#clotilda

[ausetkmt]

The Last Ship to Bring Enslaved Africans to America Arrived in 1860 - the Clotilda

[pauper-butterfly]

Africatown Heritage Preservation Foundation

[whitesinhistory]

On July 8, 1860, more than 50 years after Congress banned the trafficking of enslaved Africans into the U.S., the ship Clotilda arrived in Mobile, Alabama, carrying more than 100 enslaved people from West Africa. Captain William Foster commanded the boat and was later said to be working for Timothy Meaher, a white Mobile shipyard owner who built the Clotilda.

Captain Foster evaded capture by federal authorities by transferring the enslaved Africans to a riverboat and burning and then sinking the Clotilda. The smuggled Africans were subsequently distributed as enslaved property amongst the group of white men who had financed the voyage. Mr. Meaher kept more than 30 of the Africans on Magazine Point, his property north of Mobile. One of those Africans was a man who came to be known as Cudjo Lewis.

In 1861, Mr. Meaher and his partners were prosecuted for illegally trafficking the Africans into the country, but a federal court dismissed the case as the Civil War began. No investigation or remedy ever involved the actual African men and women central to the case; while the federal case was pending, the Africans Mr. Meaher had claimed remained on his property left to fend for themselves and were offered no means of returning to Ghana.

In 1865, after the Civil War ended and slavery was widely abolished, the Clotilda survivors once held by Mr. Meaher were free—but still trapped in a foreign land far from their home. They settled along the outskirts of Mr. Meaher’s property, at a site that came to be known as “Africatown,” and developed a community modeled after the traditions and government they had been forced to leave behind. Unlike the vast majority of newly freed Black people in the country, who had either been born in the U.S. or seized from Africa many decades before, the people of Africatown had a direct, recent connection to their African roots and vivid memories of their culture, language, and customs. Well into the 1950s, descendants of the Clotilda passengers living in Africatown maintained a distinct language and unique community of survival.

Cudjo Lewis lived to be the last surviving Clotilda passenger in Africatown. In 1927, Black anthropologist and writer Zora Neale Hurston traveled to Alabama to interview Mr. Lewis about his life and produced a manuscript documenting his story. The book was not published in her lifetime, but in 2018, the story was released as Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo. Today, many descendants of the Africans trafficked on the Clotilda continue to live in northern Mobile, and in December 2012, the National Park Service added the Africatown Historic District to the National Register of Historic Places.

[lubranmedia]

Remnants of last known US slave ship on display at new museum in Alabama

Africatown Heritage House tells history of the Clotilda, the ship that illegally transported kidnapped Africans to America By Toni Mitchell eXpress News&Views — A new museum in Mobile, Alabama, is making waves and shining new light on one of the darkest periods of American history — slavery. The Africatown Heritage House in Mobile, Alabama, recently opened and includes an exhibit called…

[lightdancer1]

The Franks laid the foundation for Western European culture:

This is so to a point that one of the most common names in older references to Western Europeans was Frank/Ferenji. The Franks initially were another of the polytheistic tribes of the old Germanic world who did not, in fact, welcome the new religion in the form of Arianism, adopted by the Goths, or Nicene Christianity. In the beginning they held that their ruling dynasty, the Merovingians, were descended from a sea-god called the Quinotaur (and this belief would recur in a grimly ironic fashion with another context to be mentioned later).

This was because of what might be seen as either a fluke or as the Catholic Church prefers to see it, divine providence. The wife of the Merovingian King Clovis convinced her husband to adopt Catholicism. This was the first time that the ruling elite of the late antiquity/low medieval world matched the 'masses' in terms of the religion they professed to adhere to. The consequences of this are profound and as such without Clotilda of the Franks, Western Europe as we know it would not exist.

[bekah-reading]

3/120

4/5

My first non-fiction of the year!

