Last Slave Ship to America Found, Truth About the Clotilda

The last slave ship to America was the Clotilda, a schooner, and when I heard it was found, I remembered my friend Sylviane Diouf. Years ago, walking home from the subway, a historical scholar, she told me she’d just published a book about the last slave ship. No one expected to see it again, but then a bomb cyclone hit Alabama.

Reporting by David Stone

Assorted Ideas, Large & Small

The residue of slavery in America resonates. If this story, most recently spotlighted in National Geographic, helps make current generations more aware, encourage discussions.

Wreckage of slave ship, *Clotilda* from *Historic sketches of the South* by Emma Langdon Roche, publisher: New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1914. (Public Domain)

Update: Sylviane Diouf contributes raw reminders in a new National Geographic article. Kidnapped into slavery…

And where does race really fit in the story: No races here

From the National Geographic Article…

“The schooner Clotilda—the last known ship to bring enslaved Africans to America’s shores—has been discovered in a remote arm of Alabama’s Mobile River following an intensive yearlong search by marine archaeologists.”
Nat Geo

“‘Descendants of the Clotilda survivors have dreamed of this discovery for generations,’ says Lisa Demetropoulos Jones, executive director of the Alabama Historical Commission (AHC) and the State Historic Preservation Officer. ‘We’re thrilled to announce that their dream has finally come true.'”

Continue reading Clotida, last American slave ship found in Alabama

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