Last US Slave Ship

The Seminole Producer

February 10, 2019

I posted yesterday of a summary of a story in this same issue regarding Elizabeth Herring Warren. This story of the last known slave ship is no less interesting. I have no idea, once again, who wrote the story since there is no Byline provided.

The last known slave ship was the schooner Clotilda. This schooner was commissioned by a local Mobile County, AL, land owner, Timothy Mearer, on a “gentleman’s bet”. The schooner arrived in Mobile, AL in 1860 and quickly burned and scuttled in delta waters north of Mobile Bay. That was necessary to remove any evidence of the voyage. A U.S. law banned the importation of slaves had taken effect in 1808, 103 years following the enslavement of Africans in N America. That was the bet; Southern resentment of federal control stirred Alabama Plantation owner Timothy Mearer to bring a shipload of Africans across the ocean.

Relatives of the 110 people who were kidnapped in W Africa are now organizing a get-together called the “Spirit of Our Ancestors”. Jocelyn Davis is the organizer of this event. She is the 6th generation granddaughter of African captive, Charles Lewis. These Africans spent the next 5 years as slaves, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Unable to return home to Africa, 30 of them used money earned working in the fields, homes and vessels to purchase land from the Meaher family and settled Africatown USA. “They resolved they would build their Africa in America”. They built their own self sufficient society with a Chief, a court system, churches and a school that became Mobile County Training School, where the festival will be held.

Africatown’s peak population was 10,000. Today, lying about 3 miles north of Mobile, the unincorporated area has about 1,800 residents. There are few signs of the original residents, just some graves and a chimney [Pictured here] from a home of Peter Lee or “Gumpa”, who was the first elected chief. There is a bust of Cudjo Lewis, the last survivor of the Clotilda. He died in 1935. His African name was Kazoola.

Africatown was placed on the Registry of Historic Places in 2012. The hope of the organizers is to make Africatown a tourist destination. They continue to find remnants of the ship to no avail. I do hope their venture is a success. It is part of our history, like it or not.

See also:

"The First Jamestown Ships and the First Africans to America"