THE LAST AMERICAN SLAVE SHIP America’s last known slave ship, the Clotilda Almost from the nation's beginning, the South’s growing reliance on slavery was in direct conflict with the new “revolutionary” ideals of liberty and human equality. While many of the Founding Fathers were not abolitionists, they were overwhelmingly anti-slavery. John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson began anti-slavery campaigns as early as the mid-1700s, and eventually President Jefferson would succeed in outlawing the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1808. In a speech, he explained their hope that the law would stave off the slave industry and eventually result in its elimination – and he also acknowledged his fears if it failed to do so:

THE LAST AMERICAN SLAVE SHIP

America’s last known slave ship, the Clotilda

Almost from the nation's beginning, the South’s growing reliance on slavery was in direct conflict with the new “revolutionary” ideals of liberty and human equality. While many of the Founding Fathers were not abolitionists, they were overwhelmingly anti-slavery. John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson began anti-slavery campaigns as early as the mid-1700s, and eventually President Jefferson would succeed in outlawing the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1808. In a speech, he explained their hope that the law would stave off the slave industry and eventually result in its elimination – and he also acknowledged his fears if it failed to do so:

“It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation peaceably and in such slow degree as that the evil will wear off insensibly […] If on the contrary it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect.”

 Rather than take these concerns seriously, some plantation owners welcomed the challenge. Even decades after Jefferson's outlaw of slave importation, slave smuggling continued in small numbers. Around 1860, well-known plantation owner Timothy Meaher made a bet that he could successfully smuggle an entire ship of slaves past the federal guards and into Mobile Bay, AL. To do so, Meaher retrofitted an 85-foot cargo ship used for carrying timber and hired Captain William Foster to take it to West Africa, where he exchanged $9000 of gold for African tribal war prisoners. Once the ship returned to Alabama, the surviving 110 slaves were delivered to various plantations and the ship was steered to a secluded spot and burned to destroy the evidence.

The Clotilda has continued to gain historical significance to this day, as descendants of the Clotilda Africans have maintained their small settlement outside of Mobile. They are the only African Americans in history who are able to trace their slave ancestry back to the exact ship and tribe. 

Since the Clotilda Africans were smuggled into America, they were never registered or considered “legal” slaves. So, when the Civil War occurred only a year after their arrival, the Clotilda Africans volunteered to be deported back to Africa. Both the local government and Meaher refused. In response, the Clotilda Africans then began saving money in an effort to pay for passage back to Africa. Once they realized that they could not save enough money to afford the trip, they asked Meaher to sell them some land to establish their own community. Meaher sold them land on the delta just north of Mobile and on the west bank of the Mobile River. They called their community Africatown. 

In Africatown, they chose their own leaders and adopted community rules that were similar to those of their African tribes. They maintained their language into the 1950s, as well as keeping many cultural traditions. Over the past century, their population has fluctuated, but an estimated 100 of the inhabitants are directly descended from the Clotilda.