Subtitled, The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning.
Fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, a ship full of slaves did indeed arrive in Mobile, Alabama. These Africans had faces decorated by scarification in Africa which would set them apart from other Black people already in the slave states. The voyage to Africa - Dohomey - and back was the work of businessmen who were also enjoying the prospect of flaunting the law and winning a bet as well hoping to enjoy wealth from the sell of humans. The descendants of these slaves founded their own town, Africatown, and as communities go, are close, bound by the history of their ancestors. The discovery of the ship was also an adventure, and takes up a good portion of the book.
The sailship Clotilda was built in 1855, and the voyage occurred in 1860, so while slavery was not yet outlawed, bringing more slaves in was. It was captained by it's previous owner. The eight-six foot two-masted schooner was not at all the type of ship best used for transporting slaves. Usually a slave ship held between 500 to 1000 humans. However - and I know this sounds ironic - but British and American authorities were on the seas looking for illegal slavers - and so this ship was not likely to catch their attention yet there were risks involved of arrest and the loss of their investments.
Page 29 "By the 1850's. thirty-six ships that Britain had assigned to its West African Squadron had captured sixteen hundred slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans en route to the United States. ... in May of 1860, just as he (Foster) was outfitting the Clotilda for its slaving run, U.S. revenue cutters around Key West intercepted three ships headed to port with 1,432 enslaved Africans on board." Page 30 "The outlay of $35,000 often brings $500,000." Page 32 ..."March 3, 1860, Foster kissed his wife goodbye and made the short walk from the boardinghouse (where they lived)...A heavy bag slung over his shoulder hid twenty-seven pounds of gold...
False papers ready, the ship was cleared for a run to St. Thomas...
Page 40 The Kingdom of Dahomey (West Africa) was "well known as one of the most violent and ruthless societies in human history... built on war."
Basically, this tribe of West African people waged war on others just to collect humans they could sell into slavery as a central part of their economy. Page 40 "Historians estimate the Kingdom of Dahomey may have been responsible for capturing and deporting about 30 % of all the Africans sold in bondage worldwide between 1660 and the 1880's." The British had tried to negotiate with their King that this slave trade be stopped but was not successful.
Once the deals had been made, the ship did not depart immediately. The slaves were taken to Ouidah, and locked up in the barracoon*** for three weeks. This sea port had been build to accommodate the slave trades with forts that had been built by the French, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, and English, and the newly captured were treated as good as cattle. The slaves were young adults for the most part. 125 were selected but in the last moments, they Clotilda sailed away with fifteen left on shore, the abandonment costly, because it appeared they might be caught. Most of these people had never seen the ocean or been on a ship. When they arrived in Alabama they also came into a foreign environment of swamps full of cane plants that grew 30 to 40 feet high, spiders, flies, and mosquitoes, and reptiles. They were held for eleven days, being kept a secret. The secret could not be kept for long for the departure had been in the national newspapers and the return too. The men faced legal ramifications, which were not severe.
The slaves were sold, and the friendships formed in the months in which they had been held together were maintained. Some of these people were interviewed and the content of those interviews still exists.
During the Civil war Page 117 "The last battle of the war was fought around the abandoned city of Blakeley, just on the other side of the swamp from the Meaher's sawmill and shipyard at Magazine Point. You could hear the booming of cannons, which thundered for several days, from Meaher's front poerch, softening up the Confederate lines before the inevitable Union assault.... Sixteen thousand Union troops, including five thousand men in all African- American United States Colored Troops infantry regiments, fought four thousand Confederates for seven days. In the final battle, the African-American infantry companies joined together, forming the entire right flank of the Union forces. The African-American troops, comprised of the formerly enslaved and free men alike, suffered the highest casualties at Blakeley, but also won the final, decisive battle."
This book is about adventure and survival. There is a lot to learn about this time and place in American history from it.
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*** A Spanish word that means barracks
