Researchers studying the wreckage of the Clotilda – said to be the last U.S. slave ship – buried in mud on the Alabama coast since it was scuttled in 1860, have made the surprising discovery that most of the wooden schooner remains intact.
While the upper portion of the two-masted schooner is gone, the section below deck where the captured Africans and stockpiles were held is still largely in one piece after being buried for decades in a section of river that hasn’t been dredged, said maritime archaeologist James Delgado of the Florida-based SEARCH Inc.
“It’s the most intact [slave ship] wreck ever discovered,” he said, according to NBC News. “It’s because it’s sitting in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta with fresh water and in mud that protected it that it’s still there.”
Also of particular interest is the existence of an unlit and unventilated slave pen, built during the voyage by the addition of a bulkhead where people were held as cargo below the main deck for weeks. This raises questions about whether food and water containers, chains and even human DNA could remain in the hull, said Delgado.
The discovery of the wreckage in 2018 enhances the research value of Clotilda’s remains and sets them apart from all other wrecks, Delgado said. The finding was confirmed in a report that was provided to the Associated Press and led to the site becoming part of the National Register of Historic Places on November 8, 2021.
The story of America’s last slave ship
According to local lore, the whole incident of the last U.S. slave ship arriving in Mobile, Alabama was the result of a bet between Timothy Meaher, a wealthy Mobile shipper and shipyard owner, who had built the Clotilde in 1856, and some “Northern gentlemen”
On March 2, 1807, Congress banned the importation of slaves from Africa, with the law taking effect on January 1, 1808. Under the law, violators were to be fined $800 (for knowingly buying illegally imported slaves) to $20,000 (for equipping a slave ship) or imprisoned.
State legislatures were given the privilege of determining the fate of accused violators of the law, but because of anti-Black sentiments and government inefficiency, the law was poorly enforced.
In 1859 the schooner Clotilda, under the command of William Foster, arrived in Mobile Bay carrying a cargo of Africans, numbering between 110 and 160 slaves. And to add a bit to this story, Foster worked for Timothy Meaher.
Meaher had learned through word of mouth that West African Tribes were fighting and that the King of Dahomey was willing to trade Africans for $50 each at Whydah, Dahomey.
Foster offered to buy 125 Africans said to be mostly of the “Tarkbar” tribe at $100 each. Further research in the 21st century suggests that they were actually Takpa people, a band of Yoruba people from the interior of present-day Nigeria.
Foster arrived in Whydah on May 15, 1859. He bought the Africans from several different tribes and headed back to Mobile with his human cargo.
But by the time Foster reached Mobile, he found out that local authorities had been alerted to the scheme, and fearful of being arrested, he arrived at night, transferred his cargo to a riverboat and burned and then scuttled the Clotilda to hide the evidence.
Even as the slaves were being transferred to a riverboat, Foster saw two steamers off the port and, fearing capture, ordered the crew to leave immediately, although only 110 slaves had been secured onboard, leaving behind the last 15.
The African slaves were mostly distributed to the financial backers of the Clotilda venture, with Timothy Meaher retaining 30 slaves on his property north of Mobile. Because the slaves had been brought into the country illegally, they could not be registered as slaves, however, they were treated as chattel, or personal possessions.
In 1861, the federal government prosecuted Meaher and Foster in Mobile for illegal slave importation, but the case was dismissed for lack of evidence from the ship or its manifest, and perhaps because of the outbreak of the Civil War.
