detectors and have their bags searched. Police, paramedics and firefighters were stationed throughout the festival.
But Legan didn’t go through the front entrance. He cut through a fence bordering a parking lot next to a creek, Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said. Some witnesses reported a second suspect, and authorities were trying to determine if he had any help.
Police arrested a 20-yearold man who claimed involvement online, but investigators determined he was just trying to get attention.
The police chief praised officers for stopping Legan with handguns without injuring anyone else.
“It could’ve gotten so much worse, so fast,” Smithee said.
The gunfire sent people in sunhats and flip-flops running away screaming. Some dove for cover under the decorated food booth tables. Others crawled under a concert stage, where a band had started playing its last song.