This is the story of the Clotilda, the last ship that sailed the Atlantic carrying slaves to the US. 50 years after the Atlantic Slave Trade was outlawed this ship set sail and was then scuttled and burned upon arrival to hide evidence to the crime. The ship remained hidden for the next 160 years until 2019 journalist, Ben Raines made news when Slye found the wreck in the swamps of Alabama.

The novel was interesting, even if like all nonfiction the writing is a bit dry and to the point. I found the first half very nice and enjoyable. But the second was the very meat of the book.

[maegalkarven]

I love how in the Empty Prayers AU banites just straight up pack things and leave.

I'd thought of giving Gortash a Big Confrontation with his cult and his god, but I've decided it's actually worse if he's just simply left behind. Left on Read. Given the Ultimate Silent Treatment.

He has failed Bane, so he isn't even worth the god's single thought now. Of course he will be punished upon death, but in life the worst punishment he can get is being treated like nothing. Like he isn't even here, like he never existed in the first place.

I'm sure I'd drive him mad to be completely ignored by the god he followed and the cult he lead. Lord Gortash who? Idk him

[pidgefudge]

THE SECOND HAND EMBARRASSMENT IS SO STRONG RN I CAN HARDLY LISTEN

[ausetkmt]

"It's crazy to think they would have sailed right past here," Darron Patterson said, pulling his car onto a scrap of grass overlooking the murky Mobile River. As president of the Clotilda Descendants Association, Patterson is well versed in talking about the voyage of the Clotilda – the last known slave ship to reach America. His great-great-grandfather was Kupollee, later renamed Pollee Allen; one of the 110 men, women and children cruelly stolen from Benin in West Africa and brought to the US onboard the notorious ship.

The story of how Patterson's relative arrived in America aboard an illegal slaver started as a shockingly flippant bet. Fifty-two years after the US banned the importation of enslaved people, in 1860, a wealthy Alabama business owner named Timothy Meaher wagered that he could orchestrate for a haul of kidnapped Africans to sail under the noses of federal officers and evade capture.

With the assistance of Captain William Foster at the helm of an 80ft, two-mast schooner, and following a gruelling six-week transatlantic passage, he succeeded. The ship sneaked into Mobile Bay on 9 July under a veil of darkness. To conceal evidence of the crime, the distinctive-looking schooner – made from white oak frames and southern yellow pine planking – was set ablaze and scuttled to the depths of the swampy Mobile River, where it lay concealed beneath the water, its existence relegated to lore.

That is until almost 160 years later, when during a freakishly low tide, a local reporter named Ben Raines discovered a hefty chunk of shipwreck in the Mobile River, initially thought to belong to the Clotilda. It turned out to be a false alarm, but the discovery reignited interest and led to an extensive search involving multiple parties, including the Alabama Historical Commission, National Geographic Society, Search Inc and the Slave Wrecks Project. Following their exhaustive effort, in May 2019 it was finally announced that the elusive Clotilda had at long last been discovered.

A mural of the Clotilda slave ship runs alongside the freeway separating the two sides of Africatown (Credit: Carmen K Sisson/Alamy)

Three years later, the city of Mobile found itself standing on the brink of a tourism boom, as interest in the story of the Clotilda, and the lives of its resilient captives, built.

Patterson had agreed to drive me around Africatown, an area where many of the ship's captives finally settled and where Patterson himself was raised. We began the tour at this scrap of land by the Mobile River, beneath a soaring interstate bridge where a group of Clotilda slave ship descendants meet annually for their Under the Bridge festival, to "talk about how our ancestors got here and to have some food and dance," Patterson said. There was no festival that day though and the atmosphere was muted; just one woman and her grandson played by the marshy water's edge below the steady hum of traffic.

Walking back to his car, Patterson, a former sportswriter now in his 60s, recalled that growing up, Africatown was a thriving, self-sufficient place, where "the only time we needed to leave the community was to pay a utility bill" as everything needed was close to hand, aside from a post office.

Located three miles north of downtown Mobile, Africatown was founded by 32 of the original Clotilda survivors following emancipation at the end of the Civil War, in 1865. Longing for the homeland they'd been brutally ripped from, the residents set up their own close-knit community to blend their African traditions with American folkways, raising cattle and farming the land. One of the first towns established and controlled by African Americans in the US, Africatown had its own churches, barbershops, stores (one of which was owned by Patterson's uncle); and the Mobile County Training School, a public school that became the backbone of the community.

However, this once-vibrant neighbourhood fell on hard times when a freeway was constructed in the heart of it in 1991, and industrial pollution meant that many of the remaining residents eventually packed up and left. "We couldn't even hang out our washing to dry because it would get covered in ash [a product of the oil storage tanks and factories on the outskirts of Africatown]," said Patterson. With the high-profile closure of the corrugated box factory, International Paper, in 2000, and an ensuing public health lawsuit brought about by residents, Africatown's community that had swelled to 12,000 people in the 1960s plummeted to around 2,000, where it stands today.

Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis, one of the Clotilda survivors and founders of Africatown, died in 1935 (Credit: Zoey Goto)

The exodus, poverty and environmental scars were visible as Patterson drove further into Africatown. The roadside was littered with abandoned factories. The quiet, residential streets were peppered with empty lots and vacant homes, some in such disrepair that their decaying walls had surrendered entirely to the creeping vines engulfing them.

But Africatown is changing, once again. With the discovery of the ship's remnants came the interest necessary to rebuild and preserve this historical place; an influx of attention and funds that is affecting everything from personal relationships to history to the fortune of the neighbourhood. Because, though the story of the Clotilda was known – and the lives of the original passengers were so well documented that photos, interviews and even film footage existed – without evidence of the vessel, the history was buried and it was not in the interest of the white population to acknowledge the truth of how they had arrived. Finding the vessel allowed their story to be affirmed and truth to be restored after decades of denial.

In the years since the Clotilda was discovered, the wreck has undergone extensive archaeological exploration to determine the likelihood of raising it safely. The ripple effect of media and public interest has meant a slew of government, community and private funding for Africatown's revitalisation, including The Africatown Redevelopment Corporation, which is using grants to restore homes in disrepair and demolishing and rebuilding derelict lots. Added to this is a $3.6 million payout from a BP oil spill settlement that has been earmarked for the long-awaited rebuilding of the Africatown Welcome Center, which was swept away in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina.

Patterson drove me to his grandmother's house and pulled over to chat with an elderly neighbour on her porch ("no photos, mind", she requested politely). Unlike some of the other descendent families, he told me, growing up he was told little of his ancestry. "I think my folks may have been embarrassed," he reflected, recalling that the smuggled captives had faced many humiliations, including being stripped naked for the voyage. "That must have just broke their will," Patterson said.

Africatown was one of the first towns established and controlled by African Americans in the US (Credit: Zoey Goto)

The 2019 announcement of the ship's discovery galvanised Patterson's curiosity, and he started to piece together his heritage, at which point his "whole life changed". He's since become hands-on in ensuring the story is told accurately, including an onscreen role in the film Descendant premiering at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and as co-producer of the second installment of the forthcoming documentary The 110: The Last Enslaved Africans Brought to America about the Clotilda's passengers.

For Patterson, the discovery of the infamous ship brings fresh hope that Africatown is on the eve of a renaissance. Following years of denial, "the ship's very existence has finally been affirmed, so a burden has been lifted," said Mobile County Commissioner Merceria Ludgood. "That's every bit as important to the ethos of Africatown as the housing revitalisation currently happening."

Although there's a lack of restaurants and tourism facilities, that could be all set to change as well, said Ludgood, who is helping to set up the Africatown Heritage House, a permanent museum created in collaboration with the History Museum of Mobile to chart the history of Africatown. "Hopefully cottage industries will spring up, owned by people who live in the community," she said, noting that the discovery of the Clotilda has given Africatown's community a boost, resonating far beyond economics.

Next on Patterson's tour was the Africatown Heritage House, situated in the hub of the neighbourhood, overlooked by a row of modest, well-kept bungalows on a palm-lined avenue. Under construction at the time of my visit, the museum was due to open in early summer 2022 and will include a gallery of West African artefacts as well as salvaged sections of the Clotilda shipwreck, presented in preservation tanks.

“This is actually the best documented Middle Passage story we have as a nation”

It promises a unique insight, given the relatively recent timing of the Clotilda voyage in relation to the history of slavery. "This is actually the best documented Middle Passage story we have as a nation," explained Meg McCrummen Fowler, director of the History Museum of Mobile. "There's just an abundance of sources, mostly because it occurred so late. Several of the people on the ship lived well into the 20th Century, so instead of silence there's diaries, there's ship records."

Work has started on the Africatown Heritage House, a $1.3 million exhibit about the 110 enslaved West Africans and the Clotilda vessel (Credit: Zoey Goto)

Further regeneration projects on the horizon include a footbridge connecting the two areas of Africatown currently divided by the freeway. Water tours taking visitors close to the shipwreck site are scheduled to launch in spring 2022, and a few local residents ahead of the curve are offering walking tours of Africatown.

While tourists have yet to arrive in serious numbers, Africatown faces a familiar set of challenges to other US neighbourhoods experiencing rapid revitalisation, including ensuring the whole community supports change and that residents don't fall through the cracks. But Patterson said that the Africatown community is united in its mission.

"We're all on board with this," he said.

The final stop on our tour was the cemetery where many of the Clotilda's enslaved have been laid to rest. As we walked, Patterson told me that with the light currently shinning on this troubling chapter of history, he has hopes that there will be enough sustained interest to generate the funds needed to raise the schooner from the water.

Though the true impact of this fabled ship's discovery is yet to be seen, for Patterson, it presents an opportunity to lift up the Africatown community and honour the struggles of its founders. "This is about more than bricks and mortar, it's ultimately about the growth of our souls," he said, looking out over their crumbling gravestones, all facing east towards their motherland. "Finding the ship has finally validated our truth."

Unlike some of the other descendent families, Darron Patterson was told little of his ancestry (Credit: Zoey Goto)

[thelaststarfalling]

I finally tried sourdough (almost 2 months after my friend gave me some starter to use oops) and now I feel so powerful

[thevagabondexpress]

and now "eat your young" just barely makes it onto listener-supported small-time radio. damn.

[judgingbooksbycovers]

The Survivors of the Clotilda: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade

By Hannah Durkin.

Design by Mike McQuade.

[blackwoolncrown]

Reading list for Afro-Herbalism:

A Healing Grove: African Tree Remedies and Rituals for the Body and Spirit by Stephanie Rose Bird

Affrilachia: Poems by Frank X Walker

African American Medicine in Washington, D.C.: Healing the Capital During the Civil War Era by Heather Butts

African American Midwifery in the South: Dialogues of Birth, Race, and Memory by Gertrude Jacinta Fraser

African American Slave Medicine: Herbal and Non-Herbal Treatments by Herbert Covey

African Ethnobotany in the Americas edited by Robert Voeks and John Rashford

Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect by Lorenzo Dow Turner

Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples by Jack Forbes

African Medicine: A Complete Guide to Yoruba Healing Science and African Herbal Remedies by Dr. Tariq M. Sawandi, PhD

Afro-Vegan: Farm-Fresh, African, Caribbean, and Southern Flavors Remixed by Bryant Terry

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston

Big Mama’s Back in the Kitchen by Charlene Johnson

Big Mama’s Old Black Pot by Ethel Dixon

Black Belief: Folk Beliefs of Blacks in America and West Africa by Henry H. Mitchell

Black Diamonds, Vol. 1 No. 1 and Vol. 1 Nos. 2–3 edited by Edward J. Cabbell

Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors by Carolyn Finney

Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. by Ashanté M. Reese

Black Indian Slave Narratives edited by Patrick Minges

Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition by Yvonne P. Chireau

Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry edited by Camille T. Dungy

Blacks in Appalachia edited by William Turner and Edward J. Cabbell

Caribbean Vegan: Meat-Free, Egg-Free, Dairy-Free Authentic Island Cuisine for Every Occasion by Taymer Mason

Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America by Sylviane Diouf

Faith, Health, and Healing in African American Life by Emilie Townes and Stephanie Y. Mitchem

Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land by Leah Penniman

Folk Wisdom and Mother Wit: John Lee – An African American Herbal Healer by John Lee and Arvilla Payne-Jackson

Four Seasons of Mojo: An Herbal Guide to Natural Living by Stephanie Rose Bird

Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement by Monica White

Fruits of the Harvest: Recipes to Celebrate Kwanzaa and Other Holidays by Eric Copage

George Washington Carver by Tonya Bolden

George Washington Carver: In His Own Words edited by Gary Kremer

God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man: A Saltwater Geechee Talks About Life on Sapelo Island, Georgia by Cornelia Bailey

Gone Home: Race and Roots through Appalachia by Karida Brown

Ethno-Botany of the Black Americans by William Ed Grime

Gullah Cuisine: By Land and by Sea by Charlotte Jenkins and William Baldwin

Gullah Culture in America by Emory Shaw Campbell and Wilbur Cross

Gullah/Geechee: Africa’s Seeds in the Winds of the Diaspora-St. Helena’s Serenity by Queen Quet Marquetta Goodwine

High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America by Jessica Harris and Maya Angelou

Homecoming: The Story of African-American Farmers by Charlene Gilbert

Hoodoo Medicine: Gullah Herbal Remedies by Faith Mitchell

Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals by Luisah Teish

Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care by Dayna Bowen Matthew

Leaves of Green: A Handbook of Herbal Remedies by Maude E. Scott

Like a Weaving: References and Resources on Black Appalachians by Edward J. Cabbell

Listen to Me Good: The Story of an Alabama Midwife by Margaret Charles Smith and Linda Janet Holmes

Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race, and the American Imagination by Melissa Cooper

Mandy’s Favorite Louisiana Recipes by Natalie V. Scott

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet Washington

Mojo Workin’: The Old African American Hoodoo System by Katrina Hazzard-Donald

Motherwit: An Alabama Midwife’s Story by Onnie Lee Logan as told to Katherine Clark

My Bag Was Always Packed: The Life and Times of a Virginia Midwife by Claudine Curry Smith and Mildred Hopkins Baker Roberson

My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations by Mary Frances Berry

My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A'Lelia Bundles

Papa Jim’s Herbal Magic Workbook by Papa Jim

Places for the Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens by Vaughn Sills (Photographer), Hilton Als (Foreword), Lowry Pei (Introduction)

Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Dr. Joy DeGruy

Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African American Environmental Heritage by Diane Glave

Rufus Estes’ Good Things to Eat: The First Cookbook by an African-American Chef by Rufus Estes

Secret Doctors: Ethnomedicine of African Americans by Wonda Fontenot

Sex, Sickness, and Slavery: Illness in the Antebellum South by Marli Weiner with Mayzie Hough

Slavery’s Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons by Sylviane Diouf

Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time by Adrian Miller

Spirituality and the Black Helping Tradition in Social Work by Elmer P. Martin Jr. and Joanne Mitchell Martin

Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones: Hoodoo, Mojo & Conjuring with Herbs by Stephanie Rose Bird

The African-American Heritage Cookbook: Traditional Recipes and Fond Remembrances from Alabama’s Renowned Tuskegee Institute by Carolyn Quick Tillery

The Black Family Reunion Cookbook (Recipes and Food Memories from the National Council of Negro Women) edited by Libby Clark

The Conjure Woman and Other Conjure Tales by Charles Chesnutt

The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature by J. Drew Lanham

The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks by Toni Tipton-Martin

The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas by Adrian Miller

The Taste of Country Cooking: The 30th Anniversary Edition of a Great Classic Southern Cookbook by Edna Lewis

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: An Insiders’ Account of the Shocking Medical Experiment Conducted by Government Doctors Against African American Men by Fred D. Gray

Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape by Lauret E. Savoy

Vegan Soul Kitchen: Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African-American Cuisine by Bryant Terry

Vibration Cooking: Or, The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl by Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor

Voodoo and Hoodoo: The Craft as Revealed by Traditional Practitioners by Jim Haskins

When Roots Die: Endangered Traditions on the Sea Islands by Patricia Jones-Jackson

Working Conjure: A Guide to Hoodoo Folk Magic by Hoodoo Sen Moise

Working the Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing by Michelle Lee

Wurkn Dem Rootz: Ancestral Hoodoo by Medicine Man

Zora Neale Hurston: Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings: Mules and Men, Tell My Horse, Dust Tracks on a Road, Selected Articles by Zora Neale Hurston

The Ways of Herbalism in the African World with Olatokunboh Obasi MSc, RH (webinar via The American Herbalists Guild)

[anderstrevelyan]

Now that I've finished my thorough playthrough I'm thinking about them:

Polandulus is the Banite who wrote this, and he's in the Steelwatch Foundry, and I'd assumed you could find Clotilda somewhere in-game... But there's no Clotilda? (I made a list of every Bhaalist and Banite I came across as I went, so I think I can state this pretty confidently.)

There's Reaper of Bhaal Clotilde, who leads the ambush in Bloomridge Park:

Is this a typo and the names are meant to match?

Are we to assume Polandulus is pining away, never brave enough to talk to his object of desire enough to even get their name right?

Was there a Clotilda, who's now dead? (questions! I have questions!)

[classicdavinci]

Portrait of Clotilda von Derp (Frau Sakharoff) (1912)

George Spencer Watson (English, 1869 – 1934)

[cartermagazine]

Today We Honor Oluale Kossola, Renamed Cudjo Lewis

Zora Neale Hurston tells the story of Cudjo Lewis, who was born Oluale Kossola in what is now the West African country of Benin in her book “Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo.”

A member of the Yoruba people, he was only 19 years old when members of the neighboring Dahomian tribe invaded his village, captured him along with others, and marched them to the coast.

There, he and about 120 others were sold into slavery, after the “Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves" took effect in 1808 slavery was abolished, and crammed onto the Clotilda, the “last” slave ship to reach the continental United States.

The Clotilda brought its captives to Alabama in 1860, just a year before the outbreak of the Civil War. Even though slavery was legal at that time in the U.S., the international slave trade was not, and hadn’t been for over 50 years. Along with many European nations, the U.S. had outlawed the practice in 1808.

After being abducted from his home, Lewis was forced onto a ship with strangers. The abductees spent several months together during the treacherous passage to the United States, but were then separated in Alabama to go to different owners.

“We very sorry to be parted from one ’nother,” Lewis told Hurston. “We seventy days cross de water from de Affica soil, and now dey part us from one ’nother.”

“Derefore we cry. Our grief so heavy look lak we cain stand it. I think maybe I die in my sleep when I dream about my mama.”

“We doan know why we be bring ’way from our country to work lak dis,” he told Hurston. “Everybody lookee at us strange. We want to talk wid de udder colored folkses but dey doan know whut we say.”

Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered in April 1865, Lewis says that a group of Union soldiers stopped by a boat on which he and other enslaved people were working and told them they were free.

He and a group of 31 other freepeople saved up money to buy land near Mobile, which they called Africatown.

CARTER™️ Magazine