OFFICIALS: LAST SLAVE SHIP FROM AFRICA IS FOUND

Birmingham, Ala. — Alabama historical officials say researchers have located the wreck of the last ship known to bring enslaved people from Africa to the United States.

A statement issued Wednesday by the Alabama Historical Commission says remains of the Gulf schooner Clotilda have been identified and verified after months of assessment.

The commission’s executive director, Lisa Demetropoulos Jones, calls the discovery “an extraordinary archaeological find.”

In 1860 the wooden ship illegally transported 110 people from what is now the west African nation of Benin to Mobile, Ala. The Clotilda was then taken into delta waters north of the port and burned.

The captives were later freed and settled in a community that’s still called Africatown.