He did it for a bet

January 24, 2018 5:34 AM

The wreck of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to bring human cargo to the United States, may have been found in the lower Mobile-Tensaw Delta, north of Mobile, Alabama.

In 1860, Alabama steamboat captain and plantation owner Timothy Meaher made a bet that he could sneak slaves into the country, 52 years after Thomas Jefferson signed a law making the import of slaves illegal. 110 captive people were brought from the "Kingdom of Dahomey", modern day Benin, on the Clotilda, captained by William Foster. After landing in Alabama, Meaher and Foster deliberately set light to the vessel and abandoned the remains to destroy the evidence of their crime.

The captives were freed five years later, with the end of the American Civil War. After failing to get passage back home, some members from the group bought land and founded Africatown. Descendants of those brought to this country aboard the Clotilda are believed to be the only group of slave descendants who know precisely where their ancestors came from, when they arrived, and what vessel brought them here.

Neither Meaher or Foster were convicted of illegal slavery.

posted by Helga-woo (15 comments total)

Worth a look at the show "Finding Your Roots" recently in which Questlove of The Roots learns his ancestors were brought to the US on the Clotilda.
posted by entropone at 6:27 AM on January 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

52 years after. Jesus wept. Mobile, and Mobile Bay I should say, certainly does have a unique story. I was going to take the ferry across from Fort Morgan to Dauphin Island this year for a date night with the wife while we were there for the holidays but it was too foggy for the ferry to run. That whole area, if you look around, has an older feel than many other places I've lived. Not in a good way, maybe in a bad one, but mostly just in a stuck way perhaps.

Thanks for the post.
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:39 AM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Meaher was the captain of the Roger B. Taney.

Of course he was.
posted by asperity at 8:22 AM on January 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

52 years after Thomas Jefferson signed a law making the import of slaves illegal.

I've heard that, in general, slaveowners were fine with the ban, because it increased the monetary value of their chattel. That may be after they initially opposed it, of course.
posted by thelonius at 8:22 AM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

The story of the Wanderer—which for a period of time was widely believed to have been the last US-bound slave ship (also after the ban)—is darkly fascinating as well.

The arrival of the Wanderer and the dispersion of its enslaved cargo across the South was, unlike the Clotilda, widely reported in the press. The Federal government attempted to prosecute the conspirators for piracy, but weren't able to make the charges stick.

Bizarrely, one of the Federal prosecutors ended up becoming a Confederate general, while the slave ship's captain became a general in the Union army (fighting at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg) and after the war was appointed inspector of customs in New York City.

They appointed an actual slaver and indicted pirate inspector of customs.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:54 AM on January 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

As much as I think history and archaeology are hugely important...part of me wants them to load the remains of the fucking thing full of C4 and blow it to kingdom come.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:55 AM on January 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

I've heard that, in general, slaveowners were fine with the ban, because it increased the monetary value of their chattel. That may be after they initially opposed it, of course.

The Confederate Constitution, which was basically a copy of the U.S. Constitution with "but also there is definitely, definitely slavery" added all over the place, retains the prohibition on the international slave trade.
posted by XMLicious at 9:28 AM on January 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

Previously, The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes.
posted by Thella at 11:00 AM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm digging into The Half Has Never Been Told right now and this seems to be because of (a) PR and (b) the ban helped protect internal slave trading.
posted by praemunire at 11:00 AM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

I am super interested in the anatomy of the boat - that is just fascinating.

Reading the Wikipedia entry on Africatown, I am sad that the residents slowly dispersed. It would be so amazing to have an active enclave of folks still speaking their native language there, but I understand how terrible the situation was that brought them there in the first place.

From the Questlove episode on PBS, it said the 110 slaves were bought from a warehouse in the Kingdom of Dahomey that had 4,000 captives. My heart aches for those literally thousands of folks and their families.
posted by jillithd at 4:33 PM on January 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

There are definitely still people in Africatown, y'all, and there is a small museum at the Mobile County Training School, which I hope people would support. In a just world this ship would be part of a history program that would support Plateau and Pritchard.

Listen to Joe Womack, Africatown has just about the only public water access to Mobile River and the Tensaw Delta in the city of Mobile. It's mainly used up, the paper mill has not been cleaned up, and it's being used for storage for --what else--pipelines and oil.

Plateau and Africatown is at the confluence of three mile creek, but the ecological restoration efforts on three mile creek stop just short of Africatown--it's a bit frustrating. With just a bit of effort, There could be a sustainable tourism / ecotourism industry around this history, if it's preserved.

It could be a place of restoration and healing. Or it could be another oil export port, just like too many other African American towns in the United States.

I know it's a bit bleak out here but please don't talk about living people in the past tense, I get chills.
posted by eustatic at 8:08 PM on January 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

Whoa, fascinating. I didn't know about Africatown or this ship before, and my mom's family is from Mobile. Thanks for the post.
posted by aka burlap at 8:44 PM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is a neat story. I hope someone can find the funds to do the excavation.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:51 PM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

I apologize, eustatic. I purposely looked up Africatown to see if it was still active and the Wikipedia entry really makes it sound like it is not. I'll do better next time.

Thanks for the correction and the links.
posted by jillithd at 6:33 AM on January 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

Thank you for all the links and contributions to the thread. I'm not American and don't know much about the history of the slave trade in the US, it's been great to be able to put this discovery in context. I've learnt a lot.
posted by Helga-woo at 2:01 PM on January 25, 2018