Officials verify last slave ship to US found on Alabama coastline
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Researchers working in the murky waters of the northern Gulf Coast have located the wreck of the last ship known to have brought enslaved people from Africa to the United States, historical officials said last week.
Remains of the Gulf schooner Clotilda were identified and verified near Mobile after months of assessment, a statement by the Alabama Historical Commission said.
The wooden vessel was scuttled the year before the Civil War to hide evidence of its illegal trip and hasn't been seen since.
“The discovery of the Clotilda is an extraordinary archaeological find,” said Lisa Demetropoulos Jones, executive director of the commission. She said the ship's journey “represented one of the darkest eras of modern history,” and the wreck provides “tangible evidence of slavery.”
In 1860, the wooden ship illegally transported 110 people from what is now the west African nation of Benin to Mobile, Alabama. The Clotilda was then taken into delta waters north of the port and burned to avoid detection.
The captives were later freed and settled a community that's still called Africatown USA, but no one knew the location of the Clotilda.
A Mobile-area news reporter discovered wooden remains of what was initially suspected to be the Clotilda, but the wreck turned out to be that of another ship. That publicity helped spark a renewed search last year that found another wreck now identified as the slave ship.
Unable to return home to Africa, about 30 of the captives used money earned working in fields, homes and vessels to purchase land from an Alabama plantation owner and settle in a community known as Africatown.
Officials plan to present a report on the findings this week in Africatown